Annals of Murketing: Scion’s cameo in phony ad starring talking rump

On her blog Ex-Files, Brandweek‘s Becky Ebenkamp reports:

To target young adults, Turner’s Adult Swim has developed a mock commercial with ad partner Scion for the second season of its show Assy McGee, which premieres April 6. After the first half of each episode, Assy stars in a 35-second animated ad set at a car lot and offers viewers “low, low prices” for the Scion xB.

Here’s a link to the faux ad. It goes right to the video, so if you’re at work, you might want to make sure no one’s going to walk by and see or hear it.

Now, if you watch it, you might question the wisdom of Scion putting its brand in this situation. Assy McGee is basically a walking naked rear end, with a cowboy hat and a gun. He/it makes exactly the sounds you would expect a walking rear end to make. Also a guy gets his shot off. Pretty crass stuff, etc. And while I would like to get through this item without using the phrase “butt of a joke,” I’ve actually just now failed, because it’s hard not to think of Scion being exactly that.

But think again, my friends. I say this “placement,” or whatever you want to call it, makes perfect sense, and is an excellent example of the murky marketing (murketing yes) of the future.

For starters, you can’t TiVo it and all that. Obvious. And a fine example of what the future holds, which may or may not include fewer 30-second spots, will absolutely include more and more deals like this get corporate dough by putting the commercial message inside the show. Get used to it. This is in essence part of the show. If you miss it, you miss a chance to laugh. And I’m sorry to say it, but I laughed.

Second, Adult Swim programming (subject of 1/18/04 Consumed) has a collegey audience that will also probably be amused, and that is precisely Scion’s alleged target. Won’t they think less of the brand for being sorta-kinda mocked? I doubt it. In fact, as this memorable Brandweek piece noted back in 2006, there’s precedent for brands paying to be made fun of — as long as it happens within the show.

Third, I say young people are Scion’s “alleged” target because I’m well aware that Scion doesn’t just sell cars to young people. (Scion comes up in Buying In, and yeah I’m gonna mention Buying In almost constantly, so get used to that too.) Plenty of non-young people, who might well be appalled to see their brand of car in this context, have bought Scions. But guess what? None of those people will see this ad, because they don’t watch Adult Swim.

Update April 4: AdFreak points out that Scion has actually made a deal to be the exclusive sponsor of Assy McGee. Just so you know.