Viacom Prods., Sony and Anonymous Content are betting a new philosophy toward television production will turn ad icon Plato into a half-hour hit.
Three companies have teamed up with scribe/exec producer Eric Fogel (“Celebrity Deathmatch”) to create a comedy pilot for a weekly live-action series starring Plato, the 3 ½ foot non-speaking alien at the heart of Sony Electronics’ TV ad campaign for its minidisc Walkman. Pilot has already been shot at a budget just north of $1 million, and Viacom and Anonymous are in the process of meeting with potential broadcast and cable buyers about picking up the project to series.
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In addition to Fogel, Anonymous Content’s Lenny Bekerman — a fan of the original ad campaign who first approached Plato’s parents at ad shop Union about a spinoff skein — will serve as exec producer.
In the pilot, Plato, who comes to life via animatronics, is a student trying to fit in with the other frosh misfits at a typical college campus. The other students assume he’s a foreign exchange student, and Plato’s love for pop culture helps him communicate with his human peers.
“He’s an alien, but he’s not really an alien since everyone in college feels different,” said Viacom Prods. prexy Perry Simon.
Skein, a co-prod of Viacom and Sony Pictures Television, is being offered at a reduced license fee due to Sony Electronics’ financial involvement in the project. While the company isn’t being guaranteed any product placement, it believes the project will both build awareness of Plato and provide a favorable environment in which to advertise its gizmos.
“There’s all this talk about the new studio-advertiser paradigm, and this is a great illustration of the direction in which the industry is moving,” Simon told Daily Variety. “I’ve always felt (Viacom Prods.) should be about doing business differently. For us to be doing the same thing as (sister company) Paramount wouldn’t make sense.”
Viacom and Anonymous both have experience integrating advertisers into production.
Studio worked with Magna Global and TNT to shape the cabler’s Johnson & Johnson-branded telepic franchise, while short-lived laffer “Baby Bob” resulted from Viacom’s relationship with the ad agency that created the yak-happy tyke.
Management/production shingle Anonymous, meanwhile, is a leading commercial producer and was involved in the BWM Films series of shorts that ran in theaters a few years ago. The success of that project helped prompt Bekerman to seek out Union, and later Viacom, in his bid to create a Plato series.
“One of the mandates of our company is to get into this brand-integrated space,” Bekerman said, noting that producing the pilot before pitching to webs was a key part of the strategy behind getting Plato in primetime.
“We didn’t want people to be afraid of the fact that (an advertiser such as) Sony was involved in the production,” he said. “People might think it’s just a big commercial. We wanted to prove that it’s just the opposite.”
While Sony gets no product placement guarantees — unlike, say, sponsors on NBC’s “The Restaurant,” in which diners and employees lovingly nursed Coors Light every week — the company’s products will be used on-camera whenever electronics gear is part of a scene.
“It’s a college show, and kids do have stereos and TVs in their dorm rooms,” Bekerman said. “But there’s no mandate to put it in the show.”
Simon said producing scripted skeins with heavy product placement “carries tremendous risks with viewers,” who are savvy enough to spot oversaturation of a certain product.
“If you look at the template at how advertising and programming are going to evolve together as we move forward, it’s going to be less about product placement and more about creating a halo effect,” Simon said. “Advertisers want to associate their brand with a (show) that has the same demographic appeal as the product. The Hallmark Hall of Fame is the classic model.”
Sony Pictures Television programming/production prexy Russ Krasnoff is overseeing the studio’s interest in the project, with Union’s Matt Aselton, Randy Van Kleeck and Nelson Martinez attached as producers.
WMA-repped Fogel’s other credits include “Daria” and the upcoming “Barbie” animated feature.
