I was watching the return of Heroes on Hulu the other night and I noticed something out of synch: in the second season of the NBC super hero saga, Noah Bennett, the guy you’re never sure is good or bad, gives his cheerleader daughter, Claire, a hero with the ability to regenerate thus defying death, a Nissan Rogue in what was a painfully obvious youth targeted product placement. Nissan product placement is back this season, but Noah is in bad guy mode (doing mean things to innocent super Heroes, you know the type) all the while driving a Nissan Rogue.
Since I only watch Heroes on Hulu I’m not sure who the other advertisers are beyond Nissan. But, I’m pretty sure that Nissan’s part of the ad buy threw in the spots for Hulu without giving them a lot of consideration.
One of the problems with advertising on Hulu is… actually it’s not one of the problems; they just haven’t figured it out yet. They’re doing a pretty good job delivering a demographically targeted audience to the advertiser, but then the “strategy” is to show this niche consumer the same spot repeatedly, through every show, all season.
The spot that ran on Hulu last season showed a pair of peppy twenty-something’s playing Marco Polo in their twin Nissan Rogues; built-in cells giggling all the way. Vaguely nauseating when it came out, you could at minimum see the market they were trying to reach. If Marco Polo playing for an entire season wasn’t enough to snuff any budding hipster affinity for advertiser’s product, even in the nichiest of niches, what was bad just got ugly.
In the year of fiscal cutbacks, it’s not surprising that what was more than likely a give-away last year has now been cut from the budget. Opting instead to reuse last year’s spot as is. The same double minted cuties gas guzzling about, living large and carefree. In some ways I think just showing the Nissan logo for 30secs would be more effective.
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