TORONTO – To help advertisers engage more viewers during televised shows, Shaw is unveiling a new promotion this weekend that bypasses the traditional commercial break and makes the ad part of the program’s content.
Viewers watching Showcase’s airing of The Hangover on May 18 at 10 p.m. ET will see the new promotion Shaw is calling “live on screen” integration, which will feature a promotion of Warner Bros upcoming Hangover Part III that’s been seamlessly integrated into scenes of the movie.
Shaw’s director of marketing ventures, Ann-Marie Spurr, likens the ad-in-a-movie integration to a director’s cut of a film, as the promotion begins with a voiceover during a scene of the movie that has no dialogue. “We’re not actually suspending the scene itself,” says Spurr. “People will watch the movie just as they have watched it, except a voiceover is going to come across [the scene]…talking about leading them to Hangover III. At the end of the voiceover there’s going to be a splash of the Hangover III movie poster, and then it’s going to continue with the movie.”
Spurr said Warner Bros provided access to footage of the new Hangover III film to Shaw’s production team, who worked with the film’s production team to create the ad spot.
Two of these “seamless yet interruptive” promotions will appear during the airing of The Hangover on Showcase, and will be supported with more traditional brand messaging, including brand spots and billboards. Shaw hopes the live on screen integration will generate social media chatter about Hangover III’s release.
Integrating promotional spots into content offers advertisers a new way to capture more viewers’ attention, says Spurr. “Even if someone were PVR’ing this movie and playing it back later, they’re not going to skip over this piece, not only because they might not realize it right away because it’s seamless, but because it’s part of the show.”
The promotion is well-suited for a new movie release, Spurr says. “You can put a product placement and integrate something more physical like a bottle of water, a vehicle, or something like that, but to actually integrate a movie into something that is already moving is a challenge. This is a really great way to take an intangible product and weave it into the content.”
While Warner Bros is currently Shaw’s only advertising client signed up for live on screen integration, Spurr says Shaw is promoting this as a premium product to other potential advertisers. She acknowledges, however, that its appeal may have a limited shelf life. “We have to make sure it’s the right time and the right advertiser and the right piece of content, because we don’t want to overload viewers, we don’t want this to become like Pop Up Videos, [where people] start to get used to it, or annoyed by it.”
