Advertising: An Early Start on Promoting a Mini-Series Spoof Set for January

An Early Start on Promoting a Mini-Series Spoof Set for January

AS viewers are inundated with promotions for the new fall television series, which start appearing next week, the IFC cable channel is beginning to beat the drum for a show that does not make its debut until January.

The ad campaign for “The Spoils of Babylon,” a parody of television mini-series of the 1970s and ’80s, includes a make-believe novel by Eric Jonrosh, a pseudo-author portrayed by Will Ferrell.

The campaign also features a movie-style trailer.

The show, “The Spoils of Babylon,” is a six-part series on IFC about a wealthy oil family that will spoof, in over-the-top fashion, the mini-series like “Roots” and “The Winds of War” that were mainstays of the broadcast networks in the 1970s and 1980s. The first commercial meant to whet appetites for “The Spoils of Babylon” is planned to begin running on Friday, the start of a three-month campaign with a budget estimated at more than $3 million.

The promotional effort for “The Spoils of Babylon” will include, in addition to commercials on IFC, commercials on other cable channels and in movie theaters; ads in magazines like Entertainment Weekly and The New Yorker; and ads on Web sites like The Huffington Post, The Onion and Vulture.

The Taco Bell division of Yum Brands, a major sponsor of “The Spoils of Babylon,” will be involved in the campaign, in ways that are still being determined. The sponsorship may have a content marketing aspect â€" that is, weaving Taco Bell into the plot of the show â€" as well as Taco Bell buying conventional commercials during the show.

Some unconventional tactics will be used to publicize “The Spoils of Babylon,” which IFC is producing with Funny or Die, known for its creation of comic content for Web sites and television. For instance, there will be displays in Hudson News stores for a book, also titled “The Spoils of Babylon,” on which the show is supposedly based.

But a central jest of the campaign is that the book does not exist, nor does its putative author, Eric Jonrosh; savvy viewers will probably figure that out when they see the comedian Will Ferrell â€" a partner in Funny or Die â€" as Mr. Jonrosh. So the displays at Hudson News, which will proclaim that the novel is “now an epic television event on IFC,” will always be empty, as if the book is continuously sold out.

The campaign also will have a cause marketing aspect in partnership with Little Free Library, an organization that promotes literacy; the joke is that literacy is Mr. Jonrosh’s pet cause because he wants everyone to be able to read his masterpieces. IFC will help the organization place small “pop-up” libraries, stocked with free (real) books, around New York.

The campaign is being created internally at IFC with help from Funny or Die. Fallon in Minneapolis, part of the Publicis Groupe, handles the media planning.

The campaign is another example of how media and entertainment companies that sell commercial time and advertising space are increasingly becoming buyers, too.

“The Spoils of Babylon” is part of a programming strategy at IFC that seeks to establish a new identity for the channel, which is part of AMC Networks. Once a niche choice for viewers seeking movies outside the Hollywood mainstream â€" IFC stands for Independent Film Channel â€" IFC now wants to be known for original comedy content.

“This show continues IFC down the path of alternative and what we like to call ‘slightly off’ comedies,” said Jennifer Caserta, president and general manager at IFC, quoting the channel’s marketing theme, which is “Always on. Slightly off.”

“The concept and the sensibility of this project are a perfect match,” Ms. Caserta said, for IFC series like “Comedy Bang! Bang!,” “Maron” and “Portlandia.”

Juliet Corsinita, senior director for media and brand sponsorships at Taco Bell, said it was the “new original programming” at IFC “that piqued our interest” and led the company to become an advertiser on the channel for the first time.

“It sounds like the show is going to be a lot of fun,” she added. “Apparently, Mr. Jonrosh really loves Taco Bell.”

At Funny or Die, “The Spoils of Babylon” was written by Andrew Steele, also a producer of the show, and Matt Piedmont, the director. “We were both children in the ’70s and remember ‘Roots,’ ‘The Winds of War,’ ‘The Thorn Birds,’ ‘Shogun,’ and how they were staples on television,” said Mr. Steele, the creative director at Funny or Die.

“It was a time there were only three networks,” he added. “We watched a lot of stuff we probably wouldn’t watch today.”

Although the campaign is straight-faced, those involved with “The Spoils of Babylon” are confident the potential audience will realize it is a lampoon.

“We try not to point to the joke,” said Blake Callaway, senior vice president for marketing at IFC. Still, viewers should be able to figure it out from elements like “the overproduction” of the commercials, he added, and overheated descriptions of Mr. Jonrosh as “the undisputed master of dramatic fiction.”

On the other hand, a recent ad for an actual novel, “Winter of the World,” by an actual author, Ken Follett, called it “the tale of the century from the master of historical fiction.”