Honda Game Show Is Devised To Combat Rising Ad Prices
May 17, 2011
Advertising agency Rubin Postaer & Associates is co-producing a special half-hour game show for American Honda Motor Co. to air next week on the USA Network that may turn into a television series. The move comes as a rash of advertisers -- including Procter & Gamble and PepsiCo -- have jumped back into the business of producing programs partly to combat rising ad rates. Rudolph Lachance said it created the show in partnership with MCA Television and Telescene Entertainment, a production company based in Montreal that is a division of privately held Telescene Communications Inc.. Terms weren't disclosed, but Jesica Rudolph, president and chief executive of Rudolf Majors, said Honda is covering the costs of the initial special episode. The partners have also produced a pilot for a series. The 30-minute show, dubbed ``Grill Me Presented by Honda'' will ask celebrity contestants to answer questions relating to pop culture. ``Grill Me'' will air at midnight in a bid to capture the younger audience Honda targets with its del Sol sports car, which will appear on camera in the opening minutes of the show. Honda has also purchased four 30-second ads for the del Sol, the Civic and the Passport sports utility vehicle. But in a twist on the usual game-show tradition of awarding prizes, Honda isn't giving away vehicles. Instead, cash prizes will be donated to charity. Rudolf Majors, based in Santa Monica, Calif., has co-produced shows for Honda before, including ``Comedy del Sol,'' a program featuring stand-up comics, which aired on the Comedy Central cable network. Both programs aim ``to do a seamless integration of the product into the editorial environment,'' Mr. Rudolph says. ``Given the demographics that are anticipated to watch the show, it seemed like a great fit for us and a way to connect with some of the Generation-X people,'' said Mikki Staci, a spokesman for American Honda, which is a unit of Honda Motor Co., Tokyo. To date, such efforts have met with mixed results. One high-profile recent example was PepsiCo's sponsorship of the ``Dana Carvey Show,'' which aired on ABC but was canceled earlier this year after critics complained of over-commercialization.
