When Peacock’s original series Bel-Air—the drama based on the beloved sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air—premiered in February, it had plenty of promotional backing from parent company NBCUniversal. It also got an extra boost from brands like State Farm, Unilever, and Lexus.

• As presenting partners of the series, custom ads for the insurance brand featuring show star Jabari Banks, who plays Will Smith, ran on linear and digital channels to promote the show, alongside State Farm’s good-neighbor brand message.
• In the show itself, Lexus is the vehicle of choice for Banks’s character in custom product integrations.
• Ads for State Farm, Lexus, and Unilever products ran in Peacock’s binge, pause, and solo ad formats on the platform.

Zoom out: The brand bonanza for Bel-Air highlights the winning formula streamers are hoping to find as they reboot, reimagine, or otherwise expand on their most popular and beloved intellectual properties. Whether it’s another Star Trek series on Paramount or 15 Candles, the forthcoming Sixteen Candles spinoff on Peacock, the hope is that advertisers will be just as attracted to the familiar stories and characters as audiences might be.

“It opens up a door to a whole new generation of consumers and reestablishes the deep connection to those who were tuning in from the start,” Laura Molen, NBCUniversal’s president of advertising sales and partnerships, told Marketing Brew.

Formula for success

If you haven’t noticed, reboots, remakes, sequels, and prequels seem to be everywhere on streaming television. To name just a few:

• Disney+, which recently announced an ad-supported tier, has The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder, a continuation of the original The Proud Family animated series.
• Hulu has How I Met Your Father, a spin-off of How I Met Your Mother.
• Paramount has released an iCarly reboot and has Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies (based on the original film) and a Frasier revival in the works.
• HBO Max has a new Gossip Girl series and has ordered a reprisal of Degrassi (which, if you’re keeping track, is the sixth TV series in the franchise).
• Peacock has released Saved by the Bell and Punky Brewster reboots.

There’s a reason for all the reimaginings: if done right, they can help drive big audiences—and streaming services need big audiences. “We always say you can’t guarantee [a hit], but you want to give that show as many chances to succeed as possible,” David Lawenda, EVP of digital sales and strategy at Paramount, told Marketing Brew, adding that “proven hits” are one way to improve the odds of success.

Advertisers need big audiences too, but actually running ads right next to that influx of nostalgia-driven content isn’t exactly simple. Read why here.—KS

Most streaming services need scale to attract advertisers long-term. At Peacock, the company is hoping it can benefit big from first-time viewers, too.

A new ad format for the streaming service, called the Harmonizer, is designed to deliver different advertiser creative based on various consumer signals. One use case that’s particularly interesting? Brands can greet new users or subscribers to the service by immediately serving up a special offer or welcome message.

“On Peacock, we can identify who our newest users are. So if you wanted to connect with those users, we can customize your creative, and even make your brand part of the welcoming committee with a special offer,” Josh Feldman, NBCUniversal’s global chief marketing officer for advertising and partnerships, told advertisers and press this week at its annual developer conference One22.

One example: A “Welcome to Peacock” ad from Uber Eats, offering a discount code to a first-time watcher.

Why it matters: The new ad format offers a way for Peacock to immediately monetize new users before they start watching a single show. If done well, the ad format stands to integrate users with the service, which could benefit Peacock just as much as it helps advertisers. “These are the kind of connections we know you want to build,” Feldman said this week at the developer conference.

NBCUniversal, of course, also wants to benefit from repeat viewers. Another new ad format, called “Sequential Storytelling,” allows brands to display various ad creative to audiences over the course of several days to move them through the purchase funnel.

Context rules: Peacock’s new offerings are just the latest example of ad formats that hinge on the behavior of users to help monetize their platforms outside of typical ad breaks. Take the binge ads and pause ads in rotation on ad-supported streaming services since 2019, which allow brands to offer specialized creative when users watch multiple episodes back-to-back or when they hit pause for a snack or bathroom break.—KS

The celebs are at it again, and they want to produce your ads.

Last month, Kristen Bell revealed she’s the latest star to open a creative studio, collaborating with Benjamin Hart of the agency Brains on Fire, Troy Bailey of Bailey Brand Management, and producers/directors Morgan Sackett and Dean Holland.

Bell and co. recently divulged more details about the venture to Ad Age, noting that the name, Dunshire Productions, comes from the “Cones of Dunshire” game from Parks and Recreation, to which we ask, could a depressed person make this?

The group will bring their know-how from working on projects like Veep and The Good Place to spots and short-form digital content, among other things. They’ve previously worked with brands like Samsung, Spindrift, and Bell’s Hello Bello baby brand. Bell told Ad Age she will serve the agency in a producer role.

A star is bored: While it makes sense to bring the famous faces and humor from popular shows to advertising, we can’t help but wonder: What’s driving them to the normie, 9-5 life when so many of us would rather have their schedules?

• Shaq said he helped found his agency, Majority, to help diversify talent in the industry. Last year, he told the Wall Street Journal that rather than handle agency day-to-day tasks, he would join meetings, network, and make brand and celebrity contacts as needed. Majority recently created a campaign for Realtor.com starring rapper Big Boi.
• Ryan Reynolds started his agency, Maximum Effort, after collaborating on the marketing for Deadpool. Since then, the agency has been acquired by MNTN, for which Reynolds serves as chief creative officer. While we can’t confirm his day-to-day, we can bet he was involved in some Peloton meetings late last year.
• Pitbull also helped start a multicultural agency, 305 Worldwide, with Horizon Media in 2019, but we haven’t heard much about it since. Maybe he realized he’d been there, done that.—KH

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

SMBs: Meta released this month’s Global State of Small Business Report, a look at how these businesses are faring as the pandemic continues.

Reply all: Advice about how (and when) to reply to comments on your brand’s social accounts.

Reorg: Tips on finding the marketing org structure that’s right for you.

A TV-app marketer’s go-to guide: Samsung Ads, a top provider of advanced TV advertising, created The Streaming Index white paper to provide an in-depth look into what motivates streamers based on 10B+ (!!) viewing decisions. Download it here.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

The latest report from data and consulting company Kantar offers a look at consumers’ reactions to the current spike in inflation…and advice on how brands can react.

Go big: Major brands should lean into their scale, while small brands should make themselves look big, according to J. Walker Smith, knowledge lead for Kantar’s consulting division and the author of the report. That sounds like advice for hikers who encounter bears, but it applies here, too. Big-name brands convey a sense of “familiarity and comfort,” Smith wrote, which could reassure consumers who are hesitant to open their wallets.

Retail therapy: We mean that literally. Consumers are stressed, so they “want brands to eliminate frictions, to focus on constructive emotions, to champion affirming values, to police dysfunctional behaviors, to sustain an upbeat tone, to support causes aligned with positive missions, and to get behind programs that build community,” Smith wrote.

Add, don’t subtract: Instead of discounting, brand-name products and services should “sustain value-building marketing” to keep shoppers from switching to lower-priced options, according to Smith.

Guarantee it: Warranties and guarantees encouraged consumers to spend during the financial crisis, according to Smith, and those same strategies could also help brands succeed in the face of inflation now.

Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

• Overtime ends first OTE season with major sponsors
• How Tostitos found its new sonic logo in salsa
• Mood Board: The faces and places in Canva’s new ad