ViVA Partnership Adds Exciting New “Reality” To Verizon Wireless.
January 28, 2005
ViVA Partnership has integrated client Verizon Wireless into Telemundo programming. In the latest integration, Verizon Wireless products and services will play a key role in Telemundo’s new reality series, Nuevas Voces de America.
Nuevas Voces de America, airing now through the end of May, is formatted as a Spanish-language version of “American Idol” with aspiring talent competing for a shot at stardom and grand prizes that include $50,000 and a recording contract worth $200,000. The viewing audience will assist the celebrity panel of judges in the selection of winners by voting for their favorite contestants via interactive text messaging on their Verizon Wireless phones and on Verizon Wireless branded Telemundo.com.
“This is a substantial integration,” says Linda Lane Gonzalez, CEO of ViVA Partnership, the agency of record for Verizon Wireless Hispanic. “ Verizon Wireless is interacting with contestants and audience at each stage of the competition.”
At various intervals during the broadcasts of the contest, the heightened emotions and drama of competing will be captured on-air as select contestants share their experience with family and friends across the country through special Verizon Wireless “Call Home Minutes.”
In other elements of the integration, viewers and the contestant’s family and friends at home can download music, pictures and special ring tones from the show.
According to Debbie Richmond, executive vice-president of ViVA Media, the media arm of ViVA Partnership, the agency is always on the look-out for vehicles that take their clients beyond traditional product placement. “When we first heard about Telemundo’s plans for Nuevas Voces de America at UpFront this year, we jumped on the opportunity to integrate Verizon Wireless,” says Ms. Richmond. “It’s proving to be an exciting partnership, with high visibility.”
The pairing of Verizon Wireless with Telemundo for Nuevas Voces de America follows ViVA’s successful integration of Verizon Wireless phone products into the plot of a Telemundo telenovela, La Prisonera.
