Branding and Niche Programming on American Television
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1 The Big Shill: Branding and Niche Programming on American Television By Erin Giannini © This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognize that its copyright rests with the author and that no quotation from the thesis, nor any information derived therefrom, may be published without the author’s prior, written consent. 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Carol Giannini for her patience and sacrifice throughout this process; the late Joseph Sheehan and the late Philip Bucher for their support and love; Louise Fitzgerald for feedback throughout numerous revisions, as well as unwavering patience and always asking the right questions; the PhD community at University of East Anglia, particularly Joseph Arton, Hilmar Gudlaugsson, and Susan Pearlman for conversations in and out of the classroom that helped clarify certain questions. Meredith Perrine, Amy Degrush, Shannon Moore, Carolyn Hall, Caroline and Ann Mattis, and Megan and Anne Sullivan provided much needed friendship despite the distance, and the staff and denizens of Amity Point coffee shop provided a lovely place to study, write, and discuss my work. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Brave New (TV) World: Branding and Targeting in Contemporary American Television 6 They’re Stealing TV! The Broadcast and Advertiser Response to New Technology 65 Neither the Cow Nor the Milk Are Free The Marriage of Advertisers and the Gilmore Girls 117 The Tendercrisp Chicken Comedy Half-Hour: Brand Flow and the “Transcendent” DVD Text 153 A Giant Leap: The Multiplatform Brand Flows of Heroes 175 Objects in Space: Charting Boundaries and Searching for Control in a Changing Television Universe 204 Brand New Day? New Technology, Same Old Story 227 Bibliography 235 4 List of Illustrations Fig. 1: Emily Gilmore, screen grab from “Scene in a Mall,” Gilmore Girls. Fig. 2: Lorelai Gilmore (left), Rory Gilmore (right), screen grab from “How Many Kropogs to Cape Cod?” Gilmore Girls. Fig. 3: Tobias Funke, screen grab from “Motherboy XXX,” Arrested Development. Fig. 4 (l to r): John Laroquette, Andy Richter, John Beard, Zach Braff, and Judge Reinhold, screen grab from “S. O. B.s”. Fig. 5: 9th Wonder comic book and Hotspur car rental catalog, screen grab from “One Giant Leap,” Heroes. Fig. 6: Bob Bishop, screen grab from “The Line,” Heroes. Fig. 7: Sprint phone, screen grab from “Going Postal,” Heroes. Fig. 8: Blue Sun food products, screen grab from “Shindig,” Firefly. Fig. 9: Blue Sun “crybaby,” screen grab from “Serenity,” Firefly. Fig. 10: River Tam, Simon Tam, Jayne Cobb, screen grab from “Ariel,” Firefly. Fig. 11: Jayne Cobb, screen grab from “Ariel,” Firefly. Fig. 12: Alliance Flag, Flags of the World Website (http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/fic%5Efrfl.html). 5 ABSTRACT This thesis traces the rise of product placement, from 2001 to 2008, as part of the larger branding strategy of broadcast networks, which included narrowcasting to a particular “quality” demographic of upscale, technologically enabled viewers. This 7-year period was chosen because it encompassed both the era that saw the steep rise in the practice and the increased penetration of the digital video recorder (DVR) and digital versatile disc (DVD) format and the rise of the Internet as a vehicle for viewing both primary and secondary texts for these series. Despite the ability of DVDs and DVRs to eliminate advertising from programs and thereby potentially alter the economic structure of American broadcast television, and the availability of network-sanctioned alternate online viewing platforms, I argue that the older model of broadcast programming itself (a program interrupted by advertisements) remains relevant despite the professed fears of the industry that the 30-second spot was redundant. Indeed, the television and advertising industries reconstituted an older model of the television and advertising mix in response to these new technologies and formats. They claimed that it was necessary for their continued survival, suturing old advertising models to these new technologies and media. Borrowing from cable networks, broadcast, despite its remit to appeal to the largest possible audience, used the rise of new media and formats to ape cable strategies of branding and narrowcasting. Product placement thus served as a preeminent branding strategy for the broadcast networks; the products themselves were necessarily tailored to the demographics that the broadcast networks sought throughout this period, and the focus on targeting these niche audiences brought the broadcast networks closer to cable channels in terms of their branding practices. Through an examination of the debates within the industry, as well as a series of case studies, I will examine how product placement (as a form of brand flow) served as an important discursive site for the technological shifts in American television in the new millennium. 6 Brave New (TV) World: Branding and Targeting in Contemporary American Television In the Bones (Fox, September 13, 2005-present; Josephson Entertainment/Far Field Productions/20th Century Fox) episode “The Bones that Foamed” (4.16), forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and Special Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) investigate the death of a car salesman. While being interviewed, an employee, Maureen Perot (Janet Varney), not understanding that they are there to investigate the murder of her coworker, tries to sell them a car: Maureen: We sell adventure! So what can Mighty Mo put you in today? Mmm, you look like a sporty two-door man. Brennan: Actually, he has a very nice car. Maureen: Ooh, I’ll say. That Sequoia’s a honey. Booth: Yeah, tell me about it. Maureen: Roomy enough, you could have a Super Bowl party back there. What is that, GPS, side air bags. Brennan: We’re looking for… Maureen: Such great gas mileage for, you know, a can-do machine. Are you looking to trade in? Despite serving as an extended plug for the Toyota Sequoia, with its best features dutifully laid out in a chipper fashion, the product placement1 in this scene, 1 It is important to have a working definition, prior to this examination, of product placement. Increasingly, it has been referred to in the literature as “brand placement” as it is the brand and its less tangible associative processes that are being placed, rather than just a product in and of itself. However, Newell et al insist on keeping the term product placement to “maintain continuity with past industry and academic efforts” (Newell et al 2006:577). It has also been defined as “the purposeful incorporation of a brand into an entertainment vehicle” (Russell and Belch 2005:74) as well as “the paid inclusion of branded products or brand identifiers, through audio and/or visual means, within mass media programming” (Karrh 1998:33); however, the former avoids both specifying any potential economic arrangements that might occur to bring about the incorporation within the “vehicle” and any value judgments attendant therein and the latter is problematic when applied to television, as it neither takes into account the federal regulations that restrict the practice nor the economic apparatus of the practice within the television medium (Poniewozik 2001). For the purposes of this chapter, Newell et al’s definition works better to include the economics of television into its definition, that is, “the insertion of branded products and services into mass media content with the intent of influencing consumer attitude or behavior” (Newell et al 2006:577). While the use of the word “influence” is not unproblematic in its implications, studies of product placement managers and practitioners agree that influencing consumer attitudes and buying patterns through placement is their primary goal (Karrh 1995; Karrh et al 2003:138-149). Thus, Newell’s definition is the definition that this chapter will use. 7 as well as in a later episode, “Bones on the Blue Line” (5.15), share a very particular feature. In “Bones on the Blue Line,” the “hip” artist Angela Montenegro (Michaela Conlon) explains why she drives the Toyota Sienna minivan: “I’m an artist … and the Sienna has plenty of room, plus I stink at parallel parking and that back-up camera thing is like the invention of the century.” Angela’s assertion not only dovetails with Toyota’s advertising campaign for the car that focused on redeeming the minivan from “soccer mom” status,2 but in both episodes there is an association of product and character. Seeley Booth isn’t just a special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), he could be a “sporty two-door man,” with the appropriate Toyota, or a “can-do” machine that still is roomy enough to party in (with). Angela Montenegro is an artist with a practical side, as evidenced by her choice of the Sienna despite the possibility of being perceived as a “soccer mom.” The product is thus used as a conversation between the character and the placed product; that is, using a particular marketing tool (product placement) to create a relationship between “people and objects” (Jhally 1990:1). It is a conversation that serves to brand both: a seemingly straight-laced FBI agent (and his seemingly straight-laced car) that exude both safety and “can-do” spirit3; an artist whose main artistic outlet is computer-generated facial and crime scene reconstruction. Thus the placement of a single line of products (Toyota cars) opens numerous sites for interpreting both the text and context of Bones. 2 In the advertisement “Meet the Parents,” the introductory ad for the Sienna campaign, the rather self-absorbed “hip” father explains that he has dubbed their Sienna minivan “The Swagger Wagon.” Toyota also created a YouTube channel for the Sienna, which features both the broadcast commercials and online-only web episodes featuring the parents from the ads in ongoing narrative interaction with the car (Sienna Channel 2010).