Jimmy Fallon And Bozoma St. John advertisers at the Cannes Lions festival were pressed earlier this year to sign up for the reality business competition show. About the brand with Jimmy Fallon. When a film opens on NBC in the US, the international sales team is in Cannes, but this time in MIPCOM and hoping to sell the idea to international buyers.
Hannah Mabrouk, senior vice president of sales and format production at NBCUniversal formatspart of the Universal Studios Group, is leading this effort. “Real formats of competition for large businesses, such as Shark Tank And Student have been around for a very long time, and we often talk to buyers about how they would like to find the next show in this space,” she says.
Internationally, the show will sell as About the brand and is presented as a series for peak customer time slots. “This is our goal, this is a prime-time competition format, this is what the brands involved would like to see,” says Mabrouk.
The Mabrouk team knows Bozoma St. John, who is the co-host About the brand with Jimmy Fallon and the stars in The Real Housewives of Beverly Hillsbecause they sell Real Housewives format, which has been reworked in dozens of territories, resulting in Real Housewives of Lagos And The Real Housewives of Amsterdam among others.
They also sell SNL format and Fallon This is my jam. NBCU formats will lag at MIPCOM About the brand“It's a warm and supportive business show, not mean-spirited and cutthroat,” says Mabrouk. “Everyone is working together. It's a little like the workplace comedies you see on NBC, like Office And Parks and Recreationwith such a heartfelt tone.
Mabrouk says international branding and marketing agencies, as well as producers with experience in advertising, have been contacted about the show.
“He speaks to a lot of people and offers a lot of solutions,” she says. “For broadcasters, this is content they can invest in with advertisers, because we know that for advertisers, a 30-second ad may not be enough anymore. Advertisers want to be inside the entertainment as much as possible, and this show does that organically.”
One of the challenges with creating local versions is that the rules governing how brands and advertisers work with broadcasters vary from country to country. Each international version will need to be calibrated accordingly.
