The new season of AMC’s hit TV series Mad Men started off with a bang (pardon the pun), with a peek into the bedroom of creative director and new bachelor Don Draper.  It also revealed the tensions inherent in the pursuit of new business at fledgling ad agency Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce.

I confess I’m a “Mad-dict,” in part because I’ve worked at a few advertising agencies in my career and many of the situations hit home for me. 

In my experience, some clients view advertising as the golden child and public relations as the bastard at the proverbial family reunion. PR can be an after-thought, while creative gets the lion’s share of the attention.  After all, how do you quantify something you can’t storyboard or plot into a media plan?

The season premiere of Mad Men, entitled “Public Relations,” opened with Don being interviewed by an Advertising Age reporter.  Don’s lackluster responses and subsequent dismissal of the interview as a waste of his time reminded me of a few clients’ view of doing media interviews.

When the article showcases Don in a less than favorable light, he’s called onto the carpet by his agency partner Roger Sterling:

Don:  He never asked me that. Did he check any of the facts?

Roger:  You didn’t give him any facts. He had to make some assumptions.

Don:  My job is to write ads, not go around talking about who I am.

Roger:  Who knows who you are? This was supposed to be an advertisement for the firm…this is a missed opportunity.

By the end of the episode, Don has an “aha” moment when he realizes the value of PR as a tool to tell the agency’s story the way he wants it to be told.  During his interview later on with the Wall Street Journal, it’s obvious Don’s in control.

Smart organizations (the Roger Sterlings) know the value of leveraging editorial coverage to their advantage.  For those that don’t (the Don Drapers), we’re here to tell them.

Having entered the workforce in the late 90s, I always thought the world of public relations presented endless opportunities.  My first “real” PR job was at Rubenstein & Associates, in New York City, the quintessential publicity shop, where weekly media placement reports were typed on carbon paper using massive silver Brother typewriters.  The reports were then distributed to all the head honchos, many of whom were female.

It’s hard to imagine a time when PR was not dominated by female professionals.  However, when Ruth Jacobson entered the field in the 50s, it was more common for women to stay at home than work in any office, let alone as a professional in the high-powered world of advertising, PR and marketing.  According to a news story from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jacobson was the first female executive to work at Fleishman-Hillard and the first senior female partner at the firm.  She graduated from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism and worked on big brand accounts such as Anheuser-Busch.  I would love to have been a fly on the wall to see how she navigated that testosterone-heavy account team – having watched an episode or two of Mad Men, I can just imagine the condescending (and sometimes offensive) comments that got thrown her way.

Now as a vice president at Rose Communications, a female-owned and -operated firm, I am a testament to how the roles have been reversed.  The X chromosome now dominates the PR profession.  I sometimes wonder what if a male colleague had to endure conversations about child rearing, breast feeding, PMS and various other female-orientated topics that make their way into our water cooler chatter?  According to a diversity tracking survey conducted by BPRI Group, 66 percent of employees at public relations agencies are female. I believe we have Ms. Jacobson to thank for that.

The industry lost a trailblazer last week when Jacobson died due to complications from congestive heart failure at the age of 84.  While she may be gone, her legacy will live on.  Thanks to her, PR executives in their mid-30s, such as me, are oblivious to the “glass ceiling.”  The opportunities for female public relations professionals remain endless.