This season of AMC’s Mad Men has been thrilling, poignant, heartbreaking, surprising, and might possibly have catapulted the show back into the title of “Best on TV” (apologies to Game of Thrones). Each episode has been masterful, reigniting the week-to-week excitement that I (and many others) haven’t felt since season one.
And all of that excitement means that the brands featured in the show have the opportunity to see a spike in interest. After all, it is a show about advertising (among other things, of course). And what could be better advertising for a product than to be featured in Mad Men?
Even if the product is portrayed in a negative light, it can still generate buzz. In the case of Jaguar, there’s no telling exactly why people took to Google to seek information, but they did – in droves.
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Google Auto
@GoogleAuto Looks like @JaguarUSA experienced a Mad Men search spike, mostly in New York and California: http://t.co/HvUx2Agz
A quick look at the search data confirms this. The big spike you see is on Monday, May 28th, the day after Sunday’s Mad Men episode featured the car company. The search spike occurred mostly in California, New York, Texas, and Florida:
Like I said before, Jaguar hasn’t been receiving all positive press from Mad Men. Although the company has been portrayed as creating a car that’s sexy (like a mistress), Jaguar cars have also been called impractical and their reliability has been questioned. There’s also that sleazy part about a Jaguar exec demanding sex from buxom beauty Joan in order to sign off on Sterling, Draper, Cooper, Price’s representation.
Jaguar USA has been following along with the show on Twitter:
Follow @JaguarUSA 
Jaguar USA
@JaguarUSA Loved the pitch, didn’t love the process. We applaud Peggy leaving SCDP. #MadMen #MadJag
And about that amazing scene where Lane Price attempts to commit suicide inside his new Jaguar but the car won’t start? Jaguar’s North American VP of Marketing had this to say about it:
As soon as we see the tailpipe with cloth in it, we know this is going to be bad. “It won’t START. The car won’t start!” We have never been so happy to see our car not start. How weird is this? Maybe he doesn’t know how to use the choke?”
But despite some of the more negative aspects of Jaguar’s image on the show, Google searches show that it got people interested.
And this season of Mad Men didn’t just give Jaguar a boost, but another one of their clients saw a spike in searches as well. Earlier episodes featured pitches involving Heinz Baked Beans, a search term that saw some major spikes on, you guessed it, Mondays following Mad Men episodes. It’s fitting that the search popularity spike the most in the U.K., where 2.3 million Brits eat Heinz Bean(z) every day.
Check out Don Draper pitch Jaguar below: