The agency has bent over backwards for the tobacco industry. They fired Sal at the request of Lucky Strike, when Sal’s only crime was not sleeping with the Lee Garner Jr. When they lost that client, it represented over 70% of their billing, so they tried to land another tobacco client, Phillip Morris, but failed. With their backs against the wall, Don follows his own advice to “change the conversation”, and takes out a full-page in the New York Times to run a rant he titles “Why I’m Quitting Tobacco”. For the characters on the show, it seems like career suicide, but we know better. We live in an age where cigarette commercials don’t exist, and anti-smoking campaigns are a billion dollar business. Whatever happens to Don over the course of the series, whether he finds happiness or the agency goes down in flames, we’ll always know he got the last laugh. Don Draper is the man who brought down big tobacco.
