Microsoft won this evenings Apprentice hands down. In today’s Tivo happy world content integrated marketing is the future and we all better get used to it. Not just for TV either. The Web is the king of integrated marketing. We do it at WebProNews all the time where sponsor messages are presented in our normal content style.

Our most recent was in a WebProNews newsletter edition focusing on how blogs can help eBay affiliates. One of our writers David Utter wrote the article but it was focused on something eBay wanted to promote. It is the best of both worlds when you can merge helpful information for the reader and get paid to do it by a sponsor. This approach has generated thousands of leads for eBay. Apprentice, which is one of televisions highest rated shows, has embraced this advertiser/content mix illustrating the power of a content integrated marketing strategy.

Tonight’s episode featured the final four Apprentice applicants in a task to prepare a 60 sec video for Microsoft showcasing Microsoft Office Live Meeting. Judging the videos was Janice Kapner, marketing director in the business unit that makes Microsoft Office Live Meeting and Dustin Grosse, general manager of sales and marketing in the company’s Real-Time Collaboration Business Unit, which offers the Live Meeting service.

In the end Donald Trump fired both team members of “Capital Edge”, accusing 29 year old Felisha of “not being strong enough for this city” and scolding the aggressive Alla to “stop brow beating” her opponent. It is the second time this season Trump fired more than one Apprentice in an episode. Their video was very simplistic … very much like a Power Point presentation instead of a polished promotional video. The statement voiced over in the beginning of the video, “Simply use your name and password to log in” gives you a clear picture where this promotion was headed. Not good.

The winning team Excel did a much better job focusing on a video story line showing the power of the service. I think it fit better with the tag line Microsoft has for the service; The service that gives you the power to hold live meetings anytime … anywhere.

Microsoft will receive a powerful boost from this show … much more convincing than the standard commercial. I think this is the future for television because it must hold the attention of the audience if it is to continue receiving big bucks from advertisers.

I see blogs, email newsletters, RSS feeds, podcasts and other online content as a natural part of an advertisers content integration strategy. Mesh interesting, useful and sometimes entertaining content with paying sponsors in order to maximize value for both the reader and the advertiser. Like I said in a recent blog post, quality content can only exist if it is paid for … whether it is a TV show or delivered via the Internet.

Posted on Friday, December 2nd, 2005 at 2:26 pm. Permalink