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 »
More than a year after it first revealed its "separate but equal" integration partnerships with Microsoft and IBM, Siebel says progress has been made in both endeavors
more »
A group of eight Internet domain name registrars has filed suit against the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and VeriSign
more »
search.lt presents newest links
more »
Microsoft Outlines Policy and Technical Proposals Aimed at Helping Contain The Spam Problem, Including the Development of Caller ID for E-Mail
more »
Infobalt Association Starts OUTSOURCE2LITHUANIA Project
more »
British businesses are under siege by criminals and vandals using technology for financial gain or to cause havoc
more »
HP points new weapons against virus, worm attacks
more »
search.lt presents newest links
more »
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency this month announced that the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) approved a computer language based on DARPA Agent Markup Language (DAML) as an international standard
more »
Microsoft denies it is collaborating with Big Blue on Office migration
more »