Old and New Media Coexisting Nicely, Thank You

Fan vs. Wild

It was not that long ago when Madison Avenue believed that Web video — also known as webisodes, online video and Web series — would replace television, or at least put a big dent into the ability of TV to reach consumers.

Now, however, as more marketers turn to Web video, many are increasingly doing so along with — rather than in place of — television.

Take, for instance, “The Next Round Served Up by Jim Beam,” a Web series for Jim Beam bourbon that ESPN plans to introduce on April 4. Although the webisodes will be on ESPN.com, excerpts will appear during the first commercial breaks on 11 p.m. episodes of “SportsCenter” on the ESPN cable channel.

“We feel very strongly that video is video,” said Ed Erhardt, president for the ESPN customer marketing and sales unit of ESPN in New York, part of the Walt Disney Company.

Another example is provided by the Bertolli unit of Unilever, which promoted “Into the Heart of Italy” — a Web series that began this week — with commercials on ABC. One spot ran during the Academy Awards broadcast on March 7 and a second appeared in an episode of “Desperate Housewives.”

Some Web series use familiar television faces as hosts. Among them are “Fan vs. Wild” for another Unilever brand, Degree antiperspirant, which features Bear Grylls of the Discovery cable series “Man vs. Wild,” and “In the Kitchen,” for the Jenn-Air appliances sold by Whirlpool, which features Tori Ritchie, a chef and author.

And as American Express and Constellation Brands team up for “Pairings,” a Web series about food, wine and music that went live on Thursday, its creator, GreenLight Media and Marketing, is considering proposing a series based on the webisodes to a cable television channel.

The pairings of Web video and television reflect a school of thought that the old and new media can coexist and perhaps even benefit from each other. That idea has been reinforced recently by growing audiences for the Super Bowl and other big events on TV. They seem to be stimulated by blogs and social media like Facebook and Twitter, enabling viewers to discuss together what they are watching separately.

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