In-show advertising is as old as late-night itself, but as shows face declining ratings and shrinking budgets, sponsored content (or “brand activations,” as they’re called in marketing circles) has become increasingly common and, at times, more elaborate than ever before. In this recurring feature, we keep tabs on how late-night shows are working to wed commerce with comedy.
Jimmy Kimmel Live! took another trip back to the ’80s Tuesday night, debuting a totally tubular brand integration for the soda brand Slice.
JKL sidekick Guillermo Rodriguez led the branded content, with announcer Lou Wilson coming in with an assist at the end.
In a pre-taped short introduced by Kimmel after his first guest segment with Kate Winslet, Rodriguez is seen in a drab office boardroom, where he’s suffering through a boring meeting until a can of Slice brightens up his day. A sip from the drink sends his imagination back to the 1980s, where Rodriguez is seen breakdancing on Hollywood Boulevard, playing a Slice-inspired Pac-Man game, playing tennis, and more. When the drink runs out, he’s back at the conference table, where Wilson asks him for a can of his own.
The retro-inspired branded short appears to be a leftover from Jimmy Kimmel‘s aborted ’80s Week last week. JKL had decked out its set in 1980s style and curated a lineup of era-appropriate guests for the planned theme week, but after Monday night’s episode, plans for the remainder of the week were scuttled following the death of Kimmel’s bandleader Cleto Escobedo III early Tuesday morning.
Slice is a throwback itself. Originally launched by PepsiCo in 1984, the soda brand was discontinued 20 years later. The brand name has since been acquired by organic beverage company Suja Life, which has reintroduced it as the name for its line of healthy sodas with prebiotics, probiotics, and postbiotics.
