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'If you don't like what is being said, then change the conversation,' PR according to Don Draper

By: Marijean Jaggers | 11/04/2009

I'm a big fan of the AMC show "Mad Men." I especially like the character Don Draper, the creative director at Sterling Cooper advertising agency, a complicated guy who represents the best minds that made up the golden age of advertising on Madison Avenue in the 1960s. Draper, played by St. Louis native Jon Hamm (Hi Jon, missed you by this much at Mizzou. Just think, you could have been Mr. Marijean).

Ahem.

One of the reasons I enjoy watching Mad Men so much is because Draper's lines are frequently completely relevant to the PR industry. This one stuck with me for weeks and has made it all the way to this blog.

"PR people understand this, but they can never execute it. If you don't like what is being said, then change the conversation." -- from Mad Men: "Love Among The Ruins," Season 3, Episode 2.

Back in the 1960s this was true; PR people couldn't execute or even rarely were able to influence the conversation. Now, though, with social media and the ability to self-publish and develop relationships with their communities, companies (i.e., advertisers) CAN change the conversation, and PR people -- the best of them -- know how to make that happen.

Wonder what Don Draper would have been able to do with social media.

Another Don Draper-ism I'm fond of begins, "This is what's going to happen ..." but that's another blog post for another day.

Posted in Public Relations