New York, October 28, 1991, by Bernice Kanner
"Tune in Tomorrow"
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Now that the Honda summer "dealathon" is over and Danny has 
emerged from the bathroom, what's next for this short-
baldish man who dreams about being a *real* salesman? Will 
he suffer a gall-bladder attack? Appear on *Oprah*? Lose his 
wife, Claudia, to a taller, more handsome man? Be lured away 
by Mercedes-Benz...or Marla Maples? Star in his own sitcom?

Some of these things may lie ahead for Danny--a Hollywood 
production company is toying with the sitcom prospect--but 
for now, the saga continues, with our hapless hero from 
Hoboken facing yet another dealathon.

Danny is the star of one of advertising's current ploys, the 
serial. "They're becoming increasingly common now, because 
they're involving and empathetic," says Allen Kay, chairman 
of Korey, Kay & Partners, the agency that created Danny. 
"Serials are stages for characters to develop their 
personalities; people can relate more to a person than to a 
spokesperson. Serials involve different spots, each telling 
a story that builds on the previous one and in which the 
central character builds a life of his own. By contrast, 
[Charmin's] Mr. Whipple solves the same problem in the same 
place time and again. There is no dimension to the 
character. And we don't know what Madge [the Palmolive 
manicurist] does on Saturday night, because for her, nights 
don't exist. They're not people; they're pitchmen."

A serial isn't just a continuing story that's chopped and 
stitched together, says Lynn Rotando, CEO of Rotando, Lerch 
& Iafeliece, the Stanford agency that created a serial for 
Tetley Tea. This one stars the pudgy, opinionated Pearle (a 
waitress with a beehive hairdo and a southern twang) and an 
off-camera friend. "In a serial, you establish a personality 
that grows, and the advertiser remains true to it," explains 
Rotando. "Serials work--not just because they often imitate 
the programming they're sandwiched between but because 
viewers bring prior knowledge to their watching and are 
immediately involved."

By contrast, says Rotando, "Madge was one-dimensional. With 
Pearle, we see different facts of her personality. She's a 
normal human being, if a bit larger than life--a female 
Ralph Kramden with a sardonic wit. ("Oh good! We can all 
rest easy. Tetley has now invented the round tea bag," 
Pearle says in one spot.)

In some serials, the characters pretend the camera doesn't 
exist. In others, they play to it. In 1985, Hal Riney's 45 
installments starring hayseeds Frank Bartles and Ed Jaymes 
made Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers hot, with a personality 
and brand franchise that set them apart from parent Gallo. 
In one wry spot, the folksy Frank urges viewers to drink up 
because Ed "took that second on his house and soon he's got 
a big balloon payment coming up."

Some ads flaunt their "serialness." In 1986, Miller Lite ran 
four sequential mystery commercials, dropping clues for 
viewers to solve the "Case of the Missing Case." The 
following year, General Motors sliced a twelve-minute 
"Odyssey Science Not Fiction" movie into commercials that 
ran consecutively during shows GM alone had sponsored--a 
formula the company thought would build recognition. In both 
the Miller and GM serials, all but the final installment 
ended with a "to be continued" slug.

Other serials masquerade as programming. In 1988, Ragu 
blurred the line between advertising and actual TV shows 
with a "sitcom serial" (complete with laugh track and 
audience applause) about the DeLucas: Frank; his wife, 
Carol; his mother; his eye-rolling teenage son; and his 
precocious daughter. The networks worried that viewers would 
confuse it with actual programming and asked that Ragu add 
an identifying logo to the beginning of each spot. A few 
years ago, Pacific Bell ran a serial campaign in the West 
that told the story of Garland and Lawrence, two friends who 
grew up together, served in combat together, and loved the 
same woman. A second serial, about two siblings' attempts to 
keep their family together, reportedly had viewers glued to 
the set--and visiting the bathroom during the *real* 
program.

The Taster's Choice romance started to percolate last 
November, when an attractive woman rang the doorbell of her 
neighbor--a handsome single man--to borrow coffee. The brief 
encounter left them...interested. In round two, she came to 
return the coffee, just as he was conducting his own 
intimate dinner party. In the third spot--which began 
running last month, following a week of ads uring viewers to 
tune in--he arrives so late to his sister's dinner party 
that everyone's already started on coffee. Our heroine is 
one of the guests, and sparks fly as they recognize each 
other. He promises he won't be late tomorrow because he's 
having her to dinner. "What makes you think I'll accept"? 
she murmurs.

The ads, starring Sharon Maughan and Anthony Head, began as 
a series for Nescafe Gold Blend, another Nestle brand, that 
has been running for the past four years in England. In 
those spots, the coffee mates eventually kissed, but in the 
most recent--No. 8--she tells him the relationship isn't 
working. The American version will follow a different 
storyline altogether.

Cathy Ives, product manager at Nestle Beverage Company, says 
that the campaign has certainly broken through the 
commercial clutter. "People tell us that this episodic story 
leaves them on the edge of their seats, wondering about the 
tension and nuances of this Hepburn-Tracy-type relationship. 
We've touched a nerve that people identify with as they 
experience the magical, mystical moments of courtship, of 
possibility."

A fourth installment willrun earlynext year, and there are 
plans for additional episodes in the spring and summer. "As 
long as we keep the unexpected, some surprises, we think our 
viewers will be pleased" says Ives, who notes that sales of 
Taster's Choice have grown by at least 6 percent since the 
campaign began.

Some serials are intended as one-shots but turn into 
extended runs. Brother Dominic first appeared on behalf of 
Xerox in 1975. When two subsequent spots didn't feature the 
miraculous monk, viewers were clamoring for him, says Kay, 
who created Dominic while at Needham, Harper & Steers. Danny 
first appeared in 1986, in what was supposed to be one of 
five spots, but he so captured the public's fancy that Honda 
built a serial around him.

Like Brother Dominic, Danny never actually pitches his 
product but "warms it up, humanizes it," says Kay. "Danny 
and Claudia are the Ricky and Lucy of the nineties." Honda's 
market share in the New York area has risen 68 percent--to 
10.4 from 6.2--since their campaign began.

DuPont Stainmaster's sophisticated couple spots also started 
as a single commercial, says Ted Sann, executive creative 
director of BBDO. "While Taster's Choice stays in 
*thirtysomething* reality, Stainmaster serves up sexual 
tension a la Marx Brothers." After a steamy opening in 
episode one, a man wearing a tuxedo topples the table; in 
episode two, his dinner partner initiates a food fight to 
the swelling strains of *Madame Butterfly*. "The next time 
people see that couple, they'll look for the same joke. 
Somehow, we'll have to surprise them," says Sann.

Though Danny doesn't seem to have worn out his welcome, his 
creators know that all good campaigns eventually run their 
course. Korey, Kay has alternated Danny's spots with other 
ads and is developing subordinate characters that can 
eventually spin off into their own commercials. But the 
agency is also envisioning possible scenarios for when the 
inevitable arises: One has Danny deciding that he needs a 
real challenge--he toys with sellin ice in Alaska or heaters 
in Zaire, where it's 117 in the shade.



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