Further complicating the conundrum of branded television content, ABC – in partnership with Diet Dr Pepper – aired a round of “promercials” on January 5th that garnered the attention of both viewers and critics. In essence, a promercial integrates TV episode promotions with product commercials, and calls viewers’ attention to subsequent product placement within the episode. For example, from NY Times Media Decoder:
The promercials started out like typical network tune-in promotions for “Cougar Town,” outlining plot points of the episode. Then an announcer said that “Cougar Town” was “unbelievably satisfying, like Diet Dr Pepper.”
What does the promercial accomplish? This piece in Time argues that alerting viewers to upcoming product placement might actually make the placement more effective. Does it also make the product placement more honest? Would you respond to this kind of advertising?
Liz White has 15 post(s) on Sneak Adtack