Advertainment? Entertisement? Let’s call the whole thing off.

What do you do when people get really good at ignoring ads? You make the ads into entertainment:

NBC Universal Digital Studio will work with a division of Omnicom Group Inc. to create programs that help advertisers sell their products, the entertainment giant announced in a statement Thursday. The programming will be broadcast on NBC Universal’s digital properties, such as Web sites.

“We are proactively working with our clients, the advertisers, to deliver compelling content to our audiences, wherever they are,” NBC entertainment chief Ben Silverman said in the statement.

Digital Studio’s first productions, which will premiere this summer, are a science-fiction series starring Rosario Dawson called “Gemini Division” and a quirky comedy about a college-aged zombie called “Woke Up Dead,” said NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric Co.

Intel Corp., Cisco Systems Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are among the first brands involved with the development of “Gemini Division,” the statement said.

The collaboration between NBC and Omnicom offers “a unique way of giving brands a seat at the table with writers and producers in developing episodic programming that ties directly to brand needs,” Omnicom Media Group Digital chief executive Matt Spiegel said.

As a media consumer, I find this creepy and I don’t expect it to lead to anything with much artistic merit. That doesn’t mean it won’t work well, of course. Product placement on steroids?

I’m curious to see what the resulting programs look like.


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