The Mad Men’s Guide to Job Titles at an Advertising Agency

“Advertising is based on one thing: happiness. And you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car.” —Don Draper, Creative Director, Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce

Below is a pocket-sized org-chart of the 1960s Madison Avenue jungle—translated, updated, and lightly perfumed with bourbon and wit.

Whether you’re binge-watching Mad Men for the fourth time or interviewing at a 2025 boutique agency, this lexicon will keep you from calling the Copy Chief “the slogan guy.”

1. Creative Director

Then (1963) | Don Draper, hat tilted like a question mark, pitches Kodak while hiding a whole war identity in his desk. Now (2025) | Still the orchestra conductor of ideas, but also the data-whisperer—approving TikTok storyboards at 9 a.m., A/B-testing thumb-stoppers at noon. Super-power: Turning “I don’t know what I want” into “Here’s the tagline that will tattoo itself on culture.”

2. Copywriter

Then | Peggy Olson, fresh from Brooklyn, learns that lipstick is bought by women but sold to men. Now | Writes 6-word push notifications that outperform 30-second TV spots. Secret rite: Every junior copywriter still pins their first live tweet above the desk—digital equivalent of Belle Jolie lipstick copy.

3. Art Director

Then | Stan Rizzo in sideburns, pasting layouts with rubber cement that smells like adolescence. Now | Designs motion systems in Figma, exports 47 sizes before lunch, still argues about kerning. Desk giveaway: A Pantone chip from 1965 used as a bookmark.

4. Account Executive (a.k.a. “The Suit”)

Then | Pete Campbell, silver-spooned and smirk-powered, lunches at 21 Club on the client’s dime. Now | Account Manager-slash-therapist, juggling Slack, Zoom, and a client who wants to “go viral” by Thursday. KPI: Keep the client happily ignorant of how the sausage is made—unless it’s plant-based, because 2025.

5. Media Planner / Buyer

Then | Hidden in the basement with rate cards and a landline, buying full-pages in Life magazine. Now | Programmatic wizard bidding 0.3¢ CPMs in real time while Spotify hums lo-fi beats. Addiction: Dashboards that refresh faster than a martini shaker.

6. Account Planner (a.k.a. “The Voice of the Consumer”)

Not in Sterling Cooper—born in 1970s London, imported later. Mission: Translate human truths into briefs so sharp they could slice a necktie. Favorite toy: 200-page ethnography on Gen-Z sadness, distilled into one sentence: “They want brands to feel like group chats, not billboards.”

7. Traffic Manager

Then | Joan Holloway, red-pen in one hand, cigarette in the other, routing mechanicals before deadline midnight. Now | Operations or Project Manager, herding 12 time-zones via Asana. Super-hero name: The Deadline Whisperer.

8. Brand Strategist

Didn’t exist in Don’s era; would have been mistaken for a communist. Purpose: Find the North Star before creatives start sketching spaceships. Caffeine level: Triple-shot cortado with a side of competitive-analysis PDFs.

9. Production Artist (Print) → Digital Producer

Then | X-Acto blades and Letraset. Now | Compresses 4K footage until it streams flawlessly on 3G in rural Sindh. Mantra: “Make it smaller, make it faster, make it not break on iOS 17.”

10. Office Manager → Director of Operations

Then | Joan again—scheduling, payroll, and the occasional emergency tracheotomy (lawn-mower accident, Season 3). Now | Owns vendor relationships, SaaS budgets, and the sacred office cold-brew recipe. Hidden skill: Can fire someone with empathy so pure it feels like a TED Talk hug.

11. Chief Creative Officer (CCO)

Evolution of Don’s final-season partnership title. Job: Bless ideas, charm shareholders, apologize for nothing. Clue you’ve arrived: Your LinkedIn bio is just one word: “Storyteller.”

12. Chief Media Officer / Growth Officer

21st-century beast. Mandate: Make every dollar accountable to a pixel, a cohort, a conversion. Nightmare: iOS privacy update that turns the funnel into a tunnel.

13. Intern (Timeless)

Then | Fetching coffee, dry-cleaning, and existential dread. Now | Fetching oat-milk lattes, TikTok trends, and still—existential dread. Rite of passage: Being asked “What do you think?” in a meeting where 6-figure decisions hang in the air.

A Modern-Day Glossary for Your Business Card Drawer

• Creative Technologist – codes the idea you sketched on a napkin.
• Social Listening Analyst – reads 50,000 tweets before breakfast so your brand doesn’t trend for the wrong reason.
• Influencer Manager – herds cats with 1 M followers and fragile egos.
• Sustainability Consultant – makes sure your shoot in Patagonia doesn’t actually destroy Patagonia.

Parting Shot from the 37th Floor

Slide open that mahogany bar cart, pour three fingers of something peaty, and remember:

Titles change; human nature doesn’t.

Clients still want miracles by Monday, creatives still want immortality by Friday, and somewhere a traffic manager is quietly keeping the universe from unraveling—one deadline at a time.

Cheers to the carnival, —Huzi blogs.huzi.pk