Marketers Turn to Celebs on People.com

People.com and creative shop Ideocracy have struck a partnership to launch a new online video platform to link brands with celebrities.

The Time Inc.-owned site "continues to look for innovative opportunities to bring to advertisers," said the title's associate publisher, sales, Karen Kovacs. And the aim of this latest deal is to deliver brand-related video content to People.com's estimated 9.4 million monthly unique visitors.

The 18-month deal calls for People.com to serve as the exclusive distributor and Ideocracy the sole creator of content for a service known as Vipwich.

In a continuation of its past practice, clients pay Ideocracy to produce the work and Ideocracy owns the content. The agency, in turn, shares a percentage of that amount with the actors and talent brokers, said Ted D'Cruz-Young, founder of the independent shop. The percentage varies from actor to actor.

People.com will distribute the content via a link to a broader site that Ideocracy is developing about the intersection of celebrities and brands. This site will also include a collection of old TV spots starring actors, pop stars and TV-show hosts. The tagline will be "Celebrities at work."

The site has yet to go live, but People.com will introduce the shorts within the next two weeks, D'Cruz-Young said.

The first two brands to be featured are Mott's apple juice and Vitaminwater (though the latter of which is not yet a client). Mott's paid Ideocracy to create the shorts; Ideocracy shot the pieces for Vitaminwater on spec, hoping that the brand, now owned by Coca-Cola, would sign on.

The satirical Web shorts, which range in length from one to five-plus minutes, are loosely scripted and allow for improvisation. Several depict Cheryl Hines (Curb Your Enthusiasm) leading humorous focus-group discussions about the Vitaminwater brand. Others show Judy Greer (Arrested Development) as a serious-minded casting agent interviewing small children. In one, a little girl sips Mott's from a juice box as Greer deadpans, "Do you train with anyone?"

People.com represents a big, established platform on which to launch, and People's core audience -- women in their 20s and 30s -- appeals to Mott's and other brands the agency hopes to attract.

"It's a huge site with an incredibly loyal audience," said Ideocracy partner Mark Armstrong, a former news director at People.com.

Armstrong joined Ideocracy in June 2008, just as the project was getting off the ground. He was instrumental in forging the deal with People last summer. Mott's, a Dr Pepper Snapple Group brand, started talking to Ideocracy in May 2008 and signed on last summer as well.

At the same time, Ideocracy began shooting the shorts, which are relatively inexpensive and quick to film. For example, the shop shot seven 5-minute episodes involving Hines in one day, D'Cruz-Young said.

Ideocracy works with each actor to develop a loose outline or "jumping off points" for each segment, including suggested lines of dialog. But the actors can improvise regularly as well. In one short, an off-camera D'Cruz-Young interrupts Hines after she swings open the doors to a wipe board. "No drawing on the board," D'Cruz-Young says. Hines smiles to mask her puzzlement. "OK, why do we have a board, then?" she asks.

As for the types of brands Ideocracy wants to attract, D'Cruz-Young pointed to both big brands looking to experiment with something unconventional and "quirky, little" brands that, in the context of say, traditional TV spots, could never afford to work with celebrities.
-By Andrew McMains
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