• by Amy Corr , Staff Writer @MediaPostOTL, September 11, 2006

File this under "enough information to pique your interest but not enough to give away all the juicy details."

NBC chose an obvious outlet--the Entertainment Weekly fall TV preview double issue--to promote its new series "Kidnapped" with a unique insert.

In the series, premiering Sept. 20, the 15-year-old son of a wealthy New York family is kidnapped, and everyone is considered a suspect.

Resembling a manila folder, the insert looks like an elaborate FBI active case file. Each page reveals information about the kidnapping, the agents involved in the case, and potential suspects (read: family member bios.).

"Our media strategy for 'Kidnapped' involved creating intrigue through the cumulative effect of small clues to the crime that is the central theme of the show," said Lisa Seward, North American Media Director at Fallon, the agency behind the media buy and dossier creative concept. "What better way to create 'immediate cume effect' than putting many clues into one ad unit, and especially one that so literally conveys the complexity and intrigue of the show? In early conversations with magazines on the program itself and our overall media strategy, Entertainment Weekly grasped onto the dossier idea," she added.

The insert ran solely in subscriber copies of EW and was somewhat loosely affixed on the mag, for when I threw my copy down, the file flew out. I doubt this was intentional, but I liked the effect it created. It was almost as if the file was being discreetly hidden inside the pub.

Interestingly enough, I had a photocopy of the insert on my desk at work that my coworker noticed. When I told him about the ad/campaign, he mentioned seeing the original ad and said that he thought the photocopied version gave the ad a more authentic feel.

The campaign also includes a microsite (Kidnappedtheseries.com), newspaper, video clip pushes, magazine and cinema ads.

While Fallon came up with the strategic approach, media plan, and dossier concept, the NBC Agency actually created the final product.

Seward said that NBC was receptive to the dossier concept.

"They loved it immediately. Keep in mind that when we presented it, we just had a rough manila-folder mock-up to use to visually represent the idea, so it didn't look fantastic," she noted..

"I held that thing up, did my best to explain the concept and crossed my fingers! But the creatives at The NBC Agency immediately got excited and started to imagine the individual creative pieces they could create to go inside the dossier," concluded Seward.

Not a bad creative concept, coming from the network's media agency.