If your television preferences are anything like mine, you are probably mourning the end of the all-too-brief 3rd season of AMC’s Mad Men, one of the most entertaining and provocative series on television. I can’t believe we have to wait another 8-9 months to find out the fate of the fledgling Sterling Cooper Draper & Pryce agency, to marvel at the flawless period details, and to laugh at Roger Sterling’s reliable one-liners.

In addition to the great writing and acting, another interesting aspect of Mad Men is its clever integration of brand/product placements within the show. Throughout the show’s three seasons, a myriad of brands have been incorporated seamlessly into the story lines – from Heineken, London Fog, Utz and Cadillac to Stolichnaya Vodka, Hilton Hotels, Clearasil and Kodak.

In part, this is enabled by the show’s central construct around the workings and employees of a 1960’s advertising agency. Many of these brands function as Sterling Cooper clients. Others are products featured naturally and logically into the story lines, and are so unforced that it is not until later that you realize that the dinner party serving Heineken beer, or Don telling Pete to grab a drink, “But not the Stoli”, were the shrewd planning of those company’s marketers and the show’s writers. What a refreshing change from the annoyingly obvious, oversized Coke cups perched in front of the American Idol judges that normally passes for product placement.

What is also interesting is the number of brands featured in the show that are as relevant today as they were in the show’s setting nearly 50 years ago. This is vivid reminder of the power of building and nurturing strong and enduring brands – and I can’t help but wonder if the brands being created today will have a similar resonance with consumers 50 years from now.

On its surface, the decision to position brands within Mad Men episodes would seem to be a great move for companies. The show is a critical hit and attracts a smaller but highly desirable audience demographic of affluent, upscale, educated consumers. What company wouldn’t want their brands and products featured as part of core story lines, where target viewers can’t “fast-forward” through like they can with commercials?

But is there a risk to having brands and products featured as props in a show that may not always portray them in a positive light? Does having characters who may be considered irresponsible and borderline alcoholics drink your liquor send a bad message to consumers about your commitment to responsible consumption? Does showing a fictional, morally complex advertising agency, with employees who regularly philander, harass and discriminate portrayed as responsible for building those brands, create an “alternate reality” where these brands become guilty by association? Does the portrayal of legendary hotelier Conrad “Connie” Hilton as a demanding and often irrational client make consumers feel more inclined to stay in a Hilton hotel?

Would you trust your brand to the hands of the Mad Men producers and actors? Is this a great way to build brands, or a risky proposition? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

To see how TopRight can validate the effectiveness of your marketing and brand building investments, click here.

Triton Value Partners and TopRight LLC will co-sponsor Goizueta Business School’s eighth annual Venture Capital Investment Competition. The event is scheduled for Saturday, November 21, 2009 at the business school and will be attended by participating teams and local venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. Join us for the networking event following the competition, starting at 4:00 pm in the Goizueta Coke Commons.  Anyone interested interested in venture capital and entrepreneurship is welcome.

The VCIC is a one-of-a-kind competition that gives MBA students from top business schools a realistic venture capital experience in a competitive environment. Compared to a traditional business plan competition, where teams participate as entrepreneurs seeking venture capital funding, the VCIC teams assume the role of venture capitalists and evaluate and “fund” investment opportunities.

This year’s presenting companies includes Fusion Sleep, My Shopping Safe, Site Minis, and Urban Planet.

The winning MBA student team will go on to the Southeastern Regional VCIC round, at Georgetown University in February 2010.

In an age where Pandora is the radio of choice in the office and news is read on a computer screen, it seems as if the landscape of marketing and advertising is changing with technology. Traditional advertising mediums like radio appear to be taking the biggest hit by these new technologies. Social networking site Twitter is taking full advantage, and so are its users. As the use of social networking has evolved, Twitter users have found a new way of engaging “followers” by offering the same sweepstakes, contests, and giveaways that TV and radio have traditionally done.

You might have seen the recent story on NBA superstar, Dwight Howard, who awarded his one-millionth follower with an all expense paid trip to Orlando for their season opener. He wasn’t the first to find such an innovative way to generate a larger group of followers. Universities, countries, museums, entertainment venues, artists, musicians, and companies in virtually every industry have Twitter accounts and now use them as a medium for giveaways and contests to attract followers. It seems to be the new staple of musicians. Tons of musicians are utilizing Twitter to give away tickets to their concerts, a method of promotion that they traditionally had to pay for by using radio. Radio stations are even using Twitter to generate listeners and even telling people when to call in for free giveaways! Although Twitter still doesn’t have the ability to reach as large an audience as traditional radio, it is a very cost efficient method to run promotions that is also more interactive with the user.

Twitter has grown at an incredible rate and is now used as much by the 45-year old CEO, as it is by the 16 year-old socialite. Will Twitter continue to grow exponentially while the effectiveness of traditional radio dwindles? Will new technologies and the use of social networking make the appeal of traditional advertising obsolete?