No wonder the “winners” on “America’s Next Top Model” are all but doomed for obscurity.
Current top models aren’t exactly wowing the nation.
Heidi Klum, Alessandra Ambrosio, Selita Ebanks, Izabel Goulart, Miranda Kerr, Karolina Kurkova, Adriana Lima and Melissa Miller strutted around in their undergarments last week on CBS’s “The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show,” and the nation at large sighed.
The annual program-length ad Tuesday drew roughly 7.5 million people. That’s about 700,000 viewers more than ogled last year’s “Secret” infomercial — and more than “Top Model” itself averages — but it looks dangerously thin next to the 14.6 million CBS viewers who earlier Tuesday caught the latest airing of the much-beloved 1964 Rankin/Bass chestnut, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”
You might even say “Rudolph” glows.
It’s a biological given that sex sells. What doesn’t sell so well is selling.
Six years removed from the first of these “Secret” exercises — the debut 2001 edition drew about 12 million viewers — the would-be audience knows the pitch down cold and is starting to say bye-bye to buy buy.
CBS even tried to hype the “Secret” show on an episode of its sitcom “How I Met Your Mother” eight nights earlier, having characters attend the “Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show” after-party.
The best sales jobs are subtle. Maybe you noticed the Sanyo Sprint phone and Ford truck that figured prominently on NBC’s “Heroes” the other night, as noted by iTVX, an outfit that tracks these things.
Maybe not.
Next best are practically blunt instruments, like the recent “30 Rock” that shilled for Verizon Wireless until Tina Fey turned to the camera and asked, “Can we have our money now?”
With TV networks desperate to wring every last dime out of programming, there is increasing reliance on branded product integration in shows.
“Would we have wanted our memories of ‘Casablanca’ to include (Humphrey) Bogart saying to Ingrid Bergman as they say goodbye: ‘You’re part of his life, the thing that keeps him going. Now get on that plane and enjoy United’s nonstop, three-class service to Paris with seats that recline to a full 180 degrees,’ ” Phil Rosenthal (no relation to me), the one who created “Everybody Loves Raymond,” complained to a House committee earlier this year, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
There has been talk that the Federal Communications Commission might vote this month to open an inquiry on whether there is enough disclosure when marketers pay to get their wares and branding messages integrated into programs, as well as a discussion of whether new rules are needed.
The bottom line is plugs — adequately labeled or not — won’t bring in bucks if the programming around them isn’t interesting enough to hold viewers’ attention through the sales spiel.
Fail to entertain, and not even Heidi Klum can make it attractive.
