How the modern world would have changed “Mad Men”

As I eagerly await the premier of Mad Men on AMC this Sunday, I got to thinking: How different would the plot lines be if the story were told in the 21st century advertising world?  Here are a few thoughts I had. I’d love to hear yours in the comments.

1. Sterling Cooper. In the upcoming season, it looks like SC is going to get bought out by a British holding company. Today, there would have already been 12 episodes covering 12 different mergers and buyouts.  And the name of the firm would now be Sterling Cooper Smith & Jones/Euro/Draft/LMNOP.

2. Peggy the copywriter. Unfortunately for Peggy, the copywriter job wouldn’t have fallen into her lap so quickly. Instead, she would have gone to college, then to the Miami Ad School, then on three unpaid internships and then on a hundred interviews competing with a hundred different portfolio school grads with killer books. And with all that, she would have lost the job to a fellow student who had a great guerrilla idea for Lucky Strikes. The episode about Peggy waiting tables, would have been riveting, though.

3. Don Draper’s affairs. In the very first episode, we see Don with his mistress, Midge. It’s an affair that lasted most of the season. Today, that plot line would have ended after the first commercial break, as his wife Betty finds him tagged in a Facebook photo where he’s kissing Midge. Episode 2? Don and Betty spend a spell-binding hour dividing up the silverware and china.

4. Don’s inspiring pitches. Picture the Kodak presentation. Don is in a darkened conference room, as slides of his family click by. He tells the story of the Carousel of Life. His clients, sitting next to him in tears, buy the campaign before he even gets to finish. Today, with technology, a pdf of the script would have been sent to the client. And everyone would have enjoyed the presentation on Skype. Fade to black on glowing MacBook screen.

5. Betty. I don’t know. But Betty, Don’s wife, just looks like a Twitter addict. She’s the kind of person with enough time to amass Ashton Kutcher-type followers. So instead of seeing her horseback riding or discovering Don’s deep, dark secrets, we see her sitting with her laptop or her iPhone, tweeting about the weird kid next door and cooking recipes. Yawn.