Plugola from AMC

Weird thing happened. I was watching some preview video of AMC's new show Mad Men. After I was done, I walked to the water cooler and noticed a fax with the AMC logo on it in the trash can. I rescued the fax that somebody had wisely thrown away:

If you can't read it, a guy at a PR company called Great! is offering some free martini glasses to jocks who will talk up AMC's new show Mad Men. Not only talk it up, but actually adhere to the supplied copy points. If the jock emails an aircheck to this guy, then the Three Martini Lunch Box is on its way.

I guess nobody at Great! ever heard of plugola. It's an FCC violation and goes against the internal policies of most radio station owners. In this context, "plugging" something in order to receive a product or cash for free is considered plugola.

Plugola has never been all that strictly regulated by the FCC, so I can see where an outsider might think receiving martini glasses in exchange for plugging Mad Men is OK. But, had I done it, I'm pretty sure I would have been in quite a bit of trouble, if not fired.

Great! probably got some clueless jocks to do this. It's too bad that Great! is encouraging FCC violations.

I was going to talk about Mad Men anyway, since it's getting so much buzz. The show is about advertising executives in the 1960s, and the sometimes sleazy tactics that they use. Kind of ironic.