Rance Crain has posted a spiel about what the show failed to get right (in Ad Age’s eyes), and how it really was back then:

What’s wrong with this picture? No. 1, we never did interviews over lunch; No. 2, we didn’t take notes in shorthand; No. 3 we didn’t ask cute-ass questions; and No. 4, our pictures were never bigger than our stories.

I was a member of the Ad Age editorial staff in Washington, New York and Chicago in the ’60s and, heaven help us, we would knock down walls to be the first to report a big account change, major product introduction or agency startup…

It continues for about ten more paragraphs. The article is met with numerous comments from readers, including some sarcastic ones. For example, one person says, "This is saying a story-telling medium (television) about a story-telling medium (advertising) might not be ‘authentically’ accurate. I am shocked. SHOCKED!"

While most viewers probably don’t look to Mad Men for historical facts, it’s understandable that Ad Age would want to make sure it is defending its reputation, particularly given the industry that the publication resides in. The critically acclaimed show does get a great deal of media attention.

Interestingly, Georg Szalai of the Hollywood Reporter says the show is "hardly a hit on Madison Avenue".

"Despite all the attention and the show’s affluent viewership, ‘Mad Men’ has averaged far fewer viewers than other summer cable dramas like USA’s ‘Burn Notice,’ and ad rates also are lower," he writes. "An average 30-second spot on first-run episodes of ‘Mad Men’ fetches about $20,000-$25,000, according to a recent trade media report — not much, but it is a multiple of AMC’s primetime movies."

Google is currently touting Mad Men as a great way to target viewers through Google TV Ads. Last night’s episode ran only limited commercial interruption from BMW.

Professional content producers — those who come equipped with their own ad-sales teams — are now able to sell advertising on their YouTube channels. That includes the click-to-expand overlays that run across the bottoms of YouTube videos [InVideo ads] and display units on the page that hosts the video player. The revenue is split between the content creator and YouTube, just as it would be if YouTube sold the ads.

This is a pretty good move on the part of YouTube—have current content producers do the work of recruiting interested, qualified, related advertisers and then split the profits. I do wonder, though, if content producers get a bigger proportion of ad proceeds from advertisers that they brought in.

Ad Age gives a great prediction of how this could extend further into YouTube’s monetization efforts, using a current content provider & advertiser working in the new ad selling program:

Content creators could not only sell ads that would appear next to their content but also extend the reach of those ads to third-party-created videos on YouTube. One hypothetical: Revision3 sells ads to GoDaddy to run not only on YouTube pages showing “Diggnation” videos but also on other third-party, tech-focused videos. Under such a deal, revenue could be split three ways: among Revision3, YouTube and the producers of the third-party content where the ad ran.

And of course, that’s only if YouTube chooses to share the revenue.

Ad Age also says we can expect to see more advertising efforts from YouTube:

[Product Manager Shiva] Rajaraman said YouTube will conduct a series of brand-effectiveness tests, and it’s not finished experimenting in the ad space.

“We’ll be trying new formats, new ways to engage users,” he said. “No one knows quite how to crack video advertising yet.”

That may be true, but YouTube seems to be getting closer. What do you think: have they done it yet?

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