The True Art and Meaning of Advertainment

Last Thursday, Bloomberg Businessweek posted an article about Ben Silverman; famous former NBC TV Dealmaker who developed popular shows such as The Biggest Loser, The Office and Ugly Betty; announced he plans to mix advertising and TV entertainment together to where they are "inextricably mixed." Silverman mentions he wants to make advertising inescapable by bringing major corporations such as Procter & Gamble, Subway, Pepsi and State Farm Insurace into the writer's room and put their brands directly into the shows they are sponsoring.

Theoretically, a very creative idea that Marketer's and Brand managers would love to be a part of. However, in reality, a very difficult idea to implement, especially if it's a TV show that only symbolizes the product itself.

For instance, in the fall of 2010, Centric, a spinoff channel of Black Entertainment Televison, aired a show titled Masters of the Mix, a DJ competition reality show that Electus co-produced with GTM, an Atlanta-based marketing agency. The show was integrated with Smirnoff with seven DJs who were competing to become the next Smirnoff-sponsored DJ, who will spin at company-promoted events around the world.

Unfortunately, Masters of the Mix only aired eight episodes because it failed to meet Centric's "minimum reporting standards" since not many people watched the show. Part of the reason for its failure was due to Smirnoff not blending into the show's narrative and due to plenty of commercial breaks, viewers mentioned Smirnoff just loaded the series down with additional advertising.

This shows you can not integrate pre-mature TV shows who's sole purpose is just to promote a product. Advertainment needs to penetrate a deeper meaning and message that viewers can sympathize with.

One company has been successful within Advertainment by searching for their core perceptive meaning and effectively communicating it to TV viewers.

According to Retail World, in 2010 Mars Petcare used an integration with the Network Ten TV program 'The Biggest Loser' to associate its Pedigree Light & Mature brand with weight-loss and healthy eating for dogs. Shown to be a great compliment to a show that advocates a healthy life-style that envokes eating healthy and maintaining a healthy body, Mars Petcare's sales of the Pedigree Light & Mature increased by nine percent within stores that carry the brand.

This shows that the key to successful advertainment is the correlation of each subject's content and a deeper meaning that goes beyond selling a product. This is something that can only be done after a TV show is successful. Like any product, it needs to first establish its desired perception among the audience and only then can it be co-branded with another product of similar perception or content. In essence, advertisers nowadays need to connect with consumers by supporting the message an already established TV show is sending.

Take for instance Sons of Anarchy, an FX television series that  explores the dangerous lives of a biker gang involved with illegal arms-dealing. The gang rides around in low-ride Harley-Davidson motorcycles as they come across obstacles of survival from antagonsists such as the FBI, the IRA and other biker gangs.

If I were the CMO for Harley, I would make sure to place all the Harley-Davidson's that I could on that show just because of the brand image of both SOA and Harley. Both encompass the meaning of being a tough and rugged outlaw or rebel who finds their purpose  by riding through the world as a loner, or one can say, a gang of independent loners who go against what they percieve to be a flawed governmental system and uphold their own sense of individual morals and codes.

This is the imagery that both SOA and Harley communicate to people.

Harley is such a well-established American brand that can be integrated extremely well with such a show as SOA. The key is to by-pass the direct sell of the product to pitching the meaning behind both the product and the show. Only then will one achieve a successful and effective Advertainment and increase consumer loyalty.

In regards to Ben Silverman, I think it is unwise to integrate advertising and content production of pre-mature TV series. It is best to co-brand already established TV shows and product brands that when put together communicates a deeper meaning that goes beyond the product.

It's not just about exposure and financial sponsorships from advertisers, it's about effectively exposing the brand through the right form of product placement.

Please post any comments. I'd love to hear others thoughts.

If interested in reading the Ben Silverman article, follow this link:  http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_11/b4219060707213.htm