Integrated Advertising on Trump’s Apprentice
What’s New in Advertising? Integrated Marketing…Web Pro News’ Rich Ord has the story today…
“Microsoft won last night’s episode of The Apprentice hands down. In today’s TiVo happy world content integrated marketing is the future and we all better get used to it. Not just for TV either.
Tonight’s episode featured the final four Apprentice applicants in a task to prepare a 60 sec video for Microsoft showcasing Microsoft Office Live Meeting.
In the end Donald Trump fired both team members of “Capital Edge.” Their video was very simplistic … very much like a Power Point presentation instead of a polished promotional video. The statement voiced over in the beginning of the video, “Simply use your name and password to log in” gives you a clear picture where this promotion was headed. Not good.
The winning team Excel did a much better job focusing on a video story line showing the power of the service. I think it fit better with the tag line Microsoft has for the service; The service that gives you the power to hold live meetings anytime … anywhere.
Microsoft will receive a powerful boost from this show … much more convincing than the standard commercial. I think this is the future for television because it must hold the attention of the audience if it is to continue receiving big bucks from advertisers.
I see blogs, email newsletters, RSS feeds, podcasts and other online content as a natural part of an advertisers content integration strategy. Mesh interesting, useful and sometimes entertaining content with paying sponsors in order to maximize value for both the reader and the advertiser. Like I said in a recent blog post, quality content can only exist if it is paid for … whether it is a TV show or delivered via the Internet.
December 3, 2005 @ 7:19 pm
Integrated advertising. Cool!
May 17, 2008 @ 12:47 pm
It’s about product placement….and how they arranged to have the plot of the show (something about Microsoft’s new Office product) become central to the ad message. Putting the Microsoft product into the show and making the contestants have to promote that brand is a way for the software company to get the benefit of advertising on the content side…it’s a smart marketing move.The leader in product placement in television shows is American Idol and The Bachelor. The cups on the judge’s desks say Coke, the contestants in the show create TV ads for Ford. The calling in to vote generates millions in fees for AT&T, and the phone company gets a paid plug when they say ‘you can text your vote using att to this number”In the Bachelor, they put in all sorts of conspicuous placements, from brands that are used by the contestants to the prizes they give. It’s all part of a new trend in advertising, more subtle, because so many people are using Tivo and digital recorders, advertisers have to work harder to get eyeballs. So the new way is to have the character use real products and charge ad rates for that.