Santa Monica Mirror - Santa Monica, CA, USA - The good news is Lipstick Jungle is one of the best new shows on TV. The bad news is they use the show to continually push products at us, namely lipstick and clothing. That makes Lipstick Jungle too much like an infomercial. We might still watch, but we won’t respect ourselves in the morning. Lipstick Jungle, in fact, makes it blatant and true: direct product tie-ins like this died in the 1950s. Or did they?
TIVOs and DVRs have cut advertising saturation by roughly 12 percent. That amount of time lost as consumers happily skip the commercials, has to be made up somehow. They have toyed with different options, but integrating the products into the shows, not just with product placement but also with outright selling, seems to be the approach of choice at the moment.
It was a little jarring at first, when Lipstick Jungle debuted. The commercial break immediately introduces the type of lipstick or makeup a character is wearing and how you the viewer can get that look. If you visit the website of the show, nbc.com/lipstickjungle/, you’ll see how products are integrated into the site much the way they are on the show.
What’s interesting about this is that it doesn’t impact the quality of the show at all; it is still a good show, and I’m one viewer who can put up with the annoying product pushing in order to see the funny and complex characters taking it one day at a time.
Lipstick Jungle stars a never-been-better
Brooke Shields as Wendy, a movie mogul like, oh, I don’t know, a younger
Sherry Lansing maybe,
Kim Raver as Nico, the editor of a hot fashion magazine called Bonfire (as in of the Vanities, as in Vanity Fair), and Lindsay Price as Victory, a clothing designer currently dating a billionaire.
