The world around us

Marketers are coming up with innovative ways to get to consumers who are put off my ads, by making the entire show an ad. In a novel approach, Gillette is producing a reality show called Young Guns on ABC which follows a group of NASCAR drivers. The same drivers are featured in the company’s ads on TV and on the Internet. The campaign has been designed by BBDO New York and is using professional drivers to teach celebrities how to drive race cars and compete in a show called Fast Cars and Superstars: Gillette Young Guns Celebrity Race. The show will be starting on June 7th this year.

"We’re seeing a blurring between advertising and entertainment," says Steve Fund, Gillette marketing director. "It’s a new business model."  Gillette paid ABC for the air time and pulled in TV production experts and a talent agency to create the show. The unit of Procter & Gamble (PG) won’t say what the time cost or what it’s paying the drivers or celebrities. Marketers already have been moving to weave their brand names into programming through exclusive sponsorship deals and product placement, such as Coca-Cola (KO) with American Idol. Companies realize that they need more than just a 30-second TV ad to interest viewers, says Jon Kamen, CEO of production company @radical.media, which worked with Gillette on Fast Cars.

They’ve always been lots of billboard haters, but I wonder how they will respond to this campaign? Agenda has an article on how DDB New Zealand has come up up an intriguing campaign against banning billboards called the "Say No to No Billboards". The series highlights several buildings that are ugly and boring in their own right and that adding billboards does nothing but improve their looks actually.

Bruce Hucker, in an article for the New Zealand Herald, asks “Should we have a city in which large billboards and a plethora of signs dominate every shopping strip, every street corner and every road intersection? Or should we create a city in which signs and billboards have their place, but do not overwhelm our heritage buildings, our quality architecture, and our public spaces?”

Ok, as you see, the blogaddiction persists…..but exhaustion is setting in and it’s definitely time to close down the computer, no matter how tempting it is to to write one more post, check your mail one more time….I think this is probably the worst part of working at home….that you are pretty much "at work" all the time you are at home. I have to make a very solid effort to stick to my time schedule, which is generally easy for my "work", but oh so hard when it comes to blogging.