In Mad Men's season 3, the protagonist, Don Draper, referred to the old-guard ad agency, McCann Erickson (then riding high for its 1963 campaign 'Things Go Better With Coke') as a 'sausage factory.' After the show aired in 2009, McCann posted on its website a humorous, fast-paced 'commercial' collaging the many mentions of the firm on the show and welcoming Draper's fictional Sterling Cooper agency to its precincts (see it on YouTube). Then, a few years later, McCann decided its New York headquarters were ready for a new look.
Was the decision to redesign five floors of a Midtown Manhattan high-rise related to the company's depiction as overly staid on Mad Men? 'Absolutely not,' says Linus Karllson, McCann's chief creative officer of global brands at the time. But he acknowledges that the workplace 'wasn't necessarily as inspiring as it needed to be.' He started conversations with Brian Berry, design director at Gensler, and Tom Dixon, the British designer, whose idiosyncratic furniture, lighting, and accessories Karllson admires.
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