Don't get Twitter? Don't get Mad

One of the joys of my life is the terrific AMC show "Mad Men". For those of you unfamiliar with it, it follows an advertising agency, Sterling Cooper, during the early 1960s. The show debuted last summer to stellar reviews and a cult audience (that's a nice way of saying small). It is now four shows into its second season and the audience and cult is growing. So much that a few fans took to Twitter earlier this week in the guise of the show's characters including the show's anti-hero Don Draper. Eager fans -- soon more than 1000 -- immediately began following them and interacting with them. You would think that AMC would be thrilled with a groundswell of involvement and support for their show. Wrong. They claimed the Twitter accounts violated their intellectual property and demanded the accounts be shut down. Adrants has a the story here.

For those of you interested in learning how Don is feeling after his car crash Sunday night or wondering about Peggy's home life, I have great news. The smart people at AMC's Web marketing firm convinced them otherwise.

I am very surprised at how unsavvy AMC was here. They are wonderfully creative in promoting the show such as taking out 16 pages in the June 23 issue of Advertising Age magazine to recreate what the magazine was like in 1962 including coverage of Sterling Cooper. I think this incident will be used as a lesson for companies of the power of Twitter and the danger of not understanding it.