Product placement in a television program or movie was once the province of prop managers trading out the possibility of big-screen time for supplemental money or even free product. In a past life, for example, I negotiated Evian’s bit part in “When Harry Met Sally”—for the total cost of supplying the cast and crew with bottled water throughout the shoot.
Today, after years of paying star salaries for the right to have their products be sipped or served on screen, marketers are starting to take the helm by developing their own plotlines and building a story around their brands.
Whether it’s the “American Idol” finalists singing and dancing their way through a Ford music video or the latest class of Apprentices competing to market a new line of Crest, brand integration is everywhere. These shows successfully incorporate their sponsors into the programming without making viewers feel as if they are watching a paid advertisement. Which, of course, they know they are. In reality TV, as in our daily experience, constant interaction with consumer products and brand names is just a part of life. Marketing, in its new clothing, is accepted, even fashionable, when done right. Branded entertainment no longer blurs the line between content and advertising. It removes it.
Recently my company, Grand Central Marketing, took product placement one step further and developed an original entertainment property for our client Meow Mix. Rather than paying our way onto an established program, we created our own show, one that reflected the fun, whimsical nature of the Meow Mix brand.
The Meow Mix House was billed as the world’s first reality show starring cats. Ten homeless felines from shelters across the United States were flown to New York, where they lived together in a custom-built house in midtown Manhattan from June 13 to June 23. The “cat-testants” competed in a series of tongue-in-cheek challenges, including a climb-a-thon and a purring contest, as they vied for a job as “feline vice president of research and development” at Meow Mix. In reality all the cats were winners—after being eliminated from the competition (host Tom Shillue delivered the news by uttering the catchphrase, “You’re meotwa here!”), they were all adopted into permanent homes.
The Meow Mix House included numerous interactive elements to engage consumers, whether they were onsite, online, or ultimately watching on TV. The house, situated in a storefront on Madison Avenue, was open to the public, allowing fans to visit the cats in person and vote for their favorite cats in special ballot boxes set up inside the store. The house averaged 1,000 visitors a day over the 10-day period it was open.
We created a dedicated Website, www.meowmixhouse.com, where people could observe the cats 24 hours a day thanks to Webcams situated throughout the house. People could also go to the Website to read the cats’ bios and blogs, view a photo gallery, and vote for their “pick of the litter.” To date more than 115,000 consumers have voted online, and the Website has received more than 1 million hits. Edited highlights from the house are airing once a week in a series of 10 three-minute episodes on cable network Animal Planet, and each episode includes a call to action for viewers to vote for their favorite cat on the Meow Mix House Website.
The Meow Mix House captured the fancy of cat lovers and the media worldwide. Some of the major media outlets that reported on the story included “Today,” “E! News Daily,” “Inside Edition,” CNN, Fox News Channel, “Newsweek,” “The New York Times,” Associated Press, and Reuters. All told, the program generated more than 150 million media impressions. Even more impressive was the international response from fans. Meow Mix received letters from consumers as far away as Perth, Australia and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. One woman in the Canary Islands even started her own Internet chat room for people to discuss the Meow Mix House cats!
The rules have changed when it comes to branded entertainment. Marketers are no longer restricted to traditional media or satisfied with a place in the background. By creating their own original content or using their brand Websites as de facto television channels, marketers are finding audiences and doing it on their own terms. Now that’s something to meow about!
Matthew Glass is chairman/CEO of Grand Central Marketing, a New York-based event marketing and promotion agency, and pens a monthly column for CHIEF MARKETER.
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