Mad Men remains one of the best television dramas ever, and its influence has long expanded beyond television.

For a while, there was a Mad Men fashion collection at Banana Republic, which I remember because I used to walk by Banana Republic on my way from Five Guys to a cookie store at the mall. And if you’ve been buying a home in the last five to ten years, you know that a realtor is very likely to draw the connection from the program to any listing featuring the words “mid-century modern”. (Once again speaking from experience!)

But now the show is going to have a very direct influence on the industry that inspired the show: advertising. And while that sounds incredibly circular (because it is), it’s actually surprising one of the real-life companies mentioned on the show has taken this long to just use a Mad Men-proposed ad campaign.

That’s exactly what Heinz is doing with their upcoming, limited-market ad campaign centered around Don Draper’s “Pass The Heinz” proposal.

Via AdWeek:

Fifty years ago, in the fictional world of Mad Men, Don Draper pitched a daring ad campaign to Heinz execs, for the brand’s ketchup, that proposed not showing the product at all. Instead, the ads would show close-ups of foods that go great with ketchup—french fries, a cheeseburger, a slice of steak—but without any ketchup in sight.

Don’s proposed tagline: “Pass the Heinz.”

And Draper will be getting proper credit, too:

And in a nice touch, the ads are officially being credited to Heinz’s current agency, David Miami, and to Don’s fictional 1960s firm, Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. (Draper and Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner, who approved the idea, are both listed in the credits.)

Below are the three ads that are running.

Heinz tells AdFreak that each one will get its own billboard in NYC. All three ads will also run in the New York Post, and the fries execution will run in Variety too. The ads will get support across Heinz’s social media channels as well.

So, the real question is this: how had no real-life ad agency ever pitched this before? Feels like a win-win for them; zero work, still get paid. But at this point, if you’re trying to come up with a creative, buzzworthy way to advertise Heinz ketchup, this seems like as good a choice as any.

Will other companies follow suit? Hard to say. Jaguar acknowledged their mention back when they were a part of the program, but given how the Jaguar storyline played out (plus the, uh, somewhat questionable tagline the show came up with), it seems unlikely they’ll be next up.

[AdWeek]

About Jay Rigdon

Jay is a columnist at Awful Announcing. He is not a strong swimmer. He is probably talking to a dog in a silly voice at this very moment.