Hershey's is smiling after the "Mad Men" finale. The chocolate giant told Vanity Fair it was pleased with its inclusion in the "Mad Men" finale and wasn't aware it would be so central to the plot.
In the finale, Don Draper (Jon Hamm) was on his way to knocking SC&P's Hershey's pitch out of the park, but then he broke down and told the fictional Hershey's execs about his time growing up in a brothel, including a time he pickpocketed a john to buy a Hershey's bar. The fake execs weren't exactly charmed with the anecdote, but real Hershey's was "thrilled" with its inclusion in the big "Mad Men" Season 6 finale moment.
A rep for Hershey's said "the company was thrilled and incredibly flattered to be part of such a popular television show." The moment, the talk around the office according to the rep, doesn't have anybody at Hershey's super worried. "Obviously we know that this is a fictitious television show set in the 1960s,” the Hershey's rep said. In fact, Hershey will likely use the episode "to educate our internal workforce to show that [the] power of this iconic brand that we get to live with and work with every day."
"Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner said he wanted audiences to realize Don was that good at his job.
"What I wanted was for you to hear that pitch and that phony childhood, and even feel a little emotional, even though it was so hollow. And he knew it was hollow -- it was a lie and he didn't feel good about it, especially because he had this special relationship with Hershey. They didn't advertise, you know. That's not made up. They did eventually, but I love the idea that he says, 'You know, you shouldn't advertise.' That's not a sales pitch. He really thinks that they are beyond it, because they were that important to him," Weiner told HuffPost's Maureen Ryan.
"So much of the show and -- the premiere and so forth -- is about how you are seen by other people: 'You’re a doctor, you’re a handsome ad man,' you are whatever. And what’s going on inside Don [is so different]. That’s one of the central tensions of the show. At the beginning of the season back where he was when we met him, he was saying, 'I don’t want to do this anymore,'" he said.
