Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

With hopes to share some of the success of ad agency based sitcom "Mad Men," TNT has developed a weekly cable series called "Trust Me" premiering Monday. The fictional agency, Rothman, Greene & Mohr, featured on the show will be developing campaigns for real, non-fictional brands. Brands such as Dove, Bertolli and GM will be sponsors of the show and also integrated into plot lines. In a time when entertainment weighs in heavily on capturing the short attention span of modern consumers, this form of audience engagement has great potential.

There will be an online gaming component to the show, where viewers can act as creative directors for the brands. It's another level of brand interaction that dovetails the long standing trend (i.e. Guitar Hero) where users can romanticize the art and beauty of a finished product without having to do any real work. Why does this type of entertainment strike such a powerful chord? Because it's rewarding and interactive, but most of all: pure fun.

The creators of "Trust Me" actually make it a point to not make the creative process and plotline of the show too in depth and/or realistic to the real life point of view. When asked about the show, the EVP for Turner Entertainment mentioned, "the threading of sponsor brands through the plot lines is definitely being treated with kid gloves, to make sure it's not considered too 'inside' or overbearing."

The main hurdle the show will have to overcome is to avoid coming off as an hour long commercial for the featured products (even though that's exactly what it is). To accomplish this, the content will have to engage viewers to the extent that they feel immersed and entertained and then, only after this point will users be able to look at the brands introduced as inherent to the plot line. Sounds just interesting enough to watch and see.

The link to the NY Times article is here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/business/media/22adco.html?_r=2&ref=media

Jonathan Turri