I just finished "Mad Men" for the second time, and the ending perplexed me just like it once did when I was 15. The scene shifts from the protagonist, Don Draper, having an a-ha moment while meditating in California to the 1971 Hilltop ad.
The finale then implies that Don is tied, or at least involved, with one of the best commercials ever. Why would "Mad Men" choose to end on the Hilltop ad? What does it mean?
Show creator Matthew Weiner left a lot of questions unanswered in the show, and stated in an interview that "I have always been able to live with ambiguities." Was the "Mad Men" ending a cynical one or an optimistic one? Did Don simply use his enlightenment for an advertisement? Did he just use it for material? Did he just try to sell it at the end of the day?
Of course, we can't end a show without some sort of epiphany for our protagonist. I believe that Don found peace at the end of the day, during the time when he hugged this stranger named Leonard who shed tears at feeling invisible. Did Don reach this state of enlightenment and purity, and does it matter that he sold it for an ad in the first place?
To Weiner, the Hilltop ad is the best ad ever made. The Take on YouTube calls the Hilltop ad a "verdict on advertising" because it teaches us that the best inspiration comes from not trying to force inspiration and going through life.. The ad, likely created by Don since it was created by Don's agency at McCann-Erickson, where Don left before the finale episode. Peggy even asks Don, when he calls her, if he wants to work on Coke, one of the most widely reputable companies in the world.
The episode focusing on Don's own hilltop included a very existential and foundational moment for him, one he likely drew upon, much like he drew upon his childhood growing up in a brothel and orphanage in a pitch to Hershey. The show ends with a shot of Don's smiling face.
For Don, great ideas come to us through these existential and transformational life moments. Like the best writing, advertising is a means of processing emotions and a culmination expression of everything we have gone through over a transformational period. In the penultimate episode, the owner of the motel, right before beating the shit out of Don after suspicions of Don stealing their fundraiser money, asks Don to fix his Coke machine given his adeptness with automation.
"Inspiration strikes when he's not actively trying to come up with a new campaign," The Take says. For Weiner, the creative experience is often drummed up in these a-ha moments, when we're just trying to go through life and not forcing our ideas.
"Mad Men" does not portray the world of advertising in its best light -- it's misogynistic, binge-drinking, cruel, and very image conscious. Don shares this cynicism towards his business, seeming to be well-aware of his role in simply packaging snake oil in a fashionable way.
Don knows that he's selling people lies. In season 1, Don tells his mistress, Rachel Mencken, that "what you call love was invented by guys like me to sell nylons."Advertising never gets the best reputation nowadays, being tied to mass consumerism and a form of manipulating the minds of the public. But that denies the fact that people who work in advertising are brilliant and excellent creative enterprise that speaks deeply to people.
"[Advertising] doesn't trick us into craving something we don't want," The Take says. "It taps into what we already do want and lack."
For Winter, advertising is depicted in a way that it doesn't make you want to do anything, but makes you reflect on your own desires and just channel them into a place that will buy a desired product.
"It is a mirror," Weiner says.
Don roots most of his campaigns in real emotions, like a nostalgia for the past or a need for connection. To be. the best advertiser, Don reminds himself that he is his own consumer. It's like when writers write self-help articles because they're their own audience -- and the best self-help articles resonate the best with ourselves. Like everyone else, Don searches for meaning and happiness.
What makes him so competent is that Don recognizes that effective marketing doesn't sell a product, but a feeling. The Take makes the clear note that the Hilltop ad sells a vision for harmony and peace in the world over a drink, having people of every ethnicity holding a coke. It's ambitious, but it also captures a feeling so many yearned for during the Vietnam War and rising internationalism.
Bill Backer, the actual creator behind the Coke ad, may have been Don Draper's inspiration while he was at McCann. Backer had a flight delayed from Ireland to Lodon when the flight was diverted by fog. The next morning, Backer saw angry passengers bond over bottles of Coke, conversing in a coffee shop. Backer noted that "people from all over the world...were keeping each other company."On a paper napkin, Backer wrote that "I'd like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company."
A great commercial is a cultural message as simultaneously a hollow lie and profound truth.
Was Don Draper's epiphany genuine? Probably not.
"That leopard is not changing these spots," Jon Hamm, the actor that plays Don Draper said.
"He'll probably find a fourth or fifth wife and then die in like 1981 from hard living," Weiner said to Vanity Fair.
But Don does come to terms with himself, and in the final episode, he discovers that his first ex-wife, Betty, is dying, and he demands Betty have the kids move in with him. She refuses because Don being in his kids' lives is outside the normal as an absentee father.
Don needs to accept who he is. It doesn't take away who he is, but he becomes self-aware and starts to embrace who he is as a brilliant advertising creative director. For most of the show, Don just tried to survive. All he wanted to do was move forward. He gave that advice to so many people to look forward, move on, and never look back.
Don never heals from his traumatic childhood, but all he really is doing is running away. He is at a cliff, with nowhere else to run. No longer is he trying to move forward at the end -- he's sitting still, trying to be at peace with himself. He always refused to let people get to know him and make any genuine connection with any person but Anna Draper, the wife of the man whose identity he took.
For Don, no one really knows him besides Anna. He's been through two divorces, his children don't really know anything about him, and his co-workers feel like he abuses them. He simply does not do authentic relationships well, but rather feels attracted to winning over strangers, part of what advertising is -- winning over strangers. He struggles with the people closest to him and can only do well at relationships with strangers.
But Don is also changed by strangers, including Leonard. in the final episode. Don, too, feels extremely invisible, even though he is a handsome and charismatic womanizer and genius. Like Leonard, Don also does not feel seen. Leonard vocalize how everyone has a need for love, but puts boundaries in place. of getting that love. Leonard realizes that his wife and daughter are trying and he's the one that's truly stopping them from loving and reaching him.
All the time, the opening of the show showed him dropping from a New York City skyscraper. But what Don actually got at the ending was a new chance, one that inevitably will get messed up, but is a new and different chance regardless.
Maybe Don is a message that advertising offers us something new. It doesn't always guarantee something better, but it does offer something new. The Coke ad didn't show the disillusionment and chaos of the time, but how we wished those times to be.
Advertising reminds us that there's something else out there, a hope that tomorrow will be brighter. It doesn't matter if that doesn't turn out true -- all that matters is that hope.
