• Advertising Age, Wednesday, August 13, 2008 9:15 AM

You can't plan for everything. Most viewers in the nation's No. 1 TV market didn't see a special promotion from Honda specifically designed to go along with NBC's "Last Comic Standing" reality show.

A unique ad plan, created by NBC, Honda and Honda's agency RPA, involved outside comics appearing in ads during the series and soliciting online votes from viewers. The winner appeared in a long-form ad during the last episode. But the finale show was preempted for football in New York, Cleveland and Baltimore.

Crafting ads tailored to programs is gaining more popularity at networks, but the risk -- as Honda learned -- is that the ads rise and fall not only on the success of the show but on the myriad factors that can knock a program off the air. Making it even worse is that these ideas generally require weeks, if not months, of planning.

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