May 16

Here’s the Real (and Real Silly) Dunder Mifflin Ad Airing Tonight on the Series Finale of The Office

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Looking forward to the series finale of The Office tonight? Here's something else to look forward to. The real Dunder Mifflin ad below—for the defictionalized paper brand whose products you can actually buy at Quill.com—will air in five Dunder Mifflin "branch" markets (Scranton, Pa., Akron, Ohio, and Utica, Albany and Syracuse, N.Y.) as well as Chicago (the home market of Lincolnshire-based Quill) during tonight's telecast. Just as the NBC show winds down, Dunder Mifflin paper is ramping up its advertising. (It's already among the best-selling brands in the office-supply category.) Its slogan, "Limitless paper in a paperless world," is what drives this spot, which is all about a guy who can turn anything he touches into Dunder Mifflin paper. Of course, he immediately uses his power to prank his co-workers the same way Jim pranks Dwight. The Midas touch is a well-worn theme in advertising, and they're not really challenging any conventions. But let's face it. This is as good as paper advertising gets.

    

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Feb 21

Scranton’s ABC Affiliate Refuses to Run Dunder Mifflin Ad During the Oscars

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It's a dispute petty enough to be a subplot on The Office. WNEP-TV, the ABC affiliate for the show's hometown of Scranton, Pa., is refusing to run a TV spot for Dunder Mifflin paper products during the Oscars. Why? Most likely because the fictional brand is too connected to rival network NBC. A de-fictionalized version of the show's paper brand has been sold in real life since 2011 by Staples-owned Quill.com, thanks to a licensing partnership with NBCUniversal. A Quill.com representative tells Adweek that WNEP won't air the Dunder Mifflin ad "apparently because of the brand’s NBC ties." WNEP declined to comment on whether it had rejected the ad, citing corporate policy. A similar ad just ran during the Super Bowl, apparently thanks to Scranton's CBS affiliate, WYOU-TV, being less finicky about the brand's background.

In another Office-esque twist, Dunder Mifflin's ad has found a new home during the Oscars broadcast on ABC affiliate WUTR in Utica, N.Y.—home of Scranton's rival branch in the show. As for the new spot itself, "The Battle" is a fairly straightforward follow-up to the brand's "Paper Fight" Super Bowl debut, featuring more white-collar grunts attacking one another with paper weaponry. It's like the perfect metaphor for an ad-placement spat. PR agency Olson is leading strategy on the campaign, and both ads were created through crowdsourcing platform Tongal.

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