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Online Integration

Jan 31, 2007  •  Post A Comment

The Internet is not only stealing ad dollars from traditional TV, it’s hijacking some of the ideas TV is trying out to keep advertisers interested.
AOL last week launched three shows online that look like they could be on regular TV; in fact, they star three personalities who have shows on cable. And General Motors’ GMC Truck division is sponsoring the whole batch.
It just goes to show that the concerns advertisers have about television don’t go away when they shift to new media.
“Everyone that we’ve been talking to for the last couple of years is looking for more integration,” said Mark Ellis, regional VP of ad sales for AOL in Detroit. “They’re looking for more ways to not look like advertising, to be part of the content and to engage potential consumers, so we think demand is strong now. It’s going to continue to grow.”
Mr. Ellis said AOL had been speaking with GMC for about three months. The AOL Living programming team had a number of original programming ideas in the hopper, and as it turned out some of the concepts lined up with the truck-maker’s marketing plans. “So we got our creative people together with their creative people and actually co-authored this program,” he said.
AOL had some talent identified and with GMC interested, the names were run by the prospective clients, who signed off on them.
The programs, which went online last week, cover the lifestyle categories cooking, home entertaining and home entertainment.
The cooking show, “Cooking With Tyler Florence,” guides viewers through recipes; “Home Improvement With Eric Stomer” explains projects and “Home Entertaining With Michele and Gia” offers party ideas.
Mr. Florence is known from his Food Network Show, Mr. Stomer was featured on HGTV and Michele Adams and Gia Russo are known as the “MiGi Girls” on Fine Living. All three are Scripps networks, but Scripps was not involved in the project.
The episodes of each of the shows are an Internet-friendly three-to-five minutes in length. They are also broken down into smaller useful components: photo galleries, audio podcasts and instruction sheets.
GMC gets a pre-roll video commercial when a user clicks on the show. The show’s landing page will also have GMC ad units and logos that contain links to a site with more information about GMC vehicles.
AOL has also produced 30 short tips that go along with each of the shows. In those tips, the star of the show drives a GMC truck-to the grocery or hardware store, for example-describes the truck and says the tip is sponsored by GMC.
Mr. Ellis said these programs are most effective when the advertiser is engaged early in the process. “The way these happen best for us is when we sit down with a marketer and just try to find out what they’re doing, what audience they’re trying to get to,” he said. “It gives us more ammo to be able to go out and create these kinds of programs.”
With GMC, each show hits a different market niche for a different truck. The Yukon, aimed at relatively upscale 25- to 54-year-old males and females, is featured in the cooking show. The new Acadia is aimed more at women and appears with the home entertaining program. The big Sierra pickup is a guy’s truck and appears in the home improvement show.
Mr. Ellis said that he’s done branded entertainment deals with GM, Target and Ford and that all of the top 100 advertisers have done some sort of an integrated marketing program with AOL.
“I think it’s safe to say a share shift is still happening,” he said. “It looks like television. It is television. It probably ate up some television dollars.”
This article is part of TVWeek.com’s Media Planner newsletter, a weekly source of breaking news, trend articles, profiles and data about media planning edited by Senior Editor Jon Lafayette.

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