Ad Tech sector turned on its head by Mad Men ad break commercial

A primetime commercial which screened during Mad Men’s US season finale ad break on June 10th and is being seen all over the world as part of a global online advertising campaign is set to illustrate how much advertising has changed since Don Draper’s heyday.

“The Moment of Decision” has been shot by veteran HBO “True Blood” and “Dexter” director Michael Lehmann. It makes cloud marketing platform Turn who are in a battle with Google for supremacy within the ad tech sector the first global B2B company of its kind to advertise in mainstream primetime broadcast media.

Set in the offices of a 1960s Madison Avenue agency, Turn’s advert features an impeccably groomed ad exec about to begin a tryst with a shapely young female from the secretarial pool when another woman walks in. The sense that this might be a preview for Mad Men’s upcoming season is broken only when a gun is fired and the scene shifts to super slow motion with a voice-over likening the “ten milliseconds” required for the bullet to traverse the room to the speed of Turn’s digital advertising platform.

Turn is one of the world’s leading online advertising companies and the industry’s only integrated, end-to-end platforms for data and media management. The primetime advertisement coupled with a global advertising campaign powered by Turn’s technology aims to be a graphic illustration of the power of multi-platform advertising and is the most ambitious move yet in a lucrative and fast-growing sector.

Turn delivers real-time data insights and amazing campaign performance for advertisers, but historically our sector as a whole has struggled to make itself understood by the wider business community. Our technology helps advertisers make smarter, more informed decisions and to take greater control of your cross-channel marketing activity and Turn’s advertising campaign aims to demystify the rapidly evolving real-time bidding sector.

The latest generation of MadMen and marketers in general need to be as comfortable with interpreting data as they are with slogans and visuals and our campaign brings to life how rapidly advertising is changing.

Paul Alfieri

Vice President & Global Marketing Turn