Ugly "Wudi" Only Loves (Sponsored By) Dove Products
Filed under: Style in the News, Celebrities with Style
The opening credits for Ugly Wudi
Sure, all shows do some product placement. 30 Rock even makes a big joke of it, building it into the storyline. But Unilever has taken it to a ridiculous level in China. They aren't just doing product placement -- they own a whole show!
Unilever is the parent of Dove products, which were selling poorly in China under the "Campaign for Real Beauty." Rather than try a new campaign, their agency came up with the idea of producing a Chinese version of Ugly Betty -- Ugly "Wudi" -- who becomes beautiful by using Dove products.
(Wait, isn't the point of Ugly Betty about internal beauty?)
Anyway, as the exclusive sponsor, Unilever owns all of the commercials, all of the product placement, and even the script!
The show's star, Lin Wudi, gets gorgeous when, inspired by the ad campaign she is creating for Dove products, starts using them. The marketing team from Unilever managed to get 3,300 seconds of Dove brand into the first season of the show.
So what is this? A season long infomercial? Some kind of hybrid ad-tertainment? Genius marketing? Or an evil melange of all three?
Or is it just the future of ads and network television?
aleta 12-31-2008 @ 1:09PM
This is really no different than the old days of radio programs . . . shows would frequently mention their sponsors' products throughout the show.
I wonder how it would be affected by a writer's strike . . . =)
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