Oxygen Media has assembled what may be its most ambitious multiplatform advertising deal to date, securing Swedish furniture brand Ikea as a fully integrated sponsor of Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood.
Designed to make a contextual link between the series’ start-up family vibe and Ikea’s homey line of flat-pack furnishings, the deal includes product integration in two episodes of Tori & Dean, which begins its fifth season on April 5. Over the course of the twin installments, the titular couple will renovate their kitchen with Ikea cabinets, countertops and fixtures.
The pact marks Ikea’s first integrated sponsorship and extends through all 10 episodes this season. In addition to placement in the show’s narrative, Ikea will be featured in branded weekly vignettes, on-air billboards, tagged tune-ins and standard 30-second spots.
Ikea has also nailed down an exclusive sponsorship of the network’s social media site,
OxygenLive, which lets viewers interact with each other and series regulars as each episode unfolds. Billing the service as a “real-time viewing party,” Oxygen today plans to introduce live video and mobile chat functionality to the site.
Oxygen execs declined to say what the deal is worth. Excluding online spend, Ikea invested $85 million in measured media a year ago, down 8 percent from $92 million in 2008.
If Tori & Dean isn’t the net’s biggest ratings draw––that honor goes to the bibulous Bad Girls Club, which regularly draws around 2 million viewers––it may be Oxygen’s most ad-friendly original series. Ikea USA media manager Alia Kemet said the collaboration “just made sense,” given the show’s focus on home and family.
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