November 30th, 2003
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By Brian Steinberg and Emily Nelson
Wall Street Journal
The ABC television network and a leading media-buying firm have signed an agreement
to develop comedies and dramas together, a move that lets an advertising concern
own stakes in prime-time TV series and paves the way for embedding marketing
messages into programming.
The arrangement allows MindShare North America, a unit of the United Kingdom’s
world-wide advertising conglomerate WPP Group PLC, to have an unusual amount
of influence over story lines and characters at a time when advertisers are
increasingly frustrated with the high price of TV commercials. Some viewers
are using devices such as TiVo to fast-forward past the ads; audiences are also
fragmented by a cornucopia of program choices and are not paying as much attention
to commercials.
For ABC, a unit of Walt Disney Co., a partnership with an ad agency helps defray
the increasingly expensive costs of making scripted shows. MindShare will shoulder
some of the costs of developing shows as well as share in the profits if any
of the series become a hit. The media-services firm will also line up its clients
to advertise on the shows and could promote products and services in the context
of the programs, the companies said. ABC will also keep some commercial time
that it can sell separately.
The ABC-MindShare partnership is reminiscent of television’s early days when
powerful advertisers such as Procter & Gamble Co. had full control over
the content of a single show. Two MindShare clients, Unilever and Sears, Roebuck
& Co., have already expressed interest in the ABC arrangement, says Marc
Goldstein, MindShare North America’s president and chief executive.
The programs will target a broad family audience—the same viewers ABC has
been trying to reach for the past year with comedies like "8 Simple Rules
for Dating My Teenage Daughter" and "Hope & Faith." Five
years ago, a group of advertisers set up the Family Friendly Programming Forum,
which subsequently invested in the development of programs such as "Gilmore
Girls" on the WB Television Network and ABC’s "8 Simple Rules."
Advertisers like such programs because they can attract a wide viewership without
controversy.
While TV networks sell marketers opportunities to weave their products into
reality shows such as CBS’s "Survivor," Fox’s "American Idol"
or NBC’s "The Restaurant," some executives consider prime-time sitcoms
and dramas off-limits. One recent experiment has involved Ford Motor Co., which
in the last two years has sponsored the commercial- free season premiere of
action drama "24" on News Corp.’s Fox. The car maker bracketed the
two episodes with commercials that were several minutes long, and the character
played by the show’s star, Kiefer Sutherland, drives Ford vehicles during the
course of the seasons.
ABC has appeared more open than other networks to including advertisers in
programming. Two years ago, the ABC soap opera "All My Children" wove
Revlon Inc. into its plot after being approached by the cosmetics company.
ABC’s agreement with MindShare is intended to spur more than just putting a
branded can of soda on a character’s kitchen table or a specific car in a TV
family’s garage, notes Peter Tortorici, whom MindShare recently hired as director
of programming.
Mr. Tortorici, a former CBS Entertainment president, is expected to work closely
with ABC and MindShare clients to seek promotional relationships outside traditional
TV ads. As an example, he points to "Gideon’s Crossing," a short-lived
medical drama that ABC introduced in 2000. Johnson & Johnson sponsored the
first episode, which aired commercial-free. The program’s central premise made
it a good match for a health-care and pharmaceuticals concern, Mr. Tortorici
suggests.
The ABC-MindShare agreement comes at a time when there is some resistance to
the increasing use of TV product placement. Commercial Alert, a nonprofit group
co-founded by consumer activist Ralph Nader, has asked the Federal Communications
Commission and the Federal Trade Commission to investigate current product-placement
practices on TV.
Gary Ruskin, the organization’s executive director, believes these arrangements
could transform programs into nothing more than infomercials and are "inherently
deceptive," he says, speaking of the concept in general, not the ABC-MindShare
deal.
MindShare’s Mr. Goldstein says the use of product placement will be "tasteful."
Alex Wallau, president of the ABC Television Network, says product placement
"is not a large part of this play." It will be used "if product
integration makes sense," he says, but "it will not drive the screenwriting,
it will not drive the creative process."
MindShare started talks with ABC about two years ago about sponsoring a movie
on the network, and the talks shifted to the network’s core business—sitcoms
and dramas. Prices for broadcast prime-time commercials have increased while
audiences have fallen, and the deal with ABC locks in ad time for MindShare
clients at a set price.
Initially, MindShare and ABC will look at shows already in development to see
if any fit. MindShare will also partner with studios and pitch shows to the
network.
"It’s going to be a collaboration," says Mr. Wallau. ABC entertainment
executives, not the advertising sales department, engineered the pact, he adds.
ABC could strike additional deals with other media concerns in the future, as
could MindShare with other networks.