FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH: AMC’s little crown jewel, Mad Men, will be returning to the air with a big new corporate sponsor, BMW, and a splashy media saturation campaign, according to a Hollywood Reporter story. The network will “spotlight BMW through each of its multiplatform marketing initiatives, including on-air and online promotions, and within the network’s off-channel marketing campaign through tagged exposure in advertising.” You got all that? AMC will also “incorporate BMW into its so-called MAD-Vertising campaign, in which the network creates custom content for Mad Men advertisers that airs as part of commercial breaks.”
Mad Men’s big sponsor during its first season was Jack Daniel’s whiskey, which was eminently suitable to the show’s hard-drinking-and-smoking milieu of early-‘60s New York ad execs, but got called “a bad mix” by the Los Angeles Times. BMW, like almost any luxury import car brand, is considered a gilt-edged advertiser, and a sign that the show, while hardly attracting Idol-like mega-ratings, is considered a series whose viewers fall into highly desirable demographics for education and income.
Not to toot my own horn, but based on the number of positive e-mails this column gets from addresses at banks and big name legal firms, it would seem that Idiot Box is overdue for the same kind of sponsorship. (Hey – I’m being serious about this, and a big shout out to all my readers who make a staggering multiple of my own humble salary!) I wonder what this little space would look like with a Louis Vuitton banner ad? Let’s talk about this, baby – no reasonable offers rejected.
THREE’S COMPANY: Weeds star Mary-Louise Parker has broken off her engagement to Jeffrey Dean Morgan, according to an Associated Press story and a source close to the couple. “The person, who requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the relationship, said the couple had differing lifestyles, but that Parker holds Morgan in the highest regard and hopes they remain friends.”
The bummer is that Parker is going to have to work twice as hard now to find another potential mate with a triple-barrelled name. If Parker is interested in a slightly younger man, Rodney Allen Rippy has a new reality show in the works and is pushing cell phone plans on his website. David Ogden Stiers has kept a pretty low profile, but can always be heard narrating PBS documentaries, while Haley Joel Osment might be a bit young, turning twenty this year. Ben Stiller’s Starsky & Hutch remake did a bit to buff up Paul Michael Glaser’s reputation in a kitsch-cool kind of way, but thanks to Battlestar Galactica, Edward James Olmos hasn’t been this hot since Blade Runner. James Earl Jones, of course, only needs to open his mouth to make the ladies melt. James Earl Ray and Lee Harvey Oswald are, of course, not in the running.
(What do you say, BMW – still interested?)
