More advertising TV shows: 30 Seconds

With the overwhelming success of the AMC original series Mad Men, a show about a New York advertising agency in the 1960′s, it was only a matter of time before more ad industry-related TV shows would hit the air.

Mad Men’s season 3 premiere, which aired on Sunday set a ratings record for the show, with approximately 2.8 million viewers tuning in. A 34% increase from last year. AMC also reported that the create-your-own “Mad Men Yourself” avatar was downloaded 485,000 times.

So it hasn’t taken long for other advertising-based shows to pop up. This year, TNT debuted the drama Trust Me based on a fictional ad agency in Chicago. However the show was a major disappointment and was canceled after 13 episodes. Recently, Australia’s Comedy Channel and FOXTEL have been promoting the comedy TV series :30 Seconds. The series is based on some ridiculous characters, while poking fun at the excesses of the advertising industry.

Mad Men Yourself

As an advertising professional, I can’t help but fall in love with the AMC original show Mad Men. It is fascinating to see what not only the advertising industry, but business (and the world) in general was like in the 1960’s. So much has changed. Yet at the same time, the show is filled with advertising-related charm that makes you realize, the core of the advertising industry hasn’t changed at all. Creatives fighting with account people, account people fighting with clients, agencies struggling to throw together a top-notch pitch for a piece of new business.