A branding deal between Warner Bros. Discovery and Jefferson's Bourbon for The Penguin is the latest collaboration helping the media giant master the delicate task of placing ads on the long-commercial-free HBO.
The White Lotus Season 2 | Renaissance (Main Title Theme) – Cristobal Tapia De Veer | WaterTower
Ryan Gould, head of digital ad sales and a key overseer of Max’s advertising layer, said Wednesday during a panel at Advertising Week in New York that the company requires discipline. Brand messaging, he stressed, must always be “super endemic and tailored to the audience” watching the show.
“The easiest thing for us as a company,” he added, “would be to have consistently high ad loads, sell these assets with multiple creatives taking breaks every seven to 12 minutes. We don’t believe that’s a long-term, viable option for IP that, quite frankly, drives culture. HBO IP has been driving culture for 40 years, and we want to make sure that when we bring brands into that ecosystem, we’re driving culture for another 40 years.”
In the case of The Penguin , an HBO limited series spin-off from Matt Reeves’s latest Batman film franchise, that means one linear ad for Jefferson’s before each episode. No rolling stock ads will play during the episodes, which Gould says is crucial to boosting viewer engagement and maintaining HBO’s prestige image. In addition to the pre-show ads, the bourbon maker participated in a promotion last July at Comic-Con and a New York City dinner for online influencers, aiming to merge the spirit’s image with the gritty intrigue of the show’s Gotham City milieu.
