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ADISON Avenue's going for game shows, and quiz
shows too, not to mention talent shows.
To attract attention amid the commercial clutter, a growing
number of advertisements appearing on television are borrowing
creative elements from famous TV shows of the past. There are spoofs
of vintage game shows, salutes to successful quiz-show contestants,
fast-talking announcers delivering prize pitches and characters who
impersonate the judges on "American Idol."
Among the better-known brands with games on the brain are Bank
of New York, Cingular Wireless, FedEx
and The
Gap's Old Navy unit. Orbitz, the travel Web site, joins their
ranks this week with television commercials by the Chicago office of
Young & Rubicam that lavishly, and lovingly, re-create a game
show from the era of polyester, wide ties and Wink Martindale,
complete with Mr. Martindale himself.
"Game shows have been staples of television since the beginning
and they have very broad appeal," said Rich Cronin, president and
chief executive of GSN, the cable network in Santa Monica, Calif.,
formerly known as the Game Show Network.
"If you parody a game show, everyone gets it immediately," he
added. GSN is owned by the Sony Pictures Entertainment division of
the Sony
Corporation of America and the Liberty
Media Corporation.
The wide-ranging interest in and familiarity with game shows was
a major reason for placing a make-believe program called "Take On
Orbitz" at the center of the new campaign for Orbitz, part of the Cendant
Corporation. The campaign carries the theme "Orbitz and go."
"Because it's a genre people recognize, we don't have to spend a
lot of time setting up the situation," said Doug Ryan, chief
marketing officer at Y.& R. Chicago, part of the Young &
Rubicam Brands division of the WPP
Group.
"And there's a comfort with the genre, too," he added. "It's the
TV equivalent of meat loaf and mashed potatoes."
In the commercials, Mr. Martindale looks very much as he did two
or three decades ago, when he was the M. C. of game shows like "High
Rollers" and "Tic Tac Dough." The imaginary "Take On Orbitz" game
show mimics his old-school appearance, down to the dated flashing
lights and sliding doors on the set as well as the corny cheers of
the make-believe audience.
"It's very much in keeping with what we call the 'Orbitz-yness,'
the fun nature, of the company," Mitch Truwit, president and chief
executive at Orbitz in Chicago, said.
"The older part of our audience of people who travel know these
shows from watching them," he added, "while the younger ones know
them from reruns."
The campaign will be extended next week in two ways. A TV
commercial by Y.& R. Chicago, aimed at gay and lesbian
travelers, will present Mr. Martindale challenging contestants on
"Take On Orbitz" to find a hotel room in San Francisco. And Orbitz
will start running pop-under ads on other Web sites that will ask
computer users to play a mock game called "Run for Your Flight." The
online ads are being created by a Chicago agency, 15 letters Inc.
In the early days of television, advertisers were intrinsically
involved in game, quiz and talent shows, sponsoring programs like
"Beat the Clock," "Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts," "The $64,000
Question" and "Twenty-One."
Brand and product names and logos were so interwoven into the
fabric of the shows, Mr. Cronin said, that GSN is unable to rerun
series like "I've Got a Secret" that were sponsored by cigarette
brands, because it would break the rules barring tobacco advertising
from TV.
A second wave of interest came in 1999, when the success of "Who
Wants to Be a Millionaire" on ABC revived the concept of prime-time
quiz shows. For instance, AT&T became the sponsor of the
program's "phone a friend" feature, and innumerable marketers
appropriated the "Millionaire" catch phrase, "Is that your final
answer?" for their own campaigns.
The current trend seems to be fueled by the popularity of Ken
Jennings, the biggest winner in the history of the game show
"Jeopardy." Mr. Jennings had a record-breaking 74-game winning
streak on the show, during which he won more than $2.5 million.
"It had a life of its own," said Terry Martin, senior vice
president and senior account director on the FedEx account at the
flagship New York office of BBDO Worldwide, part of the Omnicom
Group. FedEx ran an ad in December congratulating Mr. Jennings
on the streak because he missed winning his 75th game for thinking
the correct answer to the Final Jeopardy question was FedEx rather
than H&R
Block.
"There's only one time FedEx has ever been the wrong answer," the
ad declared.
A month after the FedEx ad appeared, Cingular Wireless ran a
humorous commercial featuring Mr. Jennings, created by the Atlanta
and New York offices of BBDO. The spot promoted Cingular's Family
Talk plan by playing on the idea that big winners of game, quiz and
talent shows suddenly discover "relatives and friends from all
corners of the earth they didn't know they had," said Daryl Evans,
vice president for advertising and marketing communications at
Cingular in Atlanta. Cingular is owned by BellSouth
and SBC
Communications.
Research showed that Mr. Jennings "was very well known and
recognized" among consumers, Mr. Evans said. The commercial ran from
January until March, when Cingular switched to spots about its
sponsorship of the National Collegiate Athletic Association
basketball tournament; with the tournament over, the commercial
featuring Mr. Jennings "is back on the air," Mr. Evans said.
