New, Evolving Chances for Online Marketing: "Webisodes"

As more and more marketing efforts are shifting towards generating a greater Internet presence, the success surrounding viral online content and videos are quickly catching the interest of the marketing industry. One of the newest forms of integrating a brand's target message into online content is to create video miniseries. These are popping up from numerous brands and feature the product or service throughout the online series, or "webisodes." This week I decided to explore the blogosphere for the most talked about new webisodes and found that a series created by and starring Illeana Douglas, with an Ikea-backed storyline, has received the most discussion. Douglas' series, titled "Easy to Assemble," follows her experiences as she goes through training and the adjustments of working in a Burbank Ikea after recently having quit her other profession: a struggling actress. The series was picked up by CBS earlier this week to be shown on its newly acquired TV.com, where it becomes the website's first scripted original show (see photo to left). With progressively more of these webisodes being generated, questions arise about the effectiveness of these shows as well as wondering if these branded shows will become a lasting form of media? It is tough to answer either of these questions as of yet from a marketing perspective, but the cheap production cost and easy distribution are certainly enticing reasons for advertisers to buy into the creation of more shows like this. On the other hand there is still the tried and true "integration package" (or product placement) route available for dropping massive amounts of money on a few screen shots. Yet with all of this, Douglas' "Easy to Assemble" webisodes are well done, featuring a few notable actors and is comically driven enough to allow the Ikea brand to make light of itself and especially its Swedish history. The first post I commented on, Are Web series generally worth your time?, was written by Rebecca Cullers of Adfreak.com, a blog affiliated with trusted advertising source AdWeek, in her post Cullers briefly details the "Easy to Assemble" series before CBS picked up the show. Correspondingly, in another post I commented on, New "season" of web series is most mature yet, by Maria Russo, of the LA Times blog Web Scout, provides a review of the series and others while later providing follow-up analysis after the show was picked up by CBS. I have commented directly onto each of these respected blogs and have also posted them here below.

"Are Web series generally worth your time?"
Comment
I enjoyed this post a lot, seeing as this is an increasing area of marketing interest and although brief, you provided many details, links and points. Even though a few weeks has passed since you wrote this post and new developments have arisen, I will stick to what you have written here and express my opinion on this post. You were able to make relevant references to Ikea's efforts and those of other brands like Johnson & Johnson and Holiday Inn, while incorporating your point throughout the post. I thought that when you said "But do Webisodes really enhance a brand? Not always. Case in point: Ikea...," that this statement is not true, seeing as I feel they did do a good job of appealing to an appropriate market while incorporating humor into a brand that may have seemed foreign. The use of witty and quirky jokes, especially the extensive job Illeana Douglas does to mock the Ikea brand itself (see photo below) in these webisodes shows that Ikea wants to not only gain recognition but also have fun with this. You also said you had a "hard time getting through the first (episode)," but I thought this was an entertaining introduction into the series, it may seem tough though for the series to develop much of a plot through the season but overall I feel that it definitely has room to grow. However, you did make a good point in questioning the length of the episodes in comparison with normal 15 to 30 second clips as I think it is valid to say there could be a happy medium between where the series is now and a common TV spot. With this too, I enjoyed your commentary on the “webisode envy“ due to the lack in TV time as I strongly agree that a brands money may be better off being placed into the production of an entire cult series online rather than a few ads on TV that might allow viewers to “get a taste of your logo.” I am a big fan of the AdFreak blog and enjoy reading your insightful and up-to-date posts, thank you.

"New 'season' of web series is most mature yet"
Comment
I appreciate your analysis of the new web series which are coming about as modern marketing tools. This topic is becoming increasingly important especially with all of the financial woes our economy is experiencing currently. I feel that these shows are a relatively inexpensive way to produce content that may provide longer lasting and be more potent than a simple TV spot. When considering all of the costs to buy TV air time, this appears to me to be a greater cost than to simply add a little bit more time and care into the production of the "webisodes." The fact you bring about, of the creation of these webisodes being the now dividing line between "amateur 'user-generated content' and the new wave," struck me as an important point here. This really resonated with me to show the constant evolution of marketing and that there is always a way to take a trend like online content and viral videos and to make them better. My favorite example that you highlight is the Ikea "Easy to Assemble" series, put together and starring Illeana Douglas. As her second episode has now been released, we can see her creative use of these short, 5-6 minutes clips to bring about a funny storyline of her new job at the Burbank Ikea. Just as you pointed out here, and in your later review of CBS' newly acquired series, Douglas does a great job of producing a satire-laced show that plays a lot on Ikea's "foreign" culture and quirky aspects. You point out too, the incorporation of a lot of Ikea's brand associations in the episodes, "there's a whole lot of yellow," but still note that Douglas controls the humorous image of "the company’s can-do, relentlessly cheerful aesthetic and its meatball- and lingonberry-saturated Swedishness." I wonder though how far the show can be stretched on this small premise and it seems difficult to continue this cute "gig" with a consistent enough audience for Ikea to get their money's worth. It seems that the success of this and other early sponsored miniseries will shape the interpretation and future development of similar shows. Where do you see the future of these webisodes going and do you think this can become a new prominent form of media? Thank you for your time and I enjoy the great work you have done here on this blog.