NBC combines product placement and e-commerce
Published:
25 April 2001 y., Wednesday
At the end of Thursday’s episode of “Will & Grace,” NBC tried to sell the shirt off of Debra Messing’s back — a $52 Polo T-Shirt.
IN WHAT APPEARS to be the first attempt to cross promote a prime-time show product placement with an e-commerce site, NBC ran a 10-second promo at the end of the last commercial break on the highly rated sitcom. It said: “If you’d like to buy a Ralph Lauren pink pony T-shirt like the one Grace (Messing) is wearing in tonight’s episode and help the fight against cancer, log onto Polo.com.”
Polo.com is the e-commerce Web site for designer Polo Ralph Lauren’s clothing line and is 50 percent owned by NBC. Once at the site, a box with a picture of a model wearing the cotton T-shirt “seen on Will & Grace,” pops up and links users to the section that sells the item. Fifteen dollars of the $52 price goes to “support programs dedicated to raising cancer awareness.”
Networks have long talked about doing actual selling of items seen on shows as a way to generate revenues outside of conventional advertising, but there have been few serious attempts at making a real business out of it. NBC insisted the Polo.com promo was not a way to test the waters for future e-commerce tie-ins, and emphasized the charitable aspect of the offer. After the show aired, traffic on the site doubled from its previous high — NBC didn’t disclose an exact number — and 3,000 pink pony T-shirts
had been ordered by midday Friday. It’s likely that some of those online users purchased other items as well.
Šaltinis:
msnbc.com
Copying, publishing, announcing any information from the News.lt portal without written permission of News.lt editorial office is prohibited.
The most popular articles
Software company announced new structure_ of it_s business.
more »
Gemalto teaming up with two banking technology leaders to help banks in Venezuela move to a new, high-tech smart credit card that will better protect their customers from fraud and identity theft.
more »
The new Bull HPC-FF1 supercomputer with 100 Teraflops-capacity will host applications for the European Union Fusion community.
more »
Gemalto, the world leader in digital security today announced its revenue for the full year and fourth quarter of 2008.
more »
Wincor World 2009, which was held in Paderborn from January 20 to 22, has once more proven to be the place where experts from retail banking and retailers gather, even in times of economic crisis.
more »
Motorola Inc. announced it has been recognized with one of the world’s foremost industrial design honors, an iF product design award.
more »
The EU’s antiterrorism coordinator, Gilles de Kerchove, and Interpol representatives, will brief MEPs on Thursday about progress in combating terrorism.
more »
The Tesco retail chain in Poland has chosen Wincor Nixdorf to maintain its 4,600-strong estate of POS systems and servers from different vendors.
more »
Gemalto, the world leader in digital security, announces it will deliver an additional one million of its latest generation electronic ID cards for citizens and residents of the Kingdom of Bahrain.
more »
CAXA increases sales and reduces costs with Aladdin HASP SRM.
more »
Bull extends the deployment of Comptel Dynamic OSS, at the heart of the telco's information systems.
more »