"Trust Me" - Episode 7 for Chattanooga Free Press

By Doug Cook for the Chattanooga Times Free Press
Doug Cook is a Creative Director at ND&P

"Well-behaved hair meets misbehaving ad guys"

Read the blog post at the Chattanooga Times Free Press...

As the level of advertising in all media has grown (and the attention span for them has shortened), advertisers willing to pay for having products appear within actual content, including movies, has become commonplace. In some cases, these placements are brief and unobtrusive—a soda can with a few seconds of screen time in a blockbuster movie; in others, the effort to highlight a brand, visually or otherwise, can become almost comical.

Last night’s episode marked the agency’s full-bore move into work for Dove®—specifically its line of hair care products. During the run-up to Trust Me’s debut, TBS and the show’s producers made a big deal of the fact that Dove would not only be a major sponsor but would also be a “client” of the show’s mythical Chicago agency—Rothman Greene & Mohr. So, last night—while referencing enough “soap opera-ish” romance sidebars to rival a Fleetwood Mac profile—built to the presentation of a series of creative options for Dove hair care products for women.

In typically Trust Me fashion, it was helter-skelter down to the deadline, with Mason putting off his wife to work late as he was pulled to and fro between former partner Conner and new copywriter, the long-suffering Sarah.

Ultimately, none of the work was very good. I suppose it would be unreasonable to expect strong creative campaigns given that it was never intended to be real advertising, anyway.

The silver lining: Sarah finally gets a little happy! Conner picks her direction and agency CEO, a last-second participant in the pitch meeting, “spontaneously” spins off a mother-daughter version of Sarah’s woman/potential suitor scenario . . . a lame metaphor involving repaired hair damage vs. damaged relationships. Dove has to be thrilled.