Leading up to the series finale of AMC’s Mad Men, viewers and actors shared their favorite scenes from the previous eight years on twitter. Actor Jon Hamm who plays Don Draper claims “The Wheel” in season one as a monumental moment in the show’s history.
For those who may not know the moment, it’s a short scene where advertising executive Don Draper pitches Kodak. The company is looking for an agency to market its new slide projector, which the executives called “a wheel.”
“Technology is a glittering lure, but there is a rare occasion when the public can be engaged on a level beyond flash if they have a sentimental bond with the product,” Draper begins. As Draper shows photographs of himself and his family in happier times he says, “This device isn’t a spaceship. It’s a time machine…it takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It’s not called the wheel. It’s called the carousel. It lets us travel the way a child travels. Around and around and back home again to a play where we know we are loved.”
Don Draper wins the hearts and minds of the client because he finds a way to infuse a product with emotion.
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