Monday, May 21st, 2012
If I were to pitch the ‘Rebel Billionaire’, I’d describe it as a modern-day Willy Wonka. Besides the obvious placement (which we will get to in a moment), I must applaud Branson and Jonathan Murray for executing such a wonderful and downright evil show. My wife and I are nuts when it comes to Reality TV – we’ve got 2 TiVo’s running at full speed. Within 5 minutes of the show, my wife is amazed at how charismatic Sir Richard can be and that he is an incredibly sexy man. That lasted about …. 3 minutes. Once she saw him come up with the idea for contestants to walk across a plank @ 10,000, she thought he was a complete nut. Still sexy .. but a nut. That’s when brought up the similar nature of this show with Willy Wonka – he’s giving away his job, the contestants don’t know it and he’s going to push them to the limit to find out who’s the best. The show is an excellent example of fully integrated placement – meaning … there’s no awkward moment, like Trump handing out Visa cards like they are candy – Virgin plays an integral role in providing transportation around the globe. So far, there are no ‘obvious’ shots of how comfortable the cabin of how enjoyable the flight could be, just some cute flight attendants who flank Branson’s side as he makes an appearance .
