After Super Bowl Success, a New Local Ad for \'Dunder Mifflin\'

A new technique for gaining attention during the busy Super Bowl advertising season is to do the opposite of spending many millions of dollars to run a commercial nationally during the game: Spend a small sum to run a spot in a handful of local markets, perhaps even in only one such market.

And if the spot is deliberately silly, so much the better to generate discussion, as has been proved by brands like Old Milwaukee beer, which featured the comedian Will Ferrell in oddball commercials that appeared in local markets during the 2012 and 2013 Super Bowls.

Now, another advertiser that was noticed for pursuing that strategy during Super Bowl XLVII on Feb. 3 â€" the Quill.com division of Staples  â€" plans to do it again taking advantage of a different venue for so-called big-event television, the Academy Awards.

Quill.com licenses the name Dunder Mifflin - the make-believe paper company on the sitcom “The Office” - for a real-world line of office products that includes paper, sticky notes and markers.  During the Super Bowl, the company ran a commercial in a single market: Scranton, Pa., where Dunder Mifflin is based on “The Office.”

The spot, created through a crowdsourcing competition overseen by a company named Tongal, spoofed the idea of office workers using office supplies to wage workplace fights. The commercial cost less than $15,000 to run and appeared on WYOU, a station that is the Scranton affiliate of CBS, the network that broadcast Super Bowl XLVII.

“The Super Bowl spot wa! s extremely successful for us,” said Paul Bessinger, director for innovation at Quill.com in Lincolnshire, Ill., “so successful that we wanted to do it again.”

With another big-event TV show, the Academy Awards, coming up, it seemed the perfect follow-up, he added.

The twist this time would be to run a different commercial about an office-products office war - also created through the same Tongal crowdsourcing competition - during the Oscars broadcast in Scranton and in Utica, N.Y., Mr. Bessinger said.

Utica was being added because, on “The Office,” it is the home of a Dunder Mifflin branch office that is an archrival of the Scranton headquarters.

But the commercial was turned down, Mr. Bessinger said, by WNEP, the Scranton affiliate of ABC, the network broadcasting the Oscars on Sunday, on the grounds that it helped promote “The Office,” which is on NBC.

The ABC affiliate in Utica, WUTR, agred to accept the spot, Mr. Bessinger said, and it is scheduled to run there.

Quill.com is cautious about going to the well once too often. “We’re going to look and see” how the commercial does on Sunday, Mr. Bessinger said.

“If it continues to be a successful strategy and enjoyed by the fans, it’s something we’d continue,” he added.

The Quill.com stunt will be amplified online as the new commercial will be available for viewing in social media like YouTube as well as on the quill.com Web site.