Instead, AT&T will use "Doctor Who" on BBC America to
bolster an emerging ad technique. Many of TV's biggest scripted
series have incorporated so-called hybrid commercials into their ad
breaks. Consider ABC's "Desperate Housewives" or NBC's "Heroes" or AMC's "Mad
Men," all of which ran commercials that promoted the sponsor,
but also the show being supported by the commercial. Fewer of these
actually feature content that advances the show's storyline while
the main action has been halted by the need to run the commercials
in the first place.
AT&T is advancing this method this weekend by sponsoring a
60-second vignette that will air during the season premiere of BBC
America's "Doctor Who" on Saturday . The time-traveling premiere is
set in 1930s Berlin and was written by "Doctor Who" executive
producer and showrunner Steven Moffat, who, along with the
episode's director Richard Senior, wanted to create a "bridging
scene" in between commercials -- a chase sequence starring lead
characters Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and Rory (Arthur Darvill). Mr.
Senior would have loved to include the scene in the original
episode, but the show didn't have the budget to shoot the
additional scenes.
Enter AT&T. The telecommunications concern, along with its
media agency, WPP's MEC, wanted to
incorporate its corporate slogan, "Rethink Possible," into the
premiere. So MEC and BBC America's ad sales team collaborated with
Messrs. Moffat and Senior to came up with a 60-second "motion comic
sequence," produced by Double Barrel Motion Labs, that continues
the storyline from the premiere episode but with much cheaper
production values.
"The shots were either too impossible to capture or too
expensive to create live, so doing it in a motion comic theme from
different viewing angles made perfect sense," said Mark Gall, BBC
America's exec VP-media sales. "It hits all those key things
AT&T needs. You'll even hear the Doctor say things like
'Anything is possible' on the series because it's part of his
character, part of how people talk about him during the
episodes."
The motion comic will even be introduced by a "Stay Tuned for
the Break" title card heading into the commercial pod to increase
additional engagement -- "the ultimate DVR buster," Mr. Gall
said.
AT&T's contribution won't be noted in perpetuity. The extra
vignette will be included in all digital and home entertainment
versions of the episode after it airs Saturday , but without the
AT&T brand tag.
"Doctor Who" is the highest-rated show on the otherwise
middling-rated BBC America, which just finished summer 2011 as the
No. 64 cable network among total viewers in prime-time and No. 49
among adults 18 to 49, according to Nielsen Media Research. New
episodes of "Doctor Who" often rank in cable's top 5 in their
Saturday night timeslot, and this April's sixth season premiere
became the networks' most-watched telecast yet with 1.3 million
viewers.