And that’s a great conference panel…hmm…

Wonder what advertisers will eventually “value”? They’re slowly giving up on program eyeballs, maybe even commercial eyeballs. They say they want new metrics, but what?

Isn’t this so much fun, watching huge institutional structures writhe in the convulsions of change?

Fantasy project: analyzing relationship of NBC & advertisers in 1928, 1948, 1988, 2008–snapshots of major transitions…Do I hear a conference panel?

Thanks Erin, please keep posting so we can have front row seats to this show!

I’m still thinking about it, obviously, but it’s precisely the combination of apparently-simple-yet-actually-complex that gets me excited about studying the media industries.

I think the interesting thing about this ISM campaign is that it seems to want to offer a little bit of everything–broad-spectrum ads across the conglomerate holdings and also semi-targeted packages (as in the case of NBC’s claim to offer female viewers, as well as environmentally-conscious and/or health-conscious audiences). Whether or not the advertisers will buy it is a completely separate question.

But the most important thing NBC wants to offer, to my mind, is an additional opportunity to create “value-added” options to the media package, like the Turbo Tax sweepstakes, etc. My recent interviews with industry folks have all indicated that the hottest thing going right now are these types of “extras”–think, for example, of the Toyota-sponsored “Bones Blips” on Bones. (Not an NBC show, but you’ll get the idea…here’s an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v8Zcj5v1LY )

Perhaps, when you package crossplatform campaign opportunities WITH inclusion of stars WITH value-added extras, the ISM will prove irresistible to ad buyers. Or perhaps advertisers will roll their eyes and move elsewhere. Only time will tell, but it’s an interesting strategy!

The ins & outs of the contracting ultimately come down to an issue of licensing arrangements/agreements. In the instance of using the Chuck stars, for example, NBC would have to pay WB Productions (who produces the series) a licensing fee for the use of their stars, since the promotions benefit both NBC (Olympics) and Honda, but aired during Chuck, and thus are not really promotions for Chuck. Rather, NBC & Honda are hoping to capitalize on the existing Chuck audience by using the already-beloved stars as shills for the ad.

In the case of stars of shows produced by NBC, my guess would be that such licensing fees would be waived in the interest of suiting the greater good, though I have no proof of that.

As for the conspicuous absence of “bigger” stars (as in Zachary Levi, as you note, or even Joel McHale in the Community-borrowing ad above), I honestly am not sure. My guess would be that the bigger stars have tighter contracts and/or higher fees for this kind of thing. I’ll have to nose around and see what kind of answers I can produce.

By the way, about ten years ago didn’t Viacom trumpet a big crossplatform media selling program that fizzled? Sometime after that the word “synergy” lost its luster. The benefits of conglomeration have always been more obvious to the conglomerates selling the media space/time than to the advertisers buying the media. I would argue that advertisers today won’t be any more interested in crossplatforming within one conglomerate than they were ten years ago. Advertisers’ audiences are everywhere and are not easily captured by one conglomerate. Any cost efficiencies from a multiplatform buy at NBCU may be penny wise but pound foolish!

I’d love to hear more about the contract work here, though — is this being classified as promotional, and hence required of all NBC actors? Do the actors get standard ad royalties added onto their pay through doing this? And why are we seeing Gomez in the ads, but not Zachary Levi or Yvonne Strahovski? Do they have some contractual immunity to this, or is NBC simply being wise (a rare move for them these days!) by experimenting with their supporting cast so that if viewers revolt their stars’ images don’t suffer? Any sense of the answers, Erin?