ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 5.03 - JUNE 2000

Ads Are Animating the Internet
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Herschel Hopper is ready to get fueled up on Jelly Bellies. © Rumpus.com.

Product Placement’s New Realm
Another avenue for boosting brand recognition is through product placements within online animated films. Rumpus.com integrated product placements from The Body Shop, a health and beauty products retailer, Jelly Belly jelly beans, Krispy Kreme donuts and New York-area newspapers for its animated children’s film, Herschel Hopper New York Rabbit, which debuted in April. Tanner Zucker, director of new media at Rumpus.com, an online toyseller that plans to introduce more children’s animation series, notes that Rumpus.com decided to eschew banner advertising for creative reasons. "It’s like bringing a foreign object into our design," he says. "It doesn’t look great and it’s kind of obnoxious." Instead, the company opted for 15-second interstitials within programming and for product placement as advertising vehicles. "[Product placement is] a unique and customized opportunity [for advertisers] to be seen by our viewers," Zucker says, noting that users do not click away from the site during the advertising message.

Product placements are somewhat like character endorsements. For example, the character Herschel Hopper was shown eating Jelly Belly jelly beans and taking a bath with bottles of The Body Shop-branded products visible on the side of the tub. As part of the plotline, his picture appeared in newspapers such as The New York Observer and The New York Post. All told, there were five to 10 placements within the film. Both Krispy Kreme and The Body Shop promoted Herschel Hopper in their stores with signage and literature, which drove traffic to Rumpus.com. The newspapers ran movie ads for the production.

Zucker notes that since viewers could see the movie for free (thanks to a partnership with Lycos), Rumpus.com was unable to track how many viewers came to the site as a result of individual promotions, but he reports that traffic was greater for the film than is normal on a daily basis, suggesting that the promotions helped. (Originally, Rumpus.com had intended to charge $3 per view.)

Chad Little, PR coordinator for The Body Shop, says that the retailer’s target consumer includes both adults and children, so it made sense to tie in with a vehicle that appealed to families. "Herschel Hopper was presented to us as the first online children’s feature-length animated film," says Little. "There was a warm excitement about it."

"We would have liked to track the results of this promotion but we were unable to monitor exact figures," says Little. "However, we definitely received positive feedback from customers around this promotion."

Starting in early June, Rumpus.com will offer interstitials both in its future entertainment properties as well as in its online games. They will continue to incorporate product placements into thier productions as well.

Selling Out The Thugs
Mondo Media produces animated online programming including Thugs on Film and The God and Devil Show,which it syndicates to 15 to 20 Web sites with a total potential audience of 60 million to 70 million viewers and sells mini-commercials as well as sponsorships. Steve Ledoux, Mondo’s SVP syndication and ad sales, describes the online commercials as "a TV-like experience. Instead of a flat graphic you have rich-media content to tell your story. But, unlike TV, you also have the ability to immediately transact." Viewers can stop the show at the point of the commercial, click, and directly purchase the product advertised.

The Thugs will tell you what’s up and where it’s at. © Mondo Media, Inc.

In Thugs on Film,the two characters review a movie and then recommend a related film available on video, which viewers can purchase at that time from advertiser Reel.com. For example, during the Thugs’ review of Mission Impossible 2, they recommend the video of the first Mission Impossiblefilm. "It’s clearly not a product placement," Ledoux explains, noting that while the Thugs stay in character, viewers are aware they are looking at a commercial message. "We’ve had people tell us, and this is a direct quote, that ‘This is crass commercialism done at its best,’" says Ledoux.

Mondo also offers traditional TV-style commercials where the entertainment fades to black before and after the advertisement. The choice depends on the product and the entertainment vehicle; some characters would never hawk a product while others would. In addition to Reel.com, other Mondo Media advertisers include Eyada, a chat site, which advertises on The God and Devil Show, and the cable network BBC Americas, which will advertise its Friday night British humor line-up during Thugs on Film. (The latter is part of a broader alliance that will eventually lead to Thugs on Film being aired as a television program on the cable outlet.)
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