Twenty years ago, major Quebec television networks launched a new genre that was both loved and despised: reality television. Since then, the shows have multiplied, breaking ratings records and gaining in bit by bit The heart and respect of both the audience and traditional media. But between the failures, the controversies, and the loss of small-screen speed, can we always foresee such a bright future? The fourth text in our series.
According to the shock formula from the late Patrick Le Lay, former CEO of the TF1 Group, in France television sells to advertisers “available human brain time”. The pinnacle of sarcasm (or cold candor) dates back to 2004. And reality television, which was born around the same time, has since continued to improve the finds to reach the heads, hearts, and especially the pockets of viewers.
With precise product placements, the genre opened up television (and therefore minds) to brands that, due to lack of budget, didn’t necessarily have access to it. Reality television has also made it possible to reach a younger segment of the audience, less sensitive to traditional advertising, and more receptive to more subtle forms of commercial advertising.
M understood. Li Lai that’s good too. In 2001, Syed described the logo Loft story and other offerings of the new kind of “pornographic by-product”. A few months later, the big boss of the main French channel, however, signed on Endemol Empire, then at the beginning of its global expansionproduction contract nice people, a Big brother European film style Spanish hostel.
Loft story Known Quebec version in 2003. double occupation (Organizational development), a national megahit, has been booming since the same year. then Big brother It was set up here in 2010. Commercial cuisine is popular.
Here, too, partnerships, sponsorships and investments It has been exploited to the fullest extent with more or less success. From nominated clothing to custodial home furniture, food to cars, and beauty products to travel, anything can be used to promote a particular good or service.
Everything, everywhere, all at once
“We don’t want our candidates to be endlessly ‘branded’, but we assume the fact that, despite that, yes, we have sponsors and see the refrigerator brand,” sums up Karen Pelletier, Director of Marketing and Sponsorship from J Productions, the fund that produces double occupation. By the way, how many? “Until thirty,” the person running the conventions answers.
MI Pelletier started working on O.D. Bali In 2017, the year of the fair’s marketing reform. She now works with two colleagues and professionals from Bell Media, owner of Noovo Channel, to find integration strategies by negotiating in detail visibility measures to match text. Nothing is ever innocent. Even a pizzeria in Quebec (not Bali) was able to pay to put pizza boxes on display.
“We put the sponsors in touch with what is going on in the show, the director sums up. We want it to happen naturally, otherwise it won’t work, neither for the show nor for the sponsor. »
Hence the crisis that followed scenes of intimidation and then the marginalization of three candidates who were considered harassment, last fall, in OD Martinique. At least a dozen advertising partners closed the door and put the show at risk of survival. Organizational development He survived and will be back this year.
We want it to be done naturally, otherwise it won’t work, neither for the show nor for the sponsor.
Then viewers slapped the gavel on the production — and that explains it. On the other hand, followers remain tolerant about integrated advertising. MI Pelletier heard almost no complaints about the transparent placements.
She gives a concrete example of the beverage brand Guru. “We took full responsibility,” said the manager. Sometimes the brand was shown in a very obvious way, with a big truck for example. We totally assumed that. I think it was going well. »
Some partners support Organizational development For years, like sparkling bubbles of the night. says m.I Pelletier, noting that the daily presence that culminates in the Sunday show doubles the possibilities of introducing products almost everywhere. “The more you see things, the more you want to consume them.”
Inside/outside, before/after
Ophelia Anna Nagar knows something about it. A hairdresser, owner of two barbershops at Club Maines in Quebec City, began advertising her business during a broadcastOrganizational development Sundays in the Capitale-Nationale area with classic 15-second commercials. This advertisement cost him between $15,000 and $20,000 a year. As this marketing had “a very good effect,” she said to herself two years later that she could promote herself by enrolling herself in Organizational development.
The charismatic young woman, who used to perform at hairdressing conventions, was tapped to venture to South Africa in 2019, just before the pandemic. The dangerous game required him to quit running his salons for weeks on end for a monthly salary of a few hundred dollars.
“I don’t regret my experience at all,” said the person who also received a publicity stunt by appearing on the show in the eye of the dragon. I participated in Organizational development Especially for the vision shown on my salons. I told myself that at the price the bars were costing me, it was worth being on the show. It was a risk, of course. A bad image of me, if people didn’t like me, could have had a negative impact on my work. »
Here as elsewhere, former nominees capitalize on their instant fame to inflate their social media subscribers, a feature that is monetized immediately through product placements. Everything from dog leashes to teeth whitening kits. Claudie Mercier, also formerOD South AfricaHe now has over 1.2 million followers on TikTok.
“People learn about ads on television,” notes Attorney Clarice Nka, who co-directed the study. influencer marketing Advertising in the age of social media (2021) for Option Consommateurs. Online too, when there is an advertisement before the video is broadcast. Influencer marketing, the advertising made by influencers, is hard to spot. »
The study showed that children accept this practice even if in Quebec, that practice intended for children under the age of 13 is still prohibited. Canadian laws do not mandate an explicit identification of online advertising (eg by using a hashtag such as #pub).
After participating in the reality TV MI Najjar, more famous than ever, changed his marketing plans in the difficult context as the pandemic forced the intermittent closure of his salons and discontinuance of hairdressing conventions. “Everything shut down and all my plans were ‘shattered,’” she says. “I rebounded differently from a participant in a more normal context.”
She uses social media to promote the Menz Club line of men’s beauty products, which she then launched Organizational development, but not to market other companies, products, or services. “Some make a living from influencer marketing,” she says. It’s not my case. I don’t consider myself an influencer, but I am an entrepreneur who uses their platforms for marketing. »