Katie Edmondson
Katie Edmondson
Assistant Editor
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Would You Watch This New Fall TV Show? Please??

Posted by Katie Edmondson, 21 Sep 2011

Mysterious expression. Well-coiffed hair. Piercing, Photoshop-blue eyes. Just who is this “gifted man,” and do we even want his gifts? The poster for this new CBS series may be thought-provoking, but it doesn’t tell us anything about the show. Instead of using this real estate to engage consumers with actual content, mysterious billboards like this one leave the premise up to the imagination of viewers. Sure, it’s meant to intrigue, not to inform. But is that wise?

At Story, we believe that content is king, so it’s hard for us to support this type of vague and generic advertising. TV shows are brands, and in a crowded media landscape brands must make themselves useful, fast, or get the hell out of the way. For each of these real posters, can you deduce the real plots from our fakes? If not, we submit that they’re probably too vague to be effective audience drivers. But feel free to challenge us in the comments section. Meanwhile, have fun!

Move to the next page to start the quiz!

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  • Kellyrudhe

    got them all!  does that mean I watch too much TV…?? 

  • Anonymous

    Well, I missed one — A Gifted Man — badly. I thought your plotline about a secret Santa sounded more entertaining than the lame-o one that turned out to be true. Got the others, though, largely because I know a hackneyed TV plotline when I see one (or, at least, 3 out of 4 times when I see one). Agree, however, that these posters aren’t advertising and they certainly don’t approach being post-advertising. Not sure what they are.

  • Michaela

    No challenge from me, I completely agree.  Enjoyed the post!

  • http://www.postadvertising.com Jon Thomas

    Yup!

  • Anonymous

    As consumers, we don’t want predictable plot lines and generic posters, we want new and original ideas – both in terms of advertising and in terms of the show itself. The fact that you could identify these plot lines based on your own preconceptions, not the posters themselves, shows that they aren’t doing their job of engaging consumers!