Gillette puts brand on reality TV show

CINCINNATI -- Procter & Gamble Co., a pioneer in television soap operas, is on the cutting edge of the branded entertainment trend with a new TV reality show featuring Gillette.

An ABC summer series that debuts tomorrow night has celebrities including actor William Shatner, singer Jewel, and skateboarder Tony Hawk learning stock-car racing from Gillette-sponsored NASCAR drivers. And the promotion goes beyond commercials -- Gillette not only helped conceive and create the show, its presence runs throughout, from the show's title to logos on drivers' fire suits and cars.

"The creative concept and the brand are intertwined," said Steve Fund, global business director for Gillette, the Boston company known for its shavers that P&G acquired in 2005. "Really, the show is the ad."

Networks and advertisers have been exploring ways to make televised product promotions, including weaving them into TV programs themselves.

"The standard 50-year-old advertising model that P&G almost invented doesn't work nearly as well anymore," said Leonard Lodish, a Wharton School of Business marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

P&G, which backed the daytime TV serials dubbed "soap operas" starting in the 1950s, also has brands featured on cable's The Learning Channel in "Home Made Simple," derived last year from P&G's home living tips newsletter and online site.

The series, titled "Fast Cars and Superstars -- the Gillette Young Guns Celebrity Race," is produced by New York-based Radical Media. The show has other sponsors whose logos will appear on cars during the seven-show series.