At the moment, several of us here at Catalyst are deeply immersed in a project that involves television advertising so maybe we were predisposed to take note of Dove’s “Calming Night” online campaign. The site presents “webisodes” directed by Penny Marshall and starring Felicity Huffman that place Huffman inside the TV world of old sitcoms (The Brady Bunch, The Munsters, and Leave it to Beaver). The angle — that Huffman travels into TVland seeking advice from TV moms — is a bit contrived, but the spots are amusing and worth a watch (an office favorite: Huffman explaining the concept of a Blackberry while the Beaver looks on, mystified).

“Webisodes” is a bit of an annoying term — especially in this case, since there only seem to be three of these spots and no indication of future installments. Still, the campaign is a good illustration of the use of video in online campaigns — beyond simply re-presenting commercials that were originally made for TV.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 1st, 2006 at 5:05 pm and is filed under Advertising.