10 TV character shopping obsessions

Betty picks Heineken — Mad Men

Mad Men isn’t afraid to hock a product. Lucky Strike, Kodak, Coca Cola, Cadillac and London Fog have all had a prominent place at Sterling Cooper, but Heineken is among the most memorable, and we have Betty to thank for that.

As a rule, Don would use anything and everything he could to land a client, and looping Betty into his elaborate plan was never beneath him. In “A Night to Remember” Betty hosts a “international” dinner, featuring the imported beer prominently. While she thought she was making a very sophisticated and worldly decision for her party, she was really just reacting to Don’s manipulation.

She bought it because it was it was just the beer for “perfect” housewives like her, and Don’s marketing push was made for consumers like Betty. Designed and marketed for women just like Betty, Don knew what he was doing when he set Betty up, and the beer was the least of his worries.

The Heineken was just the thread that started the ultimate unraveling of the Draper marriage and the descent into disfunction, narcissism, and toxic interactions that would eventually come to define both of these characters. No matter how awful they became over the course of the series, they both were the epitome of upper class consumerism, and they always looked like they had their stuff together. Don had to have considered all this when he tricked Betty into buying the beer, and being so proud of her decision to do so.