Chuck Fans Go Subway To Save Show

A few weeks ago there was what appeared to be some mild uproar about an especially blatant product placement in an episode of NBC’s “Chuck,” in which not only were Subway subs featured, but someone on the show actually spoke the brand’s current tagline.

Many asked if this was going to far and if it was a sign of TV being destroyed by advertising.  They wondered if fans would stand for it!

Turns out, not only will fans stand for it, but if it will save their show from being canceled they’ll embrace it:

Chuck diehards are organizing a campaign to buy Subway sandwiches on the night of the show’s season finale next week in an attempt to influence NBC via one of the show’s main sponsors.

Got that? Fans clearly don’t mind product placement done reasonably well and anyone who blames a show’s failure on branded content elements should probably look at the writers and directors before blaming the products.

This weird “church and state” notion of original content and advertising is out-dated and instead of fighting the integration, the smart people are out there looking at how to maximize value of content to both the viewer and the brand sponsor.

LINK

Branded Content a Hit on YouTube

According to PaidContent:

12 percent of the top 100 videos, including ones featuring Mercedes-Benz and Microsoft’s Halo, were branded promotional videos.

This is a good sign for those hoping to use branded content as a advertising delivery vehicle though one has to wonder how much of the success of these videos was due to YouTube either deciding to or being paid to feature those ads on their frontpage.

As I have personally experienced, a frontpage feature on YouTube is good for at least 500,000 views in a week.

However, it does look like audiences are perfectly content to watch branded content as long as the entertainment value is authentic.  Where most brands fail is when they sacrifice entertainment in the name of message.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Ad performance on content sites vs other types of sites (yieldbuild.com)
• Huge: Fastest Growing Site is Break, Young Men’s Video Network (beet.tv)