Bravo Discusses Mixing Advertising With Its Shows

Charles Sykes/Bravo, via NBCU Photo Bank Anderson Davis, star of a new advertising campaign for Kraft dressings, appeared as the guest bartender on the Monday night episode of “Watch What Happens Live” with Andy Cohen on Bravo, an example of the network’s new focus on branded-entertainment deals.

Anderson Davis is not among the stars of Bravo series that the channel likes to call “Bravolebrities.” Nonetheless, he was treated like one on Monday night during an episode of “Watch What Happens Live”: he served as the bartender; joked with the host, Andy Cohen; and even took off his shirt to reveal a toned upper body that would not be out of place on one of Bravo’s “Real Housewives” shows.

Mr. Davis is an actor and model hired by the Kraft Foods Group and its advertising agency, TBWA/Chiat/Day Los Angeles, to play a character named the Zesty Guy in a new humorous campaign for Kraft dressings. As part of a sponsorship deal with Bravo, Mr. Davis appeared on “Watch What Happens Live” as well as in commercials that ran during the show and during other series on Bravo earlier on Monday night.

Such sponsorship agreements â€" known as branded entertainment, content marketing and native advertising â€" are becoming common on Bravo, part of the NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment division of NBCUniversal. And as the channel plans its programming lineup for 2013-14 during what is called the upfront season, more sponsorships that integrate advertising into shows are planned.

Bravo was one of three cable channels that made upfront presentations in New York on Tuesday. It was a coincidence that the other two, Aspire and Up, also had inspirational, affirmative names. (Or was it part of a pattern After all, upfront presentations are intended to persuade marketers and agencies to consider buying commercial time.)

“We do like what we’re seeing and hearing from our advertiser partners,” Dan Lovinger, executive vice president for cable ad sales at NBCUniversal, said in an interview after the Bravo presentation. “Content development is exciting to a lot of brands,” he added, “because they’re trying to find ways to populate social media sites and do social media outreach.”

Content marketing deals “require a lot of commitment from both sides,” Mr. Lovinger said, because of the additional work needed to integrate brands or products into shows in ways “that make sense.”

“What’s most important is that the content flows, and makes sense, for the viewer,” he said, “helping to tell the story of the episode.”

Asked if it was easier to incorporate products or brands into Bravo shows because they are unscripted, Mr. Lovinger said it was, adding that the shows benefited from “dealing with a passion” among viewers like food or fashion.

As a result, he said, “we typically know whether a brand would resonate with a viewer” if it was to be interwoven into the plot of an episode of a show.

For the 2013-14 season, according to Bravo executives at the presentations â€" including Mr. Cohen, who is also the channel’s executive vice president for development and talent â€" Bravo intends to increase significantly the amount of original programming being offered viewers, joining many other channels in beefing up their schedules to generate higher ratings from viewers and ad revenue from marketers.

There will be 15 percent more original programming on the channel in the coming season than there has been during the 2012-13 season. Last year, Mr. Lovinger said, Bravo added 126 new marketers to its list of advertisers on cable and 34 new marketers to its list of advertisers online at bravotv.com.

Bravo is adding 17 series to its lineup, all in the unscripted or reality genre, joining 18 unscripted series that will return for the coming season. There are three additional unscripted series that are in development.

Of the new and potential unscripted shows at Bravo, there were plenty of larger-than-life real people who appeared to be candidates for Bravolebrity status. Among the clips that were shown during the presentation were residents of Charleston, S.C., who display, as one put it, “a certain high regard to leisure”; a divorce mediator; parents who follow “extreme” styles of raising their children; and residents of Long Island who go by the nickname “princesses.”

Also in development, said Jerry Leo, executive vice president for program strategy and production, are three scripted series; one of them, called “High and Low,” is set during the 1980s. A pilot for a fourth possible scripted series â€" a drama, “Rita,” featuring Anna Gunn of the AMC series “Breaking Bad” â€" is to be filmed next week.

Bravo plans an upfront party on Wednesday night for Madison Avenue that will include as guests more than 75 Bravolebrities, said Frances Berwick, president of the Bravo and Style Media division of NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment.

In addition to Mr. Cohen, they will include Jeff Lewis, a star of two Bravo series, “Flipping Out” and “Interior Therapy With Jeff Lewis.” Mr. Lewis was also on hand at the presentation on Tuesday morning, introducing Ms. Berwick and taking pokes at two stars from the “Real Housewives” franchise, Adrienne Maloof and Jill Zarin.

The two other cable channels that presented on Monday night, Aspire and Up (known until June 1 as GMC TV, and previously the Gospel Music Channel), do not plan an upfront party.

Instead, executives are in New York through Thursday to meet with agency executives and reporters on an Upfront Bus, which is decorated with the two channels’ logos and stars of their shows.

On Tuesday, the bus was parked on 40th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, next to Bryant Park. The next stops for the bus include Cincinnati, Detroit, Minneapolis and St. Louis.

For 2013-14, Up and Aspire plan to add unscripted reality series to their schedules. The programs will have an uplifting, family-friendly vibe decidedly different from the frank, adult attitude of the unscripted fare on Bravo.

The unscripted reality genre “doesn’t have to be salacious, doesn’t have to be a freak show, doesn’t have to be a train wreck,” said Brad Siegel, vice chairman at Aspire and Up.

There are two unscripted series planned for Up. One is “Family Addition With Leigh Anne Tuohy,” the woman who was played by Sandra Bullock in the film “The Blind Side.” It will focus on helping expand the homes of families who are adopting foster children.

The other new unscripted series on Up will be “Bulloch Family Ranch,” about a family in Florida that offers troubled teenagers what is described as a “last second chance.”

Aspire has an unscripted series planned for 2013-14 titled “U.N.C.F.: The Next Generation,” about students assisted by the United Negro College Fund.

Like Bravo, Up and Aspire are expecting to sign additional content marketing deals with advertisers, said Mr. Siegel and Mary Jeanne Cavanagh, executive vice president for advertising sales at the channels.

For instance, they played a clip from “Bulloch Family Ranch” in which Rusty Bulloch delivers some nice words about a sponsor, Angel Soft bathroom tissue.

The busy week for upfront presentations continues on Wednesday with a presentation by the Weather Company, owner of the Weather Channel. On Thursday, Discovery Communications will host its presentation.

Those scheduled for next week include GSN, IFC and Syfy.

Stuart Elliott has been the advertising columnist at The New York Times since 1991. Follow @stuartenyt on Twitter and sign up for In Advertising, his weekly e-mail newsletter.

Colorado Looks to Its Own People to Burnish Its Image

Colorado is taking a nontraditional approach to the usual efforts of creating ads that are meant to help burnish the brand image of a state. With an initiative â€" Making Colorado â€" to be announced on Tuesday, the state will ask its residents for advice that will shape the development of a campaign that is to be introduced in August.

And rather than hiring an advertising agency to create the campaign, the state will rely on a team of 10 to 12 professional copywriters, graphic designers and creative technologists who are Colorado residents. Those team members will be selected by Dave Schiff, a founder of Made Movement, an agency in Boulder that specializes in work for companies that sell American-made products.

Acting as a kind of overseer for the initiative will be Alex Bogusky, a resident of Boulder who became famous as the wunderkind creative leader of the Crispin Porter & Bogusky advertising agency â€" and notorious after he left the industry in 2010 and began speaking out against the way products like fast food and soft drinks are marketed.

Information about Making Colorado will be available on a Web site, makingcolorado.gov, which is to go live on Tuesday. The initiative is the brainchild of Aaron Kennedy, who was appointed last year as the state’s first chief marketing officer by Gov. John Hickenlooper.

“The idea we have is to create a unifying brand identity” for the state, Mr. Kennedy said, “a clear and concise statement of what Colorado stands for” that would be separate from campaigns that seek to encourage tourism or business development.

The initiative may or may not “end up with a slogan,” he added, or perhaps may produce “a graphic identity that could tie together all the messaging from the State of Colorado.”

The plans for Making Colorado call for residents of the state to be asked on the Web site to critique the work of the ad professionals who are chosen by Mr. Schiff. First up: asking for answers to the question “What makes Colorado Colorado”

There will also be elements to the effort that include a committee called the Making Colorado Brand Council, to be composed of senior managers like chief executives and chief marketing officers from leading state businesses, and a committee called the Making Colorado Youth Advisory Council, composed of high school seniors from each of the state’s 64 counties.

Mr. Bogusky, in an e-mail, wrote that he became involved “because the governor and I got to be friends when he was the mayor of Denver.”

Governor Hickenlooper “doesn’t do anything without talking to people first,” Mr. Bogusky said. “A lot of people!”

The initiative “draws on the strength of the passionate population” of the state, he added, “and the incredible pool of professional marketing talent to build Colorado’s branding from the ground up.”

“We think Colorado is a state on the leading edge,” Mr. Bogusky concluded, “and we want this campaign to be the first and best example of how you promote your state in the 21st century.”

Mr. Kennedy, the state’s chief marketing officer, worked for brands like Oscar Mayer and Pepsi-Cola before founding a restaurant chain, Noodles & Company, which is now based in Broomfield, Colo., and controlled by Catterton Partners.

Mr. Kennedy said he hoped the initiative would generate ideas about expressing Colorado’s identity beyond familiar images like “mountains and ski resorts.”

For instance, he described how Colorado is a state with “a young, healthy population” that has been enjoying job growth.

Another goal is to avoid having the state “identified by headlines in the news,” Mr. Kennedy said, alluding to the movie theater shootings in July 2012 in Aurora.

The elaborate schedule for Making Colorado ends on Aug. 29, with the planned introduction of the initiative’s handiwork by Governor Hickenlooper in a conference in Denver called the Colorado Innovation Network Summit.

Mr. Kennedy estimated the budget for the initiative at just under $1 million.

Stuart Elliott has been the advertising columnist at The New York Times since 1991. Follow @stuartenyt on Twitter and sign up for In Advertising, his weekly e-mail newsletter.

NBCUniversal Ad Campaign Bolsters Its ‘Upfront’ Presentations

Just as April showers are supposed to bring May flowers, the many “upfront” presentations scheduled this month â€" wooing marketers and agencies before the start of the 2013-14 television season â€" are bringing complementary advertising efforts intended to reinforce those pitches.

For instance, the FX cable channel has started running ads, which include signs on New York streets, which carry the theme “Fearless.” The campaign is meant to reinforce the FX brand identity as a risk-taking channel, as evidenced by series like “Louie,” “Justified” and “Sons of Anarchy.”

And this week, the NBCUniversal division of Comcast will introduce a trade campaign that carries the theme “Content. Consumers. Collaboration. Amplified.” The campaign, with a budget estimated at $1 million, is intended to convey that NBCUniversal offers marketers and agencies a broad, diverse collection of networks, channels and Web sites on which to run ads - more than just a network, NBC, which has ratings problems in prime time and personnel problems in its morning and late-night slots.

Each ad will offer its own, modified version of “Amplified,” as in “Digital. Amplified,” “Comedy. Amplified,” “Social. Amplified” and “Journalism. Amplified.” There will also be an online presence for the campaign, at amplified.nbcuni.com, as well as print ads that use augmented reality, through a free app, Aurasma, to present short video clips.

The “Amplified” campaign is being created internally at NBCUniversal, by its integrated media group division. An agency named All Day Every Day, with offices in New York and Los Angeles, is working on the elements at amplified.nbcuni.com.

The goal is to promote “the power of our portfolio” and “our storytelling capabilities” for marketers, said Linda Yaccarino, president for advertising sales at NBCUniversal.

Asked if the campaign is being mounted now to help promote NBC, Ms. Yaccarino said it was being introduced because it was an “important time of year,” referring to the upfronts.

John Shea, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for integrated media at NBCUniversal, said, “The important thing we want our clients to know as we go into the upfront, and beyond, is that we’re able to work with them as one seamless portfolio.”

Several NBCUniversal cable channels like Oxygen have already made their upfront presentations, while others, including Bravo, E! and Syfy, will host them this week and next.

NBCUniversal also plans a companywide digital presentation-cum-party in New York on April 24, before the week of so-called Digital Content NewFronts begins the following week.

The print ads are scheduled to start appearing on Wednesday, in publications that include The Hollywood Reporter, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. There will be online ads as well, on cynopsis.com and mediapost.com.

Stuart Elliott has been the advertising columnist at The New York Times since 1991. Follow @stuartenyt on Twitter and sign up for In Advertising, his weekly e-mail newsletter.

NBCUniversal Ad Campaign Bolsters Its ‘Upfront’ Presentations

Just as April showers are supposed to bring May flowers, the many “upfront” presentations scheduled this month â€" wooing marketers and agencies before the start of the 2013-14 television season â€" are bringing complementary advertising efforts intended to reinforce those pitches.

For instance, the FX cable channel has started running ads, which include signs on New York streets, which carry the theme “Fearless.” The campaign is meant to reinforce the FX brand identity as a risk-taking channel, as evidenced by series like “Louie,” “Justified” and “Sons of Anarchy.”

And this week, the NBCUniversal division of Comcast will introduce a trade campaign that carries the theme “Content. Consumers. Collaboration. Amplified.” The campaign, with a budget estimated at $1 million, is intended to convey that NBCUniversal offers marketers and agencies a broad, diverse collection of networks, channels and Web sites on which to run ads - more than just a network, NBC, which has ratings problems in prime time and personnel problems in its morning and late-night slots.

Each ad will offer its own, modified version of “Amplified,” as in “Digital. Amplified,” “Comedy. Amplified,” “Social. Amplified” and “Journalism. Amplified.” There will also be an online presence for the campaign, at amplified.nbcuni.com, as well as print ads that use augmented reality, through a free app, Aurasma, to present short video clips.

The “Amplified” campaign is being created internally at NBCUniversal, by its integrated media group division. An agency named All Day Every Day, with offices in New York and Los Angeles, is working on the elements at amplified.nbcuni.com.

The goal is to promote “the power of our portfolio” and “our storytelling capabilities” for marketers, said Linda Yaccarino, president for advertising sales at NBCUniversal.

Asked if the campaign is being mounted now to help promote NBC, Ms. Yaccarino said it was being introduced because it was an “important time of year,” referring to the upfronts.

John Shea, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for integrated media at NBCUniversal, said, “The important thing we want our clients to know as we go into the upfront, and beyond, is that we’re able to work with them as one seamless portfolio.”

Several NBCUniversal cable channels like Oxygen have already made their upfront presentations, while others, including Bravo, E! and Syfy, will host them this week and next.

NBCUniversal also plans a companywide digital presentation-cum-party in New York on April 24, before the week of so-called Digital Content NewFronts begins the following week.

The print ads are scheduled to start appearing on Wednesday, in publications that include The Hollywood Reporter, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. There will be online ads as well, on cynopsis.com and mediapost.com.

Stuart Elliott has been the advertising columnist at The New York Times since 1991. Follow @stuartenyt on Twitter and sign up for In Advertising, his weekly e-mail newsletter.