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Author:Becky Ebenkamp
Advertisers have long been partners in TV's development, but have they crossed into dangerous territory to stand out among their peers?
Ever seen The 10th Victim? In the 1965 flick, Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress play the two most attractive humans walking the Earth in the 21st century. Deterring their budding romance in no small way is the fact that they're competing in a futuristic, government-sanctioned game called The Big Hunt, in which players kill each other for sport and prizes, and earn a little side cash by pitching sponsors' products.
Actually, if you're having a hard time accepting the concept, it's not all that different from ABC's upcoming fall extravaganza, The Runner. While this reality series stops short of that messy little murder thing, it's designed around sponsor involvement, as a central figure vies for a cool million while taking shelter in a landscape littered with familiar brands. The fugitive could be instructed to hide out at, say a Burger King or Dunkin' Donuts as the public tries to rat him out.
Welcome to brand/content synergy 2001-style. From Reege's customary nod to "Our friends at AT&T" to the gals from The View testifying to Campbell's "M'm! M'm!" goodness, brands are becoming more entwined with television programs than ever before. Not just as set dressing, but as crucial plot points: Doritos, Mountain Dew and Target all took center stage as prizes for the combatting castaways on CBS' Survivor. As the trend marches forward, one can only wonder if networks will end up forking over show content to advertisers in ways never envisioned. Will Dharma & Glade ("Now in a fresh green tea scent!") be the model of the future?
TV most certainly has been in the service of the commercial since the beginning, when brands blatantly sponsored programs like The Camel News Caravan and Geritol's suspense-filled quiz show, Twenty-One. Procter & Gamble literally invented the soap opera as a way to convince post-World War II housewives of the virtues of its everyday products--with no disguising the hard-sell. "Everyone knew this and, in a sense, this made the whole process a bit more honest," said Douglas Rushkoff, a New York University professor and author of Coercion, Media Virus and Playing the Future. "By the 1960s, we were led to believe that there was some kind of line between the commercials and the programming, as if the commercials were in some kind of separate universe."
They weren't, of course. "The sponsors still dictated what happened because the shows were meant to depict a universe in which the products are needed, or can be showcased," he continued. "The people on Melrose Place didn't actually use the shampoos advertised between the show's scenes--but they certainly valued hair. The show primed people for the commercials."
Driving the need to impede is the fact that advertising has lost a little of its punch thanks to the growth of the Internet, which has sent viewers, particularly younger ones, to seek online diversions. It's hard to justify ad spending in a soft economy or on a medium where TV channels are proliferating like mad, making it difficult to stand out while showcasing one's goods.
"We've seen the TV world changing very dramatically over the past 24 months--faster than it has in the last 10 years," said Mark Owens, senior vp at Davie Brown Entertainment, Santa Monica, Calif., whose entertainment marketing firm finds placement opportunities and sponsorships for clients including Pepsi-Cola, BMW, Miller and Reebok. "The sheer growth in the number of networks means advertisers have a more fragmented audience. Ad-skipping technology is out there and everyone's trying to prepare for what that may or may not be. Clients are coming to us more and more asking if placement can be a bigger part of the marketing mix."
With the announcements of their fall lineups greeted by an ad market that is clearly less buoyant than previous years, not only are the networks actively pitching these alliances, the Mark Burnetts and production companies are doing so too. They're trying to figure out how marketers can be involved in shows, and in exchange, hope they can promote the program in non-traditional channels, such as via a car dealership or a Pepsi can.
Sprinkled into the mix is the threat of the new generation of ad zappers. If there's an antichrist for advertisers, thy name is TiVo. The device, which can digitally record TV fare directly onto a hard-drive, is being pitched as a way to allow viewers to exorcise Madison Avenue's finely focus-grouped and carefully crafted work. TiVo and its rival, Microsoft's Ultimate TV, have sparked a huge amount of interest and debate among marketers, but haven't hit critical mass--the technology is currently in only 200,000 homes.
"But it's giving people a glimpse of how TV will be used five years from now," said David Webster, managing director at marketing agency Siegelgale in New York. "VCRs also offer the capacity to skip advertising, but what is fundamentally different is that these systems make it incredibly easy."
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