Ford Motor Co. will be the exclusive sponsor of the new online television show “Roomates” that debuted Monday on MySpaceTv.com
The company’s new Ford Focus will be featured in some of the 45 three-minute episodes that will air weekdays from now through Dec. 21. The Focus will also appear in online ads placed alongside the episodes.
MySpaceTv is running the scripted series, which follows four 20-something women living in Los Angeles in faux “reality” style, in the hope of recapturing the video-viewing buzz it experienced in the past with series such as “LonelyGirl15” and “Prom Queen”.
Unlike those series, “roommates” will use real-time polling to let viewers direct the course of the show’s action. They can also affect the plot with their online audience chat and with comments posted to the characters’ MySpace Web pages.
Elsewhere on MySpaceTV, the producers of the “LonelyGirl15” series are airing extended episodes of the new second season on Oct. 25 and 26 in an exclusive partnership with the video site. The episodes will also appear in the MySpaceTV viewer on http://www.lonelygirl15.com. The new season will reportedly invite viewers to engage in interactive searches to uncover clues to the plot of the series
The MySpaceTV finale to the first “LonelyGirl15” season, which ran last August, generated 1.4 million views during its first weekend. That first season also offered product placement opportunities for Icebreakers Sours Gum and Neutrogena.
Another Web series produced by the same team, “Kate Modern,” and running on the Bebo social network, launched with branding deals with MSN, Paramount, Procter & Gamble and wireless carrier Orange Mobile, among others.
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