11368: The Pitch Still Sucks.

AMC series The Pitch kicked off its second season last week. Whoop-de-damn-doo. For now, MultiCultClassics will continue to review The Pitch without actually watching the show.

How the worst advertising-related program in history was allowed to continue demonstrates the intellectual deficiencies of television executives. That a new crop of agencies agreed to participate demonstrates the character deficiencies of advertising executives.

The original reasons to avoid The Pitch have already been discussed here. Yet the fast-changing industry presents even more motivation to spend your Thursday evenings engaged in other activities. In short, the reality TV series is getting lousier than ever in reflecting reality.

For starters, legitimate pitches rarely happen anymore. Rather, accounts are routinely relocated via various versions of Corporate Cultural Collusion.

The most common scheme involves the buddy system, where client-agency cronyism leads to the shifting of billings sans a formal shootout. These relationships tend to last as long as the key cronies maintain their respective positions. Once a CMO or agency CEO moves on, the account vanishes, leaving scores of hapless adpeople unemployed.

Another maneuver mastered by Omnicom mimics musical chairs, whereby an account is endlessly shuttled between sister agencies. If Publicis Omnicom Groupe is approved, brands such as Quaker and Propel Zero may never leave the network.

A third popular hustle requires inventing agencies to exclusively service accounts. Sir Martin Sorrell seems to be saying, “If none of the shitty shops in my empire are qualified to handle your business, I’ll cobble together a fresh shitty shop just for you.” Rearranging the monkey cages won’t produce evolutionary—and certainly not revolutionary—results. It’s just a bunch of different simians still tossing poop.

So what exactly does The Pitch represent? Hell, AMC series Mad Men offers greater resemblance and relevance to today’s ad game.

11254: Delayed WTF 25—The Pitch.

MultiCultClassics is often occupied with real work. As a result, a handful of events occur without the expected blog commentary. This limited series—Delayed WTF—seeks to make belated amends for the absence of malice.

Missed the Advertising Age preview on AMC series The Pitch—the worst advertising-related program ever.

The Pitch is gearing up for its second season with a lineup of advertising agencies that reads like a Who’s Who of Who Dat? The only arguably recognizable shop is commonground, winner of Advertising Age’s 2012 Small Agency of the Year Gold Award. Other competitors actually include agencies from Nashville. Really? Why bother? If The Pitch stumbles into a third season, look for the contestants to be in-house marketing departments of local car dealerships. It would be preferable to organize face-offs between students from portfolio schools.

This all supports MultiCultClassics’ opinion on the series. That is, the reality TV show is anything but real—and it makes for really bad entertainment.

11150: Jimmy Smith’s Reality TV Check.

Amusement Park Entertainment Chief Creative Officer Chairman and CEO Jimmy Smith discusses his experience on new VH1 series Model Employee.

10915: ‘All My Babies’ Mamas’ Aborted.

From Advertising Age…

Oxygen Pulls ‘All My Babies’ Mamas’

Planned Special Had Triggered Complaints

By Jeanine Poggi

Oxygen confirmed on Tuesday that it is pulling its reality special “All My Babies’ Mamas,” which was expected to star Atlanta rapper Shawty Lo, his 11 children and their 10 mothers.

The network announced a one-hour special with that tentative title last month, saying it would show an “extreme ‘blended family’ that is anything but ordinary” sometime this spring. “Oxygen will give fans an intimate look at unconventional families with larger than life personalities and real emotional stakes,” said Cori Abraham, senior VP of development at Oxygen Media, in a statement Dec. 26.

But advocacy groups gunned to kill the show after initial development footage was leaked. Civil rights group ColorofChange.org condemned the show as portraying a negative stereotype image of African-Americans, and a petition from the Parents Television Council to cancel the special attracted more than 37,000 names.

Today an Oxygen spokeswoman said the special was dead. “As part of our development process, we have reviewed casting and decided not to move forward with the special,” she said. “We will continue to develop compelling content that resonates with our young female viewers and drives the cultural conversation.”

Shawty Lo and his family were considered for the show, but other families were being considered as well, according to a person familiar with the project.

10549: Heineken Hearts Hispanics.

From The New York Times…

In a Sponsored TV Show, ‘H’ Is for Hispanic … and Heineken

By Stuart Elliott

A cable channel devoted to Hispanic viewers is scheduled to present a special show on Saturday evening that offers another example — this time with a Spanish accent — of the popular marketing trend of branded entertainment.

Branded entertainment involves embedding products in program content to avoid the fate of traditional commercials, which can be zapped or zipped through by viewers as they try to avoid paid pitches. In the show on Saturday night, as is increasingly the case with branded entertainment projects, the selling is done discreetly rather than in your face.

The special, which will be shown on the Discovery en Español channel at 10 p.m. on Saturday, is the documentary-style “Gen H,” for “generation Hispanic.” The program looks at the lives of three young Hispanic people — a chef, a rock musician and a gallery owner — trying to achieve success in the United States.

The “H,” as it turns out, also alludes to the involvement of Heineken, the beer brand that is sponsoring the show. But the sponsorship is presented in a low-key way.

For instance, Heineken is acknowledged at the end of the program, with a title card, but not at the beginning; there will be commercials for Heineken during the show, but there will also be spots for other advertisers.

While Heineken bottles turn up in various scenes of the show — at the chef’s restaurant; the rocker’s concerts; and the gallery owner’s art shows — the appearances are nowhere near as blatant as they were in earlier versions of branded entertainment efforts like “The Restaurant” on NBC.

“We as a brand don’t want to be overly intrusive,” said Colin Westcott-Pitt, vice president of marketing for the Heineken brand at Heineken USA.

The program is “a showcase for the three subjects,” he said, rather than for Heineken.

Although Heineken has “done quite a few things” in the realm of branded entertainment, Mr. Westcott-Pitt said, “this is the strongest and deepest” involvement that the brand has had in a program. “In the future, you will see us do a lot more in this space.”

More information about “Gen H” can be found on a section of the cable channel’s Web site. The show is being presented as part of the programming on Discovery en Español for Hispanic Heritage Month.

Making sure a branded entertainment program does not turn off viewers with overt placements is “hard, but not difficult,” said Enrique Montoya, vice president of Discovery Solutions at Discovery Networks Latin America and U.S. Hispanic in Miami, which is part of Discovery Communications.

“It requires a lot of energy to see one of these through,” Mr. Montoya said, but it is worth the effort because Discovery executives “want to do more” such shows, and “advertisers want to do more and agencies want to do more.”

“Gen H” was created for Heineken by Discovery en Español as part of efforts for advertisers that make “a certain level of investment” in the channel, Mr. Montoya said, meaning those that buy a certain level of commercial time. (He declined to discuss specific amounts.)

“They reach that level and we enter into content production,” he added, “either a new production or something that’s already in the works.”

10245: Kung Fu Fighting for A Job.

Advertising Age reported that Group M China is recruiting talent and raising awareness about careers in advertising via a reality TV show. “Young Power” will feature college grads participating in an elimination-style competition for a job with the agency. If this concept were launched by the culturally clueless U.S. industry, the tasks would include Cantonese cooking, Kung Fu fighting, Laundromat operating and IT maintenance—and it would be called “Yung Power.” Plus, the program would lead to accusations of ageism.

In Search of Young Talent, Group M Launches Reality Show

WPP Agency Attempts to Raise Awareness of Industry With the Series ‘Young Power,’ Offering Winner a Job

By Anita Chang Beattie

Talk to agency executives in China and they’ll say talent recruitment and retention are the most pressing issues facing the industry. WPP’s Group M is confronting this challenge with a unique tactic: a reality show.

Called “Young Power,” the 10-episode online series is being promoted on popular Chinese websites and seat-back taxi screens in four major cities. The 10 college graduates on the elimination-style show complete various media-planning tasks, with the winner going on to a permanent job within Group M and its agencies.

The goal isn’t to trigger a flood of applications, said Roger Li, chief talent officer for Group M China. Rather, it’s to help bright young Chinese understand the basics of media investment and management, and inspire interest in the industry as a career option.

“The history of the media industry is quite short” in China, he said. “When people think about advertising, they always think about creative production rather than media. Even when I go to college campuses to talk about our industry, there are a lot of questions.

“As long as [the show] draws a lot of interest and awareness of the media industry, I’m very happy,” he said.

Turnover at Group M in China is about 25% each year in a market where some agencies have 50% turnover. Coupled with staffing demands stemming from agency growth, Group M China must hire 600 new employees each year.

In the U.S., a prospective employee who comes to an interview with no idea what the company does would probably be laughed out of the room. Not so in China, where Mr. Li said that scenario is “absolutely” normal.

“If we can interest you, and you come, we have confidence that we can attract you to us because what we’re doing is something that’s a lot of fun,” he said.

“Young Power” kicked off with a trailer that garnered 100,000 views within days. The first episode was posted on video-sharing site Youku last week, with a new installment each day. Challenges include preparing a basic media budget, conducting consumer-insights research and coming up with a social-media activation plan for a sports brand.

10200: AMC Series The Pitch Deserves Award…?

AMC series The Pitch has been nominated for a Critics’ Choice Television Award—with winners to be announced on June 18th at a gala awards dinner.

A few things should be pointed out about the unexpected and undeserved honor. First, this is only the 2nd Annual Critics’ Choice Television Awards, making receiving a trophy even less impressive than nabbing an ADCOLOR® Award. Second, The Pitch is in the weird category of Best Reality Series – Competition—a category that actually did not include extremely popular programs like American Idol, Dancing With The Stars, The Celebrity Apprentice, The Bachelor, The Biggest Loser and Survivor. Third, the Broadcast Television Journalists Association selected the nominees. Um, finding TV journalists who praise The Pitch is like finding movie critics who rave over Nicolas Cage flicks. A Google search of reviews for The Pitch will reveal critiques rivaling the comments regularly appearing on Agency Spy.

There’s definitely something fishy about this Critics’ Choice pick. Wouldn’t be surprised to learn the show’s producers tapped their personal network of cronies to nab votes. Or maybe the participating agencies helped AMC officials by sharing their tactics for landing local ADDY Awards.

AMC should rest assured, of course, that the nomination will not affect MultiCultClassics naming The Pitch as the Worst Advertising-Related Program Ever.

10078: The Pitch Hypes Mediocre Agencies.

Admittedly haven’t watched AMC series The Pitch since its sneak preview—but how many times must one sniff excrement to realize it’s shit?

The show appears to be evolving into a self-hype vehicle for advertising agencies, as evidenced by the FKM banner ad above. Meanwhile, McKinney Executive VP-GCD Liz Paradise followed her embarrassing performance with an Advertising Age interview that confirmed all the negative qualities The Pitch revealed about her.

For anyone keeping score, here are the top reasons why The Pitch will fail:

The overall concept is not new. Programs like The Apprentice have already depicted contestants competing to create campaigns. Seeing real adpeople at work will never be more interesting than celebrities and Donald Trump concocting big ideas for brands.

The premise is not authentic. Apparently, featured agencies have about two weeks to deliver, with no guarantee that the winning idea will get produced. No self-respecting agency would ever submit to such conditions. In fact, self-respecting agencies rejected the invitation to participate.

The agencies are not great. As mentioned above, self-respecting agencies took a pass on the opportunity. Watching lower-tier shops duke it out is the equivalent of viewing a reality TV series on local softball leagues. Maybe even more boring.

The business is not that interesting. Successful series with advertising themes—Mad Men, thirtysomething, Bewitched—had plots and dramas bigger than the making of advertisements. The face-offs on The Pitch seem inconsequential and unimportant—because they are.

Lower-tier adpeople are not attractive. Sorry, Jon Hamm look-alikes don’t take jobs at small-market agencies. This is not something you can blame on editing.

The reality TV series is not based on reality. The biggest accounts and top agencies are no longer involved in formal pitches. AOR shifts are now ignited by holding companies, buddy systems and Corporate Cultural Collusion.

10034: The Black Bachelors’ Advocate.

The previous post featured a cameo appearance by Cyrus Mehri of the Madison Avenue Project. It’s sobering to realize Mehri will likely have more success with his discrimination suit against a reality TV show than his battle against the blatantly guilty advertising industry.

10033: Black Bachelors Not Wanted…?

From The Chicago Tribune…

Call for black ‘Bachelors’

By Clarence Page

A class-action suit filed by two black men claims “The Bachelor” turned them away because they were not white. I think they should feel relieved. Having the right to embarrass yourself on national television doesn’t mean you actually should do it.

Nevertheless, there is no shortage of people seeking fame by way of the so-called “reality” TV shows such as this dating competition, which has been on ABC since 2002, and its sister show, “The Bachelorette.” Two of them are Nathaniel Claybrooks and Christopher Johnson of Nashville. They say in a suit filed in federal court there that they were not given the same consideration as white candidates when they tried out to be contestants during a regional casting call.

They’re not saying they definitely should have been selected, said their Washington-based lawyer, Cyrus Mehri, only that they be given “the same level of consideration as white applicants.”

The lawsuit, which names ABC and Mike Fleiss, executive producer of the two programs, claims the dating shows have never featured a person of color in the central role of deciding who, among the season’s lineup of dates, is the winning choice as a potential mate.

Does their suit have a chance? Civil rights lawyers say the plaintiffs could depose producers of both shows and probe everything from contestant applications to internal production memos during the discovery process. That could prove hazardous for any sort of show-business enterprise, since industry people can be brutally candid about the talent they seek. Think of “American Idol” judge Simon Cowell at his worst.

In one recent example, Acura apologized after a leaked casting-call sheet for its Super Bowl commercial asked for an African-American car dealer to be “nice looking, friendly, not too dark.” A spokesman explained that “the skin tone restriction was to avoid problems with lighting and special effects.” Yet, one wonders, would they turn down stars like, for example, Taye Diggs or Sidney Poitier or Lou Gossett Jr., without even giving them a try-out?

The dating shows bring up a deeper social question about our times: America is past being ready for a black president, but is it ready for a black “Bachelor”? The biggest challenge in the show’s casting process is to find bachelors who viewers in America’s vast mainstream national audience will care enough about to stay tuned-in for the duration of each season.

It is reasonable to assume that race, like any other visible characteristic, will figure into that decision even though it probably is not legal and certainly not politically correct in today’s racial etiquette to say so or mention it in writing.

Regardless of how the lawsuit turns out, I suspect the marketplace may well decide this issue. If the show’s ratings fall into a steep enough decline, for example, its producers may well want to cast a nonwhite bachelor to give the program an attractive burst of social tension. That’s show biz.

And, my snobbish tastes aside, numerous TV viewers await a nonwhite “Bachelor” or “Bachelorette” with the nervous anticipation that earlier generations felt about Jackie Robinson crossing baseball’s color line in the 1940s. Lamar Hurd, an African-American Portland, Ore.-based sportscaster, has reportedly been in talks with the show to be the first black “Bachelor” after he was the subject of a social media campaign. As the old TV saying goes, stay tuned.

Many of us had hoped that America had gotten past such hang-ups when Captain Kirk, played by William Shatner, kissed Lt. Uhuru, played by Nichelle Nichols, on the original “Star Trek” series in 1968, which is often cited as the first interracial kiss on a scripted television series. Yet the people who create network television are still nervous about what the heartland of America will accept.

Meanwhile, in the real world interracial relations are rapidly becoming old news, even in the heartland. Paul Taylor, director of the Pew Hispanic Center, recently revealed a poll that found 15 percent of marriages in the United States are interracial, compared with only about 0.1 percent in 1961. “The human heart is the last frontier,” Taylor said.

Or maybe, as they used to say on “Star Trek,” it will be “the final frontier.”

9990: Taking Another Run At AMC’s The Pitch.

A visitor took offense to parts of MultiCultClassics’ review of AMC series The Pitch. Here are the highlights of the gripe:

You rightly bemoan the lack of diversity in agencies like McKinney. (Although the fact that most of the creatives working on the pitch seems to have escaped you. Or don’t women count?) But apparently you have no compunction about discriminating against people based solely on their age.

Why is ageism any more acceptable than racism or sexism? All discrimination is wrong. There are incredibly talented creatives over 40 and even 50. Should you cast them aside just because they may have a few grey hairs or wrinkles? What is this, “Logan's Run?”

OK, to avoid completely rehashing past posts, MultiCultClassics will respond with topline statements and links.

Q. Which group has most benefited from affirmative action?
A. White women. And this certainly holds true in the advertising industry, where White women are pretty well represented in the majority of departments. Granted, there appears to be a dearth of dames in creative director roles, although the McKinney GCD spotlighted in The Pitch proved female creative honchos do exist. Ironically, the theme of the infamous Neil French rant has seemingly been consistently corroborated by White women—including the McKinney GCD. So when it comes to diversity, White women do not count.

MultiCultClassics does not discriminate against people based solely on their age. Boomers and Old White Guys have been criticized at this blog, but primarily for their outdated attitudes and behaviors, which have little to do with how old they are. BTW, the characters on The Pitch displayed age-related bias by giving the assignment to “younger” staffers. Additionally, MultiCultClassics has noted the hypocrisy of elder adpeople crying ageism now that they are in the cultural crosshairs, despite having spent their careers turning blind eyes and deaf ears while nearly every minority group has faced blatant discrimination in our industry. Former passive bigots are suddenly accusing everyone else of bigotry.

For the record, the barbs directed at the participants on The Pitch were not intended for Tracy Wong. The man is clearly an authentic, relevant leader. On the program, he inspired his team to do their thang, provided direction and resources, and finally supported and promoted their efforts. Take a close look at the performances of the McKinney bigwigs. The GCD didn’t offer a single meaningful contribution, while the CCO clumsily forced himself into the process. They made a point to assign the project to “younger” writers and art directors, and then effectively stifled their creativity. McKinney was lucky to encounter conservative, culturally clueless clients and seal a victory, yet the win doesn’t negate their stupidity. The North Carolina-based shop may succeed on reality TV, but actual reality is probably another story.