Jaffe Juice

CBS announced a very interesting tie-in with the upcoming Burnett-produced reality show, Gold Rush. The premise is very simple: 12 trucks containing $100K and 1 containing 1 million smackers will be hidden around the US and viewers will attempt to uncover clues in order to solve the riddle and win the money.

Here's where it gets interesting...the clues will be dropped in CBS programming, AOL.com and commercials. In this regard, CBS will allow its advertisers to participate in the program/promotion/experience by teeing up their ads as antes.

I think this is awesome. Yes, there are some issues (such as scaleability beyond a once-off gimick, mindset with respect to expecting consumers to lean forward when they might prefer to lean back, as well as a question on whether consumers scouring ads for clues will distract them from the selling message; there's also the rather large Elephant in the room as to why AOL.com is stealing CBS Digital's lunch in this regard), BUT overall, this is one of the best demonstrations of engagement potentially done right, as well as best use of an Upfront methodology that I have seen to date...

I also wonder if consumers will "beat the system" by sharing clues as opposed to hoarding them. On such a mass scale, there really isn't first mover advantage (it's a bit of catch-22), but then again....greed is good.

I think I might play along as well...gosh, does that mean I'll actually consciously watch an ad? How 1999 of me.

Via Ad Age