How to place a product on a show about product placement

For starters, I love AMC’s ‘Mad Men’. The show has just the right balance of sex, deceit, rampant drinking and incessant smoking. Part of the fun in watching the show (outside of the awesome writing and amazing cast) are the interesting facts about advertising that run prior to some of the ads, which typically makes me slow down on the fast-forwarding a bit.

If you’ve been watching this season, you’ve probably seen a lot of Heineken commercials. The Dutch beer has been a regular sponsor of the series  (they also sponsored this season’s wrap party), but they really scored an amazing placement in this weeks episode. 

I won’t spoil it for those that haven’t watched yet, but the brand had a key placement throughout the show. You know its a great opportunity when a plot revolves around your brand, but for those that didn’t notice, the real irony was the subplot. Joan (the sultry office manager) had the task to read through TV scripts to “find hidden opportunities for product and commercial placements” for their clients. In this case, I obviously don’t know which came first, Heineken reaching out to the writers about possible inclusion or the other way around, but the end result was genius. In most cases product placements come off contrived and meaningless, but this was marketing gold. I could almost picture the real-life Heineken bosses on the set watching as their TV counterparts took a strategy meeting with Don on the show, toasting their genius with, well, cold Heinekens. 

A TV show about advertising features a product placement by an advertiser on an episode about product placement in which the advertiser is a client (confusing? :) ). Television has come full circle.