• by Karl Greenberg , December 2, 2010

Porsche Cars North America is doing its first-ever full-season integration with a TV show. The Atlanta-based U.S. sales arm for Porsche will be with History Channel's "Brad Meltzer's Decoded" all season, and not just as an advertiser, although the automaker will have exclusivity.

Among other things, Porsche will have its 2011 Cayenne S SUV in the show as the vehicle driven by a group of sleuths who chase down various enigmas, conspiracies and mysteries.

The partnership, handled by AOR Chicago-based Cramer-Krasselt, also gives Porsche a History-produced miniseries comprising 60-second vignettes called "Porsche: Decoded." The vignettes, running in the show's advertising pods and online, examine Porsche history, design, iconography and legend. The Cayenne also gets star billing in the vignettes.

In addition to airing during commercial breaks, the vignettes -- which explore historical oddities like the origin of the Porsche crest, and vehicle designs, and a circa-1900 hybrid-car design by Dr. Ferdinand Porsche -- are airing on Porsche's Facebook page, YouTube channel, a new Cayenne microsite, History.com and soon in Porsche dealerships, according to Michael Baer, SVP and group managing director at Cramer-Krasselt.

Baer tells Marketing Daily that History was given carte blanche to dig into Porsche archives. "We worked with them on the scripts and content and gave them access to lots of historical footage, executives, insiders and experts," he says. "For us, we always want to make sure the programs we work on work with our media partners."

A sweepstakes on History.com promoting the new series encourages viewers to seek clues in each of the "Decoded" episodes and decipher them on the website for prizes, the biggest of which is a 2011 Porsche Cayenne.

Peter Olsen, SVP sales at History, tells Marketing Daily that the partnership was developed collaboratively. "We were having an ongoing dialog with their planning team and when this series was green-lighted, we got brand information from them about the Cayenne and everyone's light bulbs went off at the same time." He says History and Porsche had done deals, but "not on this level."

Baer says History was the right choice and "Decoded" the right venue to promote Cayenne S because both the audience and the thematic bent of the show fit the vehicle and Porsche's brand equity. He points out that Porsche had already done a smaller partnership with History last year to support the launch of the Panamera sedan. "Even though it was smaller than this, it went beyond just 'spots and dots.' It wasn't superficial and they really got us and we got them."

Porsche's History partnership for Panamera in 2009 was around the engineering-focused show "Modern Marvels," where a segment on the German Autobahn featured the car. "They put the Panamera in the show, and when they were talking about German engineering -- about the Autobahn -- they also talked about Porsche and Panamera," says Baer. "But that fit the theme; we don't want to do anything that doesn't fit. We don't want it to feel gratuitous. But at the same time we want to get more than a product in someone's hand."

Thus, when the company was mulling a media plan for Cayenne, Baer says, the deal-maker was History's offer to integrate the vehicle into the "Decoded" show, "to put four people who needed to be taken from place to place into the car, to demonstrate a variety of driving experiences and utility," he says. "We needed to show viewers the car in use; we needed to show them the interior, and how the vehicle could fit their lives very easily.

"That was a starter for us. Then what we were able to do was actually tie the brand and brand message into the property itself and its message about truth and authenticity and the history behind things. Porsche has this rich heritage and lore around innovation and technology and it's a treasure trove of history."

Olsen says History has an affluent viewership. "Demographic and audience wise, we hit their target: upscale males. It is a group our brand does a good job of reaching." He says History has had the best year of any cable channel in terms of viewership gains, enjoying a 30% increase this year, and is now the fifth-ranked network in cable in adults, overall, and number three among 20- to-54-year-olds.