Monday, April 27th, 2009

The season finale of Chuck is on NBC tonight and apparently this may be it’s last episode or will it? In a recent episode of Chuck, there was a funny and paid product placement for Subway. The placement referenced the successful “$5 footlong” campaign. Fans of the show enjoyed the product placement so much that Subway sales increased greatly after the broadcast of the episode and now they are including Subway as part of a campaign to save the show from being cancelled on NBC. The star of Chuck, Zachary Levi, has also joined the campaign and brought fans to Subway from a convention.

In the advertising industry, the product placement on the show is receiving high marks and now could receive even more praise with the viral campaign that the fans of the show are pushing all over the Internet. The Hash Tag, #SaveChuck, is trending on Twitter and today Subway may receive the best ROI ever from a paid advertisement. The big difference in this paid endorsement compared to others seen in the past was how much it naturally fit into the story line of the show. Most paid placements seem forced on TV and even the movies. This one fit so well and was funny.

I am sure we will start to see more integrated product placements on TV after the success of this one. I just hope TV shows don’t go crazy because they may turn off their audience with either too many product placements or they just won’t fit into the style of the show. Subway and Chuck were a match made in heaven but lightning doesn’t always strike twice.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 27th, 2009 at 1:16 pm and is filed under Brian Ratzker, General, Social Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.