How to Sell Health Reform Like Don Draper

If Barack Obama’s going to sell the masses on health care reform, he’s going to need to hire a consultant: Don Draper. If the Sterling Cooper impresario of Mad Men were running this campaign, he wouldn’t bother talking about low premiums or subsidies. That's too mundane. “Draper realizes that people don’t want to be sold a product. They want to be sold a vision of themselves that they like.”

Americans want to think of themselves as hard-working and self-reliant, and they like to make fun of the government. So sell them reform as a matter of national pride. Make them feel like the take-charge generation fixing the system. Obama will also need to make reform seem cool—because brand, as Draper knows, matters more than particulars. Obama should try something like a Mac vs. PC ad to make the status quo seem outdated and uncool. (More Mad Men stories.)