[Music]
if you have creative person you can be
careful or you're gonna be creative but
you can't be cautious creative if you're
cautious creative you're a bum AMC's Mad
Men is considered by many critics to be
one of the most well-written character
dramas to ever play on the small screen
Don Draper is the handsome talented
workaholic alcoholic hero who works as
the art director at one of Madison
Avenue's most acclaimed ad agencies the
show's creator Matthew whiner is known
to have scrutinized almost every
historical detail of the era
despite this I've always wondered if the
hedonistic and ambitious character of
Don Draper was based in reality everyone
we spoke to from this world kept leading
us back to one larger-than-life
character George Louis renowned art
director lens seroius had this to say
about George George as a guy who stood
of what he believed in and arguments
with a lot of people and George has a
lot of impact in his work and he's a
terrific art director Don Draper was a
womanizer and had no talent on the
opposite in every respect and I was been
looking at him in those days Jane Moss a
legendary creative director who ran the
iconic I Love New York campaign shared
this interesting anecdote George Louis
was the bad boy of the 1960s one point a
client turned down an advertisement that
George was very proud of and George
threatened to stroke himself out of the
window of the 14th floor of their
advertising agency and the client said
no no we'll buy it we'll publish it
to introduce the moth Matthew whiner and
he would go to the back door it's what
I've got so much of him because in
Rolling Stone somebody asked them were
whining you want to Jeff go talk to
George Louis and she was a and he's and
his quote was well I always heard that
Louis was like the Tony Soprano of the
advertising business and totally little
dangerous had talked them finally I get
a phone call from a producer it wasn't
about the winner but it was a one of his
producers and he said though I like
finding out all of you
yeah listen uh you know went to Anna
she'll calm and Magnus and everybody we
talks to said have you talked to George
Louis so that's why I'm calling I said
war war war war Emma and doing a show on
advertising in the sixties and you never
heard of me he said no no we heard he
obviously you're full of they just
told me they never heard of me Doyle day
burn back assured in what became the
creative revolution now standard
practice copywriters and art directors
would form creative teams DD B's work
was truly revolutionary utilizing humor
and irony not common practice at the
time when you would go into meetings
with clients to to pitch her idea what
was your strategy how would you get them
to agree one I wish what was an idea
that I knew was a giant
idea within his first year at DDB
George won multiple accolades for his
work and not even a year later left to
start his own agency with Fred pepper
and Julian Koenig pkl agency peppered
Canon Louis essentially started from
nothing and grew to a 40 million dollar
agency in just seven years
groundbreaking at the time in 1962 it
became the first modern agency to go
public it was an EDD for cold medicine
was a black page and a man and woman
sleeping at night copy says John is that
Billy coughing the
get up and give him some cold in but you
got some love from the women for that I
mean it was pre feminism you know I mean
and it's not just the catch of the what
was going on you know in the culture you
know and male chauvinism but it's just a
look at the end it wished a logo with
the body copy where's the folder with
which the information or what he could
write literally and meanwhile the whole
innards and she said whoa George told us
that in the first year at his agency he
did a TV spot for Xerox he said he made
a seemingly difficult copying machine
company into one of the most successful
businesses in American history all it
took was a visual demonstration of how
easy it was to use my do commercial with
a little girl going to a father's war he
should make a copy of this please and
she takes it and she goes to the Machine
and makes the copy
and she titles off and she comes back to
the father and he says to her terrific
which one's the original week later got
a call from the FCC that they claimed a
little girl could possibly have made the
copy that we call the back and we say
listen we're gonna be shoot the
commercial shot the same exact
commercial good chef
[Music]
one of the most significant ads George
did was for MTV it was a similar concept
to his maple on Mickey Mantle but in
order to solve this idea to a younger
generation
he needed a recognizable voice towards
the other commercial I was before so
we're safe you don't get MTV will you
live
pick up the phone die on your local
cable operator I said at that point I
would have somebody my big jogger pick
up the phone and say I want my MTV and
I'm looking around it and Pittman said
no no George okay you don't understand
we have been trying for two years we
have been broadcasting for a year to
nobody
we don't have one cable operator Malecha
because everybody in music business
thinks if MTV is successful that it
would destroy people buying the music
music MTV I want my MTV I want my MTV I
want my MTV
[Music]
that instantly blew up all of the sudden
viewers wanted MTV and they made it
known and Bob hit me gets a call at 8:30
in the morning which is 5:30 San
Francisco time for the cable I bet out
there and he says what if I said Pittman
get that commercial off the air
just inundated with calls and he said oh
yeah I'll take it off right away
he's a by the way Pittman I'll take it
and he said you'll take what I said I'll
take MTV he said why he's as good I'm
getting thousands of phone calls the 92
Esquire covers that George told us he
created are some of the most well known
images of modern art in the country they
became a centerpiece of national
dialogue about politics culture and
society Harold Hayes was Esquires
editor-in-chief at the time of course of
the Year what Hayes did in the coverage
of the Tribune him it was called the
Golden Age of journalism to this day you
know I was sending will cover sometimes
and say I haven't this one's gonna
really get you in trouble he'd say yeah
[Music]
in addition to being one of the most
acclaimed art directors in the history
of advertising he was also one of the
most prolific with both his success and
immense output
he wasn't without controversy throughout
the last decades former co-workers and
competitors have said that George's ego
often got in the way of reality we
contacted his old partner Fred popper to
ask him about it went way he was taking
credit for everything and it finally got
to be funny and I my belief was that
anybody that never heard of George
lowest knew what he did when he said
that that he helped septons your RC car
that thing a bit too far he had nothing
whatever to do with it in the show
sometimes a revolutionary concept is
cause for close character relationship
breakdowns not unlike reality Fred says
this was the case with George and their
other partner Julian connects
partnership Julian's and George to
extinct as well this great talent is
that that everything that they did was
so simple and and one of the one of them
dreams really great talents which I fed
on for years was if you needed a
headline for something and you asked him
him to second Teague to the headline and
nobody knows why he George one of the
steel Julian's study I ever feeling that
copywriting has a kind of an
intellectual touch to it that he wasn't
gonna get cause he was from a tough free
family that maybe they didn't have a
Rikard headlines
so he took trans talent for his own
that's me aye-aye-aye breathe of the fat
on her resume
for years I I call them of them I want
something and I like him
Julien Kanak passed away last year his
daughter Sarah Koenig a reporter with
this American Life interviewed him for
the radio show in 2009 this is what he
had to say about George and their
partnership in my instance the greatest
predator of my work was my one-time
partner George Louis who was the most
heralded and talented art director
designer and his talents is only
exceeded by his omnivorous ego so where
once would have been accepted that the
word would be we did it regardless of
who originated the work toward we didn't
evaporated from George's vocabulary and
it became I in addition to Xerox there
were allegations by the photographer
Carl Fischer that George took credit for
some of the famed Esquire covers the
creators of New York magazine have
repeatedly accused George of taking
credit for the name and style of the
magazine and said he had nothing to do
with its inception the same goes for the
creators of the Nickelodeon logo and
George's maple ad we showed you earlier
that was disputed as well we asked
George to respond to some of these
allegations that his former
collaborators had made he told us that
he wouldn't dignify the claims with an
answer he said he hadn't lied or stolen
anyone's ideas and the notion that he
had to defend himself was insulting
Don Draper's whole identity is a lie
even his name was something he stole
from another man the drinking the
smoking and womanizing these are all
superficial aspects of Don's continual
identity crisis every part of his
personality his loyalty his creativity
his real talent
everything is suspect George isn't the
real Don Draper but the similarities are
dramatically ironic have you ever failed
you never learn anything for mistake
life suppose for the opposite don't they
tell you the opposite you do things you
up you learn from it you know I
said no no no if you learn that it's my
mistake you learn oh my god sometimes
what you think is a big idea up
so you better be careful from now on
and admitted to the careful you're dead
so when people say any up says I
don't remember I don't know why you're
doing this because I think that story's
dead dead but if you're getting paid
that's a lot of matters so hurt Olivia
money do it by all means