Yesterday at PR Watch’s Spin of the Day, there was an entry about the new trend of “situ-mercials” making waves in the advertising industry. Referenced is a WSJ article [subscribers only…] that talks about how this is the newfound solution to the usual product placements you see floating around these days in television and movies.
The concept is simple - create advertisements that “look, sound and feel just like the show it’s interrupting”. As a marketer, I think this is a very interesting way to go. I’m not sure how the overall market will react to it, but I found it kind of interesting, but perhaps a little confusing the first time I saw it. When I saw this happen for the first time, it was when Ford was sponsoring the first episode of Fox’s “24″ this season, without commercial interruption, as it were. Ford took a seemingly related scene where a hitman/kidnapper was tracking who you thought was Jack Bauer (the character played by Kiefer Sutherland on the show) home, only to find out that he has the wrong guy. They ran a part of it at the beginning, and it totally felt like the show - except you didn’t see Bauer’s face. Then the real show began, and after it ended, the conclusion of the “commercial” came on.
We’ll see if this catches on a little more, and if it leads to the actors (or at least lookalikes) on shows getting more endorsement deals.
