Commercials featuring cast members of shows were common when advertisers and agencies owned the programs they sponsored, but the concept is now enjoying something of a comeback.
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On Thursday night, as millions tuned in to see Carrie Underwood ambitiously take on the role of Maria von Trapp, croon about the hills being alive, and make children's clothing out of drapes in NBC's The Sound of Music Live, DiGiorno Pizza was also watching—and live-tweeted the whole thing. The Nestlé brand's tweets were funny and hilariously pizza-related. Let's have a moment of appreciation for how difficult a task that must have been, considering The Sound of Music heavily features a convent and also the Third Reich. Also, a solid nod of respect to whomever came up with the hashtag #DiGiorNOYOUDIDNT.
#TheSoundOfMusicLive Can't believe pizza isn't one of her favorite things smh
— DiGiorno Pizza (@DiGiornoPizza) December 6, 2013
DOUGH a crust an unbaked crust RAY, a guy that likes pizza ME a pizza liked by a guy named ray FAH no idea what fah is SO so LA a city T tee
— DiGiorno Pizza (@DiGiornoPizza) December 6, 2013
I don't think those mountains are real you guys #TheSoundOfMusicLive
— DiGiorno Pizza (@DiGiornoPizza) December 6, 2013
CLIMB EVERY MOUNTAIN, FORD EVERY STREAM, FOLLOW EVERY RAINBOW, UNTIL YOU FIND A SUPREME (PIZZA FROM DIGIORNOOOOOO) #TheSoundOfMusicLive
— DiGiorno Pizza (@DiGiornoPizza) December 6, 2013
YO ROLPH, I HAVEN'T SEEN AN OUTFIT THAT UGLY SINCE NEVER #ShortAndTie #DiGiorNOYOUDIDNT #TheSoundOfMusicLive
— DiGiorno Pizza (@DiGiornoPizza) December 6, 2013
THE KITCHEN IS ALIVE, WITH THE SMELL OF FRESH-BAKED PIZZA #TheSoundOfMusicLive
— DiGiorno Pizza (@DiGiornoPizza) December 6, 2013
GO HOME COUNTESS, YOU'RE SO AWKWARD #TheSoundOfMusicLive
— DiGiorno Pizza (@DiGiornoPizza) December 6, 2013
Oh yeah, definitely pizza at this party. Because you can't dance like that without pizza. #TheSoundOfMusicLive
— DiGiorno Pizza (@DiGiornoPizza) December 6, 2013
THANK YOU VERY MUCH, GOODNIGHT AND GOOD PIZZA TO YOU ALL!!! #AndWeOut #BuyDiGiorno #TheSoundOfMusicLive
— DiGiorno Pizza (@DiGiornoPizza) December 6, 2013
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In a live show on CBS to announce the Grammy nominees, a campaign to encourage viewers to come back on Jan. 26 for the awards show will be introduced.
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How excited Skullcandy must have been.
In the battle of headphone brands, competing with the insanely popular Beats By Dre product line must have seemed like an impossible task. Marketshare was decreasing rapidly. What they needed was a miracle, the kind of great idea that can rocket their brand back into the competition. What they needed was a celebrity endorser big enough to compete with Dr. Dre but cheap enough that it didn’t totally break the bank. But who could that be? How can you get someone who’s universally respect and beloved at a reasonable price tag?
And then, it became clear. Derrick Rose, Bulls star point guard and Chicago’s most cherished native son, was on his way back from an entire year spent cheering from courtside after sustaining a devastating knee injury. The narrative was already being written by Adidas: Rose was back, and better than ever. The story was one of redemption; an opportunity to tell off the critics who felt he was sitting on the bench when he was well enough to be back on the court. “The Return” is what Adidas called it. Rose had the charisma, the talent, the credibility and, much to Skullcandy’s delight, a relatively reasonable price tag due to his year spent in street clothes. It must have sounded almost too perfect to Skullcandy’s marketing team. As preseason rumors spread this fall about Rose adding four inches to his vertical jump, fives must have been highed, glasses must have been clinked, and the familiar feeling of optimism must have crept its way back inside the Skullcandy offices.
I wonder who was watching the game, a late November Friday night as the Bulls faced the Portland Trailblazers. Who saw Rose pivot awkwardly on his knee while fighting for the ball, and limp gingerly toward the sidelines? Who had to make the mournful phone call when it was reported the star needed emergency knee surgery? Who first gasped when news broke on Twitter that, oh God, not again. Who remembers the studio, Gentleman Scholar, who wanted to use the above spot as their showpiece? Who can see a billboard on the Kennedy Expressway and thinks “Skullcandy!” instead of feeling a toxic mixture or sadness and frustration brought the reminder that another cold winter in Chicago would go bye without seeing #1 on the court?
Man, sucks to be them, huh? By the way, the song that plays in the background is “Back to Ballin’” by Wale. HA! Credits after the jump.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
With a little over a week to go before the live broadcast of “The Sound of Music” on NBC, the production is taking shape on a Long Island sound stage.
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Deutsch NY and TNT are using Mob City‘s Twitter handle, @MobCityTNT, to debut the screenplay of the series’ premiere, 140 characters at a time. This will make Mob City, “the first television screenplay ever to be adapted for, and published through, Twitter.” They’ve dubbed the process “adaptweetion.”
The first tweets of the Mob City screenplay were made on Monday, with new tweets appearing every 45 minutes between 10 AM and 7 PM (and later tonight). They’ve also taken advantage of Twitter Cards to inject photo and video footage into the stream. Those late to the game can also catch up by visiting the microsite for the script, where it is presented in chronological order. This all leads to the debut of Frank Darabont‘s three week television event this tonight at 9. Deutsch NY and TNT will make their last tweet tonight at 8:30, but they’re not giving everything away. To experience the final scene, you’ll have to turn in to TNT tonight at 9 and catch the episode. The cast and crew of the show — including @frankdarabont, @
Tweeting (almost) the entire screenplay of a debut episode is a risky move, but it’s a good way to get people talking about the show before it even airs.“Today, fans are tweeting in real time with their favorite shows, and we wanted to stoke preshow chatter by providing fans with an experience that will invite them in before the show even airs,” explains Kerry Keenan, Deutsch NY’s chief creative officer.
Clearly, TNT is betting that the writing will suck you in and make you want to watch Mob City tonight. Leaving out the final scene is an obvious necessity, as some might wonder why they’d tune in to see a premiere when they know how it ends. I’m curious to see how this plays out, and what kind of effect this social campaign has on Mob City‘s ratings tonight, if any. Head on over to mobscript.com and @MobCityTNT, and let us know your thoughts on this campaign in the comments section. And tune in to TNT tonight at 9 for the show, if you’re interested. Credits after the jump. continued…
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Sam Champion, the weather anchor on TV’s top-rated morning show, will be the host of an upgraded morning program on the all-weather, all-the-time Weather Channel.
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If you were wandering aimlessly around Manhattan last week, you probably saw lampposts with a flier showing a cheap, grainy-looking photo of a spaceship and "take one" pull tabs at the bottom telling you to go to 23rd Street and Broadway to buy a slightly used spaceship.
When you got there, the perceptive among you may have noticed the spaceship, which appeared to have crashed into the ground next to the Flatiron Building, with cartoon characters Rick and Morty from the new Adult Swim show (titled, cleverly, Rick and Morty) hanging around. (Well, actually, they were statues. Morty was still inside, and Rick was on a bench taking a slug from a bottle of XXX.) The installation is pretty impressive—they even mangled some chairs that look like the furniture that sits in the public area around the building and arranged foam bricks that look exactly like chunks of the tan pavement.
The network's campaign for the show has been an elaborate one—there's an ad on Craigslist for the spaceship, too, as well as normal(ish) posters around town. The network also posted the first 22-minute episode of the show, which premieres Monday at 10:30 p.m., on YouTube. You can check it out below, along with the net's time-lapse video of its spaceship assemblage.
And we've got an interview with co-creator Dan Harmon here.
Here's a snippet we had to cut to make the interview fit in the magazine, but is still pretty cool: "It's very much like Doctor Who and Ford Prefect in Hitchhiker's Guide, and Willy Wonka," Harmon said when asked why he liked crazy, antisocial characters like Rick. "They just don't have time to interface with the people around them in a way that makes anybody comfortable. I think the answer over time is that you'll come to believe that he's a real person. I think even by the end of these first 10 episodes, we've figured out that the more hours you log with this guy, he never really jumps the shark in terms of revealing that he loves all the people around him, or crying and saying, 'Oh, it's so hard to be this big a prick,' but you get it, or you get that you don't get it. It made me so excited that this character could possibly live for a long time."
Check out the clip below to see how insane Rick is, or stop by the Flatiron to say hi until the end of today.
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The executives behind “Mob City,” a series on TNT about Los Angeles mobsters in the 1940s, are taking a new approach to promotion by tweeting the first episode’s script.
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Mr. Crouch and his wife were the faces of one of the largest Christian television empires, drawing tens of millions of dollars in donations annually.
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With an eastward push, Jim Delany found yet another cash engine for the football conference he’s led for the past 25 years.
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A 12-year, $4.9 billion deal that gives Rogers Communications the rights to all national hockey telecasts in Canada beginning next season surpasses the league’s agreement with CBC, TSN and a French-language cable network.
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The heavy investment in the production and sale of TV series mirrors changes occurring elsewhere in Hollywood.
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Thinking of frying a turkey this holiday season? Hang on a minute, and listen to what Si and Jase have to say.
State Farm has partnered with the popular stars from Duck Dynasty to caution turkey fryers everywhere to think before they fry. All the important tips are there, along with some country color, a delightfully slow delivery and the hashtag #hangonaminute.
Turkey-related mishaps must be a serious problem for State Farm. Two years ago, they commissioned William Shatner to overact a beautiful four-minute drama about the dangers of open flame, oil, and frozen bird flesh. So be sure to defrost that bird, turn off the gas when you slide her in, and we’ll all stay happy, happy, happy.
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Ms. Browne, who appeared on “Larry King Live” and other shows, said she could speak to the dead and claimed to have helped police find murder suspects and their victims.
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The network has struggled most in the ratings this fall, and it announced five new series as it canceled “Betrayal.”
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Most presidents go through a second-term depression, but Obama's has been particularly dismal. To help out, Saturday Night Live has introduced Paxil Second Term Strength, a depression medication for the narrowest target market imaginable: the president of the United States. Paxil Second Term Strength makes you feel like you're giving a speech on a college campus in 2008 or getting Bin Laden all over again. It's even powerful enough to deal with symptoms from Benghazi to that time Jay-Z and Beyoncé went to Cuba. Not a Democrat? No problem. There's also new Paxil Republican Strength for when you have to answer to Congress or the Koch Brothers. It's not the funniest of SNL, but it's worth a chuckle. It also appears to be some excellent product placement, given that Paxil is a real medication with a registered trademark whose packaging and logo were used in the spot—a fact which should be far from depressing for Paxil's brand managers.
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Ms. Bartiromo, the anchor of CNBC’s “Closing Bell,” will join the Fox Business Network and Fox News next week.
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IFC's upcoming The Spoils of Bablyon, a comedy miniseries that spoofs serious miniseries, is based on a book that seems to be sold out in Hudson News stores around the country. The problem with keeping the book in stock, though, is that there were never any printed copies.
Eric Jonrosh (and the jig will be up when he shows up on TV and looks a lot like Will Ferrell, who produces the series along with the rest of the Funny or Die crew) is the megalomaniacal author of the book, and his persona has become the avatar of IFC's marketing for the show. "[Andrew Steele and Matt Piedmont, who wrote the series] created a character—well, we don't even like to call him a character," head of marketing Blake Callaway tells AdFreak. "We like to pretend he's real. We've written the fake book reviews. He's committed to literacy, because if you can't read, you can't read Jonrosh."
The writer's megalomaniacal streak is borne out in the ambitions of the miniseries, which appears to span a period from the 1930s to the 1980s, if the trailer (see below) is any indication. So IFC has an appropriately grandiose ad campaign, with the book-focused executions littering bookstores and branded Little Free Libraries installed in cities like Dallas and Minneapolis in partnership with that organization.
Callaway says he hopes to entice writers from the blockbuster-ier end of the literary spectrum to turn out for the show's Los Angeles premiere in January. "[James Patterson] is on our wish list," Callaway said. "Our fantasy list is to have Jackie Collins, Patterson, Grisham—we think they should turn out to celebrate their colleague."
Jonrosh has also been hard at work "reviewing" current best-sellers (especially those with movie versions) like Ender's Game—there's a certain amount of subtext to that one—in wildly inappropriate ways. The Wolf of Wall Street and Fifty Shades of Grey have also suffered his attentions.
As for the miniseries itself, Callaway said, "We're going back to the ABC marketing division of the '80s," à la Roots (which is getting a non-hilarious remake, as well). Makes sense: The show has an ensemble cast that includes unlikely names like Tobey Maguire, Val Kilmer and Haley Joel Osment, who's had something of a comeback this year between Spoils and Amazon's Alpha House.
The show, Callaway told AdFreak, will be an anthology series, like another popular cable offering. "This will kind of be our American Horror Story," he said. "Every year, we'll put another Eric Jonrosh novel on the screen." Sounds like a candidate for renewal.
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The network ordered a new season of the cowboy drama — something not necessarily expected when it was switched to Saturday nights.
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This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.