Synergizing your profit streams

Because facebook now bombards you with posts about the television shows, movies, and films you like, I received lovely video from Mad Men:

In it, Janie Bryant, the costume designer for the show discusses men's suits with Simon Kneen, Executive VP (whatever that is) slash creative director for Banana Republic. The entire 'conversation' is basically 4 minutes of sycophantic flattery of the costumes of the show. The best moment of the interview though is when Kneen talks about how 'now' the fabrics used on the show are, and how the 'true inspiration' for him is 'what's happening out there', which is, coincidentally Mad Men. As if anyone were confused about what the purpose of this video is, Kneen hawks a suit seconds before he talks about his 'inspiration.' Why is this such a non-coincidence, well because Banana Republic has hitched its trailer to the sho, with a 'integrated marketing campaign' (in quotes because it is bussiness-speak, not actual english), and a contest where one can win a walk-on role to the show, and $1,000 gift card from the store (very generous of them, I know). 

The partnership is completely perfect because the suits on Mad Men are boring, as are the suits that Banana Republic sells. As a shamefully avid shopper, I have been inside a Banana Republic too many times to be proud of, and have always found the clothing terribly drab, with the sort of color palette Ceauşescu's would have selected for the uniforms of the Romania schoolchildren. On a side note, I actually worked at a Banana Republic in Boston for a summer during college where I distinctly remember trying to figure out where a flamboyant gay man could rangle himself a large, floppy straw gardening hat. My father had one, of course, but was hardly the person to go to for such things because  up until this summer, he wore bright blue Crocs with white tube socks pulled up high, making his already quite white flesh actually look grey when see through the little holes of the Crocs.  The only other really salient thing I remember is how messy the women's sale section got by the end of the day, you would think a small vortex touched down there; women shop like hyenas.

My wife aptly pointed out that this sort of 'integration' happens all the time (Snapple anyone?), but the awkwardness of the interaction between Bryant and Kneen, and the falseness with which they flatter each other struck me as somewhat flagrant. I also particularly liked how Kneen talks about the importance of 'great details'  building upon Bryant's similar point related to the different fabrics a character wears (Hamlet, is he more of a mohair, or more of a worsted wool?) Bryant might get to make such choices, but the slave-labor made Banana Republic suits, made in an actual banana republic, cannot really include such detail work, unless you want to call poor Apu in Sri Lanka and tell him you want a different color lining your suit.

To boil things down, we have a large, upmarket clothing retailer attaching itself to a critically loved television show the public is mostly indifferent to (two million people watched the last episode compared to the nine million that watch The Big Bang Theory with regularity) in order to up its cache amongst the urban haute bourgeois, while also giving those people the opportunity to dress like their favorite star, attached a sort of hatism and celebrity linked object cathexis to the clothing itself. So, if you have $500 free to spend on a poorly made suit that makes you feel like Don Draper (you don't really want to feel like Pete do you?) run on over to Banana Republic. Or just watch the video and enjoy the synergized profit streams. Jack Donaghy would be proud of you. 

Note: Hatism is a term coined by Philip Wylie in his fantastic, must read book A Generation of Vipers  that he uses to explain a tendency he saw in Americans (he was one himself) to act like the hat they wore. I think it extends to all clothes, and need only cite the 'weekend warriors' that ride their motorcycles with obtrusive noise by my house on Saturday and Sunday morning as evidence. To Wylie, this extended to the president Eisenhower itself, whom he thought changed his behavior and started acting more like a cowboy when he put a cowboy hat on.