For 'Gossip Girl,' Modesty Is So Last Season

 

Brian Steinberg

Advertising Age
April 11, 2008

 

 

Gossip Girl is produced by Alloy Entertainment, a division of Alloy Marketing and Media. Alloy owns Channel One, the controversial in-school marketing program.

 

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- What to do when you really need to get attention in a blogosphere world? Rely on sex and just a whiff of profanity, of course. "Gossip Girl," despite lackluster ratings, is still the flagship program of The CW. As such, the fledgling broadcast network really needs to succeed in tempting viewers back to watch the first new episodes of the salacious teen drama since the writers strike.

The actual meaning of OMFG will no doubt be quite clear to the true 'Gossip Girl' fan.

Ads, online video promotions and outdoor billboards will feature Serena, Nate and other characters from the program locked in passionate embraces, with the text message "OMFG" superimposed on top. The initials might stand for "oh my frickin' goodness," suggested Rick Haskins, CW's exec VP-marketing, though the actual meaning will no doubt be quite clear to the true "Gossip Girl" fan.

The show, which returns to the air April 21, has not had an original episode air since Jan. 9, due to the writers strike. The strike has proved to be especially hard on shows that rely on a continuous storyline to pull the audience back week after week. So the goal is to spark more interest from people who might tune in -- viewers between the ages of 18 and 34.

The network is "using the vernacular that they use on [text messages] all the time when they are talking with everybody," Mr. Haskins said. "That's kind of what we like about this. We really are speaking the way our audience speaks."

Discreet when necessary

Not in all cases. In some instances, the "F" will be removed from the ads, which may just read "OMG" or use an emoticon that signifies the same thing. The letter and what it stands for isn't appropriate for some weekly magazines and even the CW's own air. The F will have a stronger appearance on cable and online.

Sparking chatter about "Gossip Girl" is a crucial task for CW, which has had few breakout hits this season and finds one of its other popular shows, "America's Next Top Model," growing long in the tooth. "Gossip Girl" brought in $28.2 million in ad dollars 2007, according to TNS Media Intelligence, attracting such marketers as Procter & Gamble, L'Oreal, Target and Johnson & Johnson.

Ratings for the show's original episodes have slipped since it first debuted Sept. 19, according to Nielsen. The premiere episode notched about 3.5 million live or same-day viewers. But the last original episode only secured about 2.3 million, and the program's audience dipped as low as around 1.8 million on Dec. 19.

Intractable youth

Media buyers see "Gossip Girl" as a viable avenue to reach younger consumers, who are often hardest to reach and yet most influential. At the same time, the program's ratings are cause for concern, said David Scardino, entertainment specialist at independent agency RPA. "It doesn't seem to have gained any real traction" in the ratings, he said, though the network has boasted of the reach "Gossip Girl" has online and in other digital means. "I would hope they stay with it. Any time you get any kind of quality scripted stuff that executes well, I just like to see it get all the chances it possibly can."

CW has already announced that the program has been renewed for next season.

"Gossip Girl" is also home to a wide-ranging product-placement deal with Verizon Wireless that has the wealthy Manhattan teens at the center of the program by routinely using the company's products to talk to friends, send text messages, and even locate a seedy gambling den. Verizon won a four-way battle among the nation's biggest telecommunications marketers -- Sprint, T-Mobile and AT&T -- to nab its multimillion-dollar role in the show.

The new promotional effort, created by agency 72andSunny, Los Angeles, aims to spark buzz -- and not just because it shows TV stars in make-out sessions and bedroom scenes. CW's Mr. Haskins said the ads feature scenes of the "Gossip Girl" crowd from previous episodes and even tease scenes from the next original.

The ads are set to appear on billboards in New York's Times Square and in Los Angeles; on MTV, VH1 and E!; in celebrity weeklies such as People, US Weekly, Entertainment Weekly and In Touch; online on MySpace, Yahoo and Facebook.