Draper showed up on Twitter, gaining several thousand followers in a few days. Soon, Pete, Joan, Roger, and almost the full cast of Mad Men characters arrived. During and between episodes, their followers could watch the characters interact and even join conversations with them. Some wholly new creations began to appear in the Twitter/Mad Men narrative as well, including Sterling Cooper mailroom employee Bud Melman and the office’s Xerox copy machine.
The Mad Men characters on Twitter were often playful and self-referential. Despite the obvious questions about how characters from the 1960s were using a modern communication platform, why they would share personal thoughts publicly, or how a Xerox machine could tweet, the interaction largely fit within the parameters of the show’s storyline, deepening engagement with existing stories rather than challenging the narrative or taking it in new directions. Some tweets referenced facts the audience knew but most characters didn’t, such as the closeted homosexuality of art director Sal. Others alluded to contemporary political events in relation to developments on the show, such as the rise to prominence of Joe “the plumber” Wurzelbacher as the quintessential middle-class citizen during the 2008 U.S. presidential election (King 2009).
A growing number of high-profile bloggers, especially in the fan and brand spheres, praised AMC’s marketing prowess. This praise was somewhat misdirected, however: as it turned out, the tweeting Mad Men (like their Tumblr forebears) were not affiliated with AMC or the show. Instead, fans of the show had inhabited the identities of favorite characters. As the popularity of these virtual versions of Mad Men’s characters escalated, AMC contacted Twitter to ascertain who was behind the accounts. Twitter interpreted this inquiry as a copyright challenge from AMC and suspended several user accounts, under the guise of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, on August 26, 2008, about two weeks after Draper’s first tweet.
Twitter’s suspension of the accounts fit a narrative that media fans and marketers alike knew well. Cease-and-desist orders have become an all-too-familiar means of correspondence between brands and their audiences in an era when prohibitionist corporate attitudes have collided with the collaborative nature of online social networks. There was immediate outcry against AMC for disrespecting its fans, pointing out that this activity had become an engine for generating interest and deepening engagement in a niche cable show with high critical praise but underwhelming ratings.
Part of AMC’s ambivalence about Mad Men’s Twitter popularity was likely driven by marketers’ uncertainty about ceding control, in some ways paralleling Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner’s own reputation as a self-professed “control freak” who “approves every actor, costume, hairstyle and prop” (Witchel 2008). Weiner’s reputation for tight control has extended beyond careful monitoring of the production; he has spoken out vehemently against ways of viewing or experiencing the show of which he disapproves. Says Weiner, “I met this guy who was creating software where you could watch Mad Men and you could chat with your friend while you’re watching it, and things would pop up, and facts would pop up, and I said, ‘You’re a human battery. Turn the fucking thing off! You’re not allowed to watch the show anymore. You’re missing the idea of sitting in a dark place and having an experience’” (quoted in Jung 2009). Weiner’s response is emotional rather than legal, but both his complaint and AMC’s actions in response to tweeting fans reflect a desire on the part of the media industries to maintain a tight grip on the reception and circulation of content. While the attention to detail that Weiner and his staff consistently display is part of what drives the show’s reputation and its audience’s enjoyment, expanding that tight control over how Mad Men is viewed, discussed, and spread restricts the show’s circulation and dampens audience enthusiasm.
In many cases, however, the people writing as Mad Men characters had professional as well as personal interest in the show. Several were marketers themselves (Draper, for instance, was performed by strategist Paul Isakson with digital agency space150), and these fans drew on their professional identities to lobby for account reinstatement. Strategist Bud Caddell (who created the original character Bud Melman on Twitter) launched WeAreSterlingCooper.org to act as “command central” for the community of fans participating in the Twitter fan fiction and to articulate their rights to continue posting. The site issued “a rallying cry to brands and fans alike to come together and create together”:
Fan fiction. Brand hijacking. Copyright misuse. Sheer devotion. Call it what you will, but we call it the blurred line between content creators and content consumers, and it’s not going away. We’re your biggest fans, your die-hard proponents, and when your show gets cancelled we’ll be among the first to pass around the petition. Talk to us. Befriend us. Engage us. But please, don’t treat us like criminals. (Caddell 2008)
In the midst of the controversy, marketer Carri Bugbee, who had tweeted as @peggyolson, opened up new Twitter account @Peggy_Olson to continue writing. She started with, “I worked hard. I did my job. But the boys at Twitter are just as churlish as the boys at Sterling Cooper. Such a pity that they’re so petty” (quoted in Siegler 2008). As fan tweeting and public discussion about the controversy increased, AMC did a swift about-face. Reportedly, AMC was following advice from its digital marketing agency Deep Focus, which itself had suffered criticism from marketers for preaching the value of social media while working with a client blatantly stomping on fans’ passion and expressions (Learmonth 2008). More visible after the suspension controversy, the Sterling Cooper Twitterers returned to their posts.
Perhaps the Mad Men snafu resulted from the continued prevalence of “stickiness” as the chief way to measure success. If AMC evaluated the success of promoting Mad Men only by the easily measurable traffic through its official channels, then discouraging anything that might distract people from these destinations makes sense. From that mindset, fan-created material off official Mad Men channels is in competition with the show, and any traffic those outlets receive dilutes the reach of the show’s official presence. This approach assigns no value to how fan-created-and-circulated content might drive awareness and engagement in a show indirectly, because it cannot be easily quantified.
Beyond the lingering desire to cling to a stickiness model, companies are often just uncertain about audiences spreading material for their own purposes. Though marketers idealize a dream audience that will passively pass along official (viral) messages, they know that the reality is much messier: fans who create new material or pass along existing media content ultimately want to communicate something about themselves. Fans may seek to demonstrate their own technical prowess, to gain greater standing within a niche community, to speculate about future developments, or to make new arguments using texts already familiar to their own audiences. As the Mad Men Twitter example proves, content often gains traction when people are given the latitude to use “official” media texts to communicate something about themselves.
The clash of professional concerns and fan enthusiasm within the Mad Men Twitter community caused particular consternation. Since the Mad Men Twitterers were marketers, professional motivations also drove their fan creation. Because of this, Deep Focus initially indicated that the Twitterers shouldn’t be considered fans (Caddell 2008), suggesting their professions removed them from the logics of fandom, locating them instead squarely within the economics of “corporate America.”
Further, Caddell describes infighting among the Twitterers as their popularity grew, with multiple contenders vying to portray popular characters and some more secretive members concerned that, if their true identities were “outed,” their professional standing could be compromised. Meanwhile, some of these fans used their role in this controversy to demonstrate their own knowledge about Twitter and their understanding of fan enthusiasm, building recognition within the marketing community. After the controversy subsided, Caddell published the report “Becoming a Mad Man”; Bugbee built a new agency, Big Deal PR—drawing, in part, on the controversy and the Shorty Award she won for her Twitter portrayal of Peggy Olson; and several others have drawn on their participation in this fan activity through professional
