The Tree Frog Blog

Episodic Book Ads for Dean Koontz

Bantam Dell is trying something new with TV advertising for a series of Dean Koontz novels. The ads will feature no product shots, but will instead dive head-first into the interior life of the books' main character, a detective that speaks to the dead. (I can almost hear the meeting: "Hey... that sounds like 'Medium'! Let's make the ads look like a TV show.")

A pretty good idea, if it manages to grab viewers' attention long enough to pique their curiosity. Why it's taken so long for anyone to try this, who knows. But mega best seller Dean Koontz is a pretty safe starting place for a risky experiment like this.

The question then becomes -- how will viewers react when they realize the ad describes a book ("What? We have to READ this? I think I'll just wait for the TBS movie.") and not a new Dick Wolf or Jerry Bruckheimer series?

Here's a link to the books' site.

ABC Gets Lost

A few months ago, the TFB (Tree Frog Blog) wrote about ABC's genius in publishing a book written by one of Oceanic Flight 815's doomed passengers.

They've one-upped themselves, proving in this latest release that "Lost" was a grand experiment from the get-go:  "Lost" is now a worldwide interactive internet game.

ABC is the only television network poised to make the leap from the Old Advertising Model (:30 ads between TV shows) to the New Advertising Model (product placement within an immersive game).  They deserve major kudos for understanding where entertainment is going.

Blogging Veronica Mars

Television's VERONICA MARS held a Blogger Press Conference Day. Now The Frog is waiting for the executive producers of LOST to invite her to Maui for a day, so she can wreak vengeance on the tree frog slaughtering Sawyer...

Cart, Horse... Who Cares What Comes First? Not ABC. And That's a Good Thing.

ABC and the makers of Lost are shaping up to be quite savvy about the future of advertising & marketing.  According to this article, one of the fictional, perished members of the show's doomed Oceanic Flight was a novelist who'd delivered a manuscript just before he died. This manuscript will be found on the island, mentioned in passing, and then published by Hyperion.

The Frog thinks this is brilliant. It's nice to see TV marketing to imagination instead of ego (how many expensive cars do we really need?) and to watch media finally explore, in full, the possibilities and viabilities of effective, creative interactive entertainment.

The success of Lost is reminding the Frog of an A&E special she saw the other night, about a certain movie franchise's having virtually invented modern film/TV merchandising...

It looks like ABC and Lost may be on the brink of a huge windfall. This will be fun to watch.