ABC, Dr. Pepper Create World’s First “Promercial”

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You’ve seen commercials, you’ve seen product placement – but have you seen the “promercial” yet? That’s when broadcasters run commercials to let viewers know about upcoming product placement in their favorite television shows.

It might sound like a joke, but last week, ABC premiered the first promercial, for the January 5th episode of Cougar Town, which heavily featured placement for Diet Dr. Pepper. Ahead of the episode, ABC ran promos that ran during episodes of Desperate Housewives, The Middle and Modern Family that described Cougar Town as “unbelievably satisfying, like Diet Dr. Pepper.”

Lauren Radcliffe, director of branded entertainment for the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, said that this deal – the first of its kind for the company – had been worked out with ABC during upfront presentations last year, and called it “an effective tool [to] get as many eyeballs as possible” onto the product placement. If this kind of thing continues, how long before we get a prepromercial to let us know that there might be an advertisement to tell us about the advertisement hidden in real content somewhere in our future?

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