Archive for October 6th, 2008

By iTVX Staff

Honda is now the official vehicle of the National Hockey League thanks to a three-year deal that the two parties have reached. The deal will include Honda advertisements on NHL.com and during game telecasts on botbh Versus and NBC. According to Mediaweek, you can also expect signage at game locations and displays at Honda events.  The new deal integrates Honda with each NHL team and the organization’s media partners.

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By iTVX Staff

Not sure how long Hulu has had the “Lika it, dislike it” option for its ads (probably since its inception) but I’m not sure how effective it is. In the case of Pandora, for example, they have a create your own station where if you don’t like a song, you can skip to the next one (you’re limited to do that per hour though). In that case, it seems logical, but in terms of Hulu who is legitimately going to tell you outright that they like a specific commercial. Furthemore, let’s say they dislike it - it’s not like they can skip ahead.

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Under the guidance of a former Procter & Gamble brand manager, the Tampa Bay Rays have gone through the sort of transformation typical of deodorant sticks and shaving razors.

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re you tired of watching TV shows online with virtually no ads? Well good news! Due to the lack of inventory of shows users want to view on the Web, not to mention the cost of streaming such shows live, networks and distributors are considering breaking the “no more than one commercial per break” rule for TV programs shown online.

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By iTVX Staff

While not as hardcore in terms of last week’s YouTube product placement, the second 1/2 hour of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia had a fairly good Clue/Connect 4 namedrop integrated in the show, but again, Coors Light product placement stood out most for me - in the episode’s final scene Charlie and Dennis enjoy the beer brand as Mac does his latest “Project Bad–s” stunt off a roof. Very casual placement - seamless. Not quite as significant, however, as the premiere this season. The episode Manhunters, features non-stop Coors Light placement from Dennis and Mac stakeing out Cricket outside drinking Coors Light in camouflage to the duo just minutes before unpacking a box with the name emblazoned across it . It’s also cool how the producers use fake beer insignias on bottles that look like Heinkken and Amstel Light but keep the real Coors front and center.

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Unless you work with advanced computer gear, you’ve probably never seen the data storage systems built by EMC Corp. of Hopkinton But if you look closely, you can see them at the local cinema. The new Shia LaBoeuf thriller “Eagle Eye” features a command center stuffed with EMC hardware. Next week, EMC gear will appear in another big-ticket suspense film, “Body of Lies.” It’s part of a campaign by the technology company to raise the visibility of its high-powered, but low-profile, products.

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IAC’s InstantAction.com, a Web-based gaming platform aimed at the hardcore gamer audience, which typically gravitates to Xboxes and PC games, has garnered 800,000 registered users since its March launch — and is set to widen its potential audience by launching a version developed specifically for a less saturated gaming platform: the Mac.

Created by GarageGames, in which IAC acquired a majority stake last year, InstantAction employs a technology platform that reproduces the elaborate graphics and multiplayer functionality common to console or PC games along the lines of World of Warcraft or Halo. Read the rest of this entry »

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By iTVX Staff

In a kinda/sorta creepy subplot in last night’s Desperate Housewives, Lynette engaged in a social networking chat with her son under an alias. The said social network was fake, but Lynette did namedrop how it compared to MySpace. Not sure that product placement benefitted the real social network. The plot was really weird and kind of Oedipus for our taste.

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In an abrupt reversal Monday, the management of London-based market research firm TNS waved the white flag and recommended that shareholders who hadn’t already done so accept the WPP offer to buy them out.

Word of the TNS board’s capitulation comes just three days after WPP reported that shareholders accounting for nearly two-thirds of TNS shares had agreed to accept the WPP offer, which values TNS at nearly $2.2 billion.

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Tina Fey’s 30 Rock is perhaps the most critically-acclaimed show on network television (and about network television), an arch meta-comedy about the production of a fake sketch comedy. But maybe the show’s writers are too good at their jobs — and too willing to please NBC executives on whose whims the ratings-challenged comedy will live or die. New York talked to a variety of industry players about the clever way 30 Rock integrates paid product placements from the likes of Verizon, Snapple and women’s beverage SoyJoy. Some, like Oz creator Read the rest of this entry »

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