Now that the fall television season has officially kicked off, it’s worth visiting this year’s slate of shows to see what lingering affects there are from the recent writer’s strike.  In many ways, this is a season of proving one’s self, as we find numerous shows returning from strong freshman debuts who are desperate to reclaim what momentum they had prior to the strike.

It’s safe to say the 2007-2008 television season was an unusual one.  The strike caused a work-stoppage that rushed season finales and left many shows (particularly those with serial narratives) in the lurch.  It’s also a safe assumption that heavyweights like “Lost” and “24” will come back in early 2009 at comfortable ratings levels despite the interruption to their respective narratives – both shows have tinkered before with their schedules and have not suffered greatly for it, thanks to their strong fan bases.  But other shows are facing riskier futures, as they had barely had time to establish themselves before being unceremoniously yanked from the small screen.

Look at three of these shows returning for their sophomore seasons: “Life”, “Private Practice”, and “Pushing Daisies”.  At first glance, these shows should see success, for a variety of reasons.  “Life” is a procedural police drama on NBC, which always seems a relatively simple formula of success.  “Practice” is a spin-off from ABC’s incredibly successful show “Grey’s Anatomy”.  And “Daisies” is a quirky ABC show that quickly found a receptive audience for its offbeat yet likeable characters.  Aside from the fact that all three are well-positioned on strong networks, these shows share something else in common: they’ve all been off the air since 2007.  That’s a long time away, yet all three are hoping to pick up where they left off.  Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done.  The fear is that audiences have forgotten these shows and their characters, and they’ll have a hard time reconnecting as a result.  And that’s what ABC and NBC are hoping to counter, with strong advertising and a gradual reintroduction to the lineups.

Television executives are looking for a return to normalcy with popular shows as well, which will also have to reassert themselves with audiences.  And new shows are coming down the line (some retooled, like the newer version of “Life on Mars”, or remakes, like the new “Knight Rider”).  Networks are understandably cautious about green-lighting new shows (ABC had only one new scripted show this fall), and are finding new ways to deal with the changing landscape.  Many are unveiling new shows or episodes in the summer (such as TNT’s “The Closer”, or USA’s “In Plain Sight”), betting that audiences who are used to repeats will be more likely to embrace new fare.

In the end, all it’ll take is one hit show to make a network forget the hassles and uncertainty caused by the writer’s strike.  And so long as they can avoid an actor’s strike, all should be close to normal by the time February sweep’s week rolls around.

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As we mentioned in part I, good product placement is based on a few simple tenets: keep it subtle, make the product look enticing, and create a lasting image.  Sometimes, however, you simply can’t be subtle, especially with certain products (or films, or television shows, etc.).  Paid branding in movies and TV shows rose to $1 billion in 2004; those kinds of figures can cause some business owners to salivate, and lose themselves in the idea of “more is better”.  But as we saw in the films named in the last posting, if you’re not careful, you can actually alienate the audience you’re trying to lure in.  That’s where advertisers need to think outside the box, to bring in the next-level dose of “cool”, so to speak.

One of the first to do so was BMW, a company that has often sought to reinvent itself with respect to advertising.  The minds behind BMW’s ad campaigns understand that they have a distinctly known product — consumers know to expect quality and efficiency with their cars, SUV’s, and motorcycles.  And yet for BMW, this was not enough.  That was why they pushed the creators of the Pierce Brosnan “007” films to switch James Bond’s gadget-filled car, from Aston Martin to BMW. 

With the short film series “The Hire”, however, the company went even further.  In a collection of unrelated short films, there were two constants: BMW, and the man who drove them, Clive Owen (known only as The Driver).  In an ingenious move, the marketers approached numerous successful directors at the time, and had them structure short films around his character – a mysterious man for hire, who drove BMW sedans and SUVs with amazing skill.  Not only did it highlight the power and beauty of BMW’s cars, it also showed just how cool they could operate under pressure (and gunfire, and oil spills, and car accidents).  Rather than wait for some filmmaker to come along and showcase this, BMW chose to do it themselves, and the results were phenomenal.  Beyond what any mere commercial could do, these short films turned the cars themselves into characters.

There’s one final example of product placement worth looking at, and that’s on the Sci-Fi channel original series “Eureka”.  The product is Degree antiperspirant, and the genesis of the branding in this instance is simple: the show is about a town called Eureka, which is chocked full of genius inventors and scientists.  One of the products they’ve supposedly created is an antiperspirant that is incredibly powerful against wetness and odor.  This, of course, is what eventually becomes the formula for Degree.  Seems simple enough, however the advertisers have taken this premise a step further: rather than merely showing the product in various scenes, they’ve actually shown it being created.  In two episodes so far, the product has been an integral part of the show’s storyline (in a not-so-tongue in cheek admission that the town of “Eureka” needs the sponsorship dollars).  In addition to the placement, the advertisers also run “Infomercials” during the ad time, that show various products created in Eureka.  The first of these miracle products is, of course, Degree antiperspirant.  All in all, a very clever way of pushing a product; the only problem is that, despite the crossover, these two episodes were simply inundated with all things Degree, and it became obvious and a little tiresome.

Such is the state of advertising these days.  Branding will continue, in newer and better (and sometimes worse) ways.

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