Mad Men's Guide to Persuasion: How Don Draper & Co. Shape Our Desires (Write Well to Succeed)

Now Updated to Include All Six Seasons of 'Mad Men': The Complete Guide to How Don Draper and the Creatives at Sterling Cooper & Partners Shape Our Desires

Between the affairs, office rivalries, suicides, and prostitution, amid the tumultuous social revolution of the 1960s, "Mad Men" offers a dynamic guide to the principles of persuasion.

Now, in this updated edition of "Mad Men's Guide to Persuasion" (formerly "Mad Men persuasion"), Charles Euchner explores how Don Draper, Peggy Olson, and the rest of the gang at Sterling Cooper & Partners devise the ad campaigns that defined the 1960s and offer vivid lessons into human motivation and persuasion.

"Mad Men's Guide to Persuasion" has been updated to include the great campaigns from Season 6 are in this guide, including the ads for Koss headphones, Hershey's chocolate bars, and Jaguar.

Charles Euchner—a case writer at the Yale School of Management and author of books on writing, the sports industry, civil rights, and politics—shows how Don Draper and his creative team devise ad campaigns for the Kodak, Jaguar, Lucky Strike, Playtex, Utz chips, the American Cancer Society, Hilton Hotels, Clearasil, Mohawk Airlines, Western Union, Heineken, Madison Square Garden, and other companies and causes.

"Mad Men's Guide to Persuasion" taps the growing literature in psychology, economics, anthropology, neuroscience, and linguistics to show just why the Mad Men’s campaigns work—and why they sometimes fail.

In "Mad Men's Guide to Persuasion," we see how:

• Nostalgia offers a springboard for Don’s brilliant carousel campaign for Kodak.
• A desire for sexual possession drives the campaign for the Jaguar.
• Classic archetypes of women offer the brainstorm for the Playtex bra account.
• A Puritan fear of sex almost undermines Jantzen’s campaign for two-piece bathing suits . . . but might also provide the basis of a powerful ad pitch.
• Too many choices can overwhelm people—like with Belle Jolie’s choice of 100 colors of lipstick—and how to simplify the pitch to make choosing easier and more satisfying.
• Tainted products or campaigns—like Caldecott Farms dog food—sometimes need to overhaul their identity to maintain their viability in the marketplace.

"Mad Men's Guide to Persuasion" offers a complete gallery of insights not just from the world of Don Draper, Roger Sterling, Peggy Olson, Pete Campbell, Joan Holloway, Michael Ginsberg et al. It also provides clear, actionable insights into the way humans think, desire, and fear.

About the Author

Charles Euchner — the author or editor of a dozen books who has taught writing at Yale and directed a think tank at Harvard — is a case writer at the Yale School of Management and the creator and principal of The Writing Code.

In the past three years, Euchner has published a series of books on writing, including The Big Book of Writing (available in pulp as well as ebook form), The One-Minute Writer, and "In Cold Type: The Literary Techniques that make Truman Capote's 'In Cold Blood' A Masterpiece.

Euchner is also the author or editor of ten nonfiction books. Nobody Turn Me Around: A People’s History of the 1963 March on Washington (Beacon Press, 2010), has been praised as a dramatic reinterpretation of the civil rights movement. Kirkus Reviews, in a starred review, called it “dynamic ... sharp, riveting.” Juan Williams, author of Eyes on the Prize, called it “compelling and dramatic.” Curtis Wilkie, a longtime chronicler of civil rights, says the book provides “a panorama of vivid characters.” Roger Wilkins, a former White House aide in the civil rights era, said it “brings it all back in vivid detail.” A short documentary based on the book, written by Euchner, won the award for best writing at the 2011 Re-Image Film Festival and airs on PBS stations.