NBC Olympic Campaign Sports Plugs Inside Plugs --- Network's Ads Show Athletes Zooming Past Movie Posters That Were Put in Digitally
In the theater, there's sometimes a play within a play. Now Madison Avenue has the plug within a plug.</br></br>To lower its costs amid the crippling advertising recession, General Electric Co.'s NBC is bringing commercial marketing to a new level by inserting other companies' products into its own promotions for the Winter Olympics. In a new ad campaign to promote the games, for example, NBC has inserted several prominent mentions of the rerelease of the 1982 movie "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial" from Vivendi Universal SA's Universal Studios. For viewers, the result is in effect two ads in one, and they see billboards that don't really exist.</br></br>The ad campaign, which is aimed at drawing young viewers, was created by the network's internal agency. It revolves around a chase scene involving two Olympians, the snowboarder Chris Klug and Cammi Granato, a hockey player who helped the U.S. team win the gold medal at the 1998 games.</br></br>In the spots, Mr. Klug zooms through a mountain of fresh powder as police and state troopers chase him for speeding. After a pretty girl shows up on the slopes, Mr. Klug crashes through a window into a hockey arena, disrupting a game being played by Ms. Granato, then boards away down the mountain and runs into the pretty girl again. As the police zero in on him, a helicopter appears. "Meet me in February in Salt Lake City," Mr. Klug tells the girl as he grabs a rope thrown to him by his helicopter rescue team and is whisked away.</br></br>Careful viewers are likely to notice a billboard on the mountain plastered with an enormous ad for "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial." Halfway through the chase, Mr. Klug slides by another sign for the movie on the side of the ice rink. The technique, called "virtual video advertising," is commonly used to project stadium billboards during baseball games, but hasn't been widely used in commercials. It allows advertisers to reach viewers who avoid commercial breaks.