TV\'s Upfront Ad Sales Get the Onion Treatment

Few people outside of the media industry know about the upfront presentations, the annual early selling of television and, increasingly, digital media shows to advertisers. But the event's obscurity is not stopping Dodge and the marketing team at The Onion, the satirical news Web site, from using it as the backdrop to the first branded entertainment collaboration between the two companies.

In a video being unveiled this week on The Onion's YouTube channel, Dodge is promoting its new Dodge Dart to so-called millennials, the generation of consumers born in or after 1980. It features the car in a series of mock programs featured during a fictitious upfront presentation by Onion Digital Studios, the company's real digital entertainment arm. (Dodge announced in July that it would be the sole sponsor on The Onion's channel on YouTube.)

The video, which lasts 2 minutes and 49 seconds, begins like many actual upfront presentations - with the (fictitious) head of Onion Digital Studios, Dave Vessel, walking on stage and announcing in a deadpan voice that he “just got off the phone with New York” and that Onion Digital Studio was “the No. 1 network in the world.”

Mr. Vessel then presents a new lineup of shows that include “Pumpkin Growers,” a reality show in which contestants compete to grow a pumpkin but only one of them has actual pumpkin seeds, and “Voight Hunters,” which features four people driving around in a Dodge Dart in their quest to get a glimpse of the actor Jon Voight.

“I've been chasing sightings my whole life,” says one Voight Hunter. “I'm just hoping to get that one good look at Jon Voight before I die.” An intensely dramatic musical score is heard in the background.

To end the upfront presentation, Mr. Vessel tells the audience, “Programming like that shows you how easily we rake in the ad revenue and how great my life must be. I was just handed the keys to a brand new Dodge Dart b ackstage.”

Mark Malmstead, who manages social media campaigns at Dodge, said the fact that many millennials were unaware of what an upfront was did not matter. Instead, he said, it is important to reach them on YouTube and through The Onion because many of them do not watch television.

“Millennials like to take their news sources online and with a dose of humor,” Mr. Malmstead said.

Other parts of the Dart campaign include banner ads, introductory videos and promotion on Facebook and Twitter.