I appear to be an outlier in paying more than a sliver of attention to NBC’s sole new fall series, ON BRAND WITH JIMMY FALLON, which was at least given the benefit of launching with an original episode of one of their most reliable and venerable shows, THE VOICE, as its lead-in. As of this writing, nary a single pundit, let alone a viewer with internet access, has chosen to weigh in on either ROTTEN TOMATOES or METACRITICS. Compared to, say, the rush to judgment for most scripted series and certainly almost anything that drops on a streamer, that’s a damning reality check in its own right.
But since I’ve spent a goodly number of years involved with actual brand campaigns I’ll confess I was intrigued with the concept, which CINEMABLEND’s Laura Hurley nobly attempted to put a positive spin on in the preview peice she dropped yesterday:
Jimmy Fallon has been a mainstay on NBC going back far further than the 2025 TV schedule, but the host of The Tonight Show is on the verge of debuting a new primetime competition series. On Brand with Jimmy Fallon will see Fallon acting as the CEO of the On Brand Agency, joining forces with Bozoma Saint John as the Chief Marketing Officer. The competition series will run for eight episodes from late September to late October, with ten creative contestants working to impress businesses with their branding ideas while also coming out on top of their fellow competitors. The grand prize is $100,000, as well as a feature in Adweek and a VIP trip to the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and “Innovator of the Year” title. The team behind the scenes at On Brand connected with major brands to participate in the new series. The first episode on September 30 will feature the competitors facing Dunkin’ as their first branding challenge, with arguably more challenging scenarios to follow.
Yes, that would be the same Dunkin’ that used to have the word Donuts as part of their official name, before a 2019 rebrand steeped in corporate-speak set a new course of action for a nearly 70-year-old mainstay that, quelle surprise, actually was selling quite a bit of coffee even before that. Anyone who’s ever tried to digest one of their munchkins while riding the T personally knows that washing it down with something hot and liquid is mandatory. So given that legacy it’s not all that surprising that they’d be open to being guinea pigs for a group of reality competition contestants to set the course for their latest menu expansion–a way to package their greasy breakfast sandwich and hash browns along with said coffee into something that could give a Value Meal a run for its money.
The fact that this is seeing the light of day on NBC should come as little surprise. It has a symbiotic relationship with Fallon, who for better or worse is arguably the face of the network via more than a decade helming TONIGHT and for the decade previous on LATE NIGHT, and who has already supplied a couple of VOICE lead-outs that were essentially spin-offs of popular segments from his shows–the decidedly more game show-y THAT’S MY JAM! and his recently renewed reboot of the classic Goodson-Todman game show PASSWORD. And you’ve probably guessed that ON BRAND has more than a few structural elements in common with a show that was darn popular for more than a decade–though contrary to revisionist history was almost never #1 in all of TV. Fallon all but telegraphed his fandom when he stated at the outset of last night’s premiere that he loves reality television, and he does seem to have had somewhat of a connection with the guy who had the same role on his show that Fallon now has on ON BRAND.
Except what THE APPRENTICE had which is what made it as popular as it did was cutthroat competitors and, of course, a host that was a de facto villain whose persona unfortunately (in hindsight) worked exceptionally well with its fans. The comparisons were especially obvious to DECIDER’s Joel Keller, one of the few mainstream writers who actually did weigh in with a review that also posted yesterday:
We see the same issue with On Brand With Jimmy Fallon that we saw with The Apprentice, in both its civilian and celebrity versions. The idea is to give these contestants real exposure to what things are like in a real 2020s-era marketing agency, but the constraints of the reality competition format makes the environment unrealistic, and leads to half-baked results.
In the first episode, the contestants were given an hour to come up with pitches, then the selected campaigns were given a day to incorporate the client’s notes and incorporate a requested merch extension to the campaign. If we were to believe those timelines, then that means — at least in the case of Dunkin’ — that probably at least 100 or so boxes were printed and plastic tchotchkes manufactured in that short timeframe.
In both cases, it feels like some things weren’t thought out well, with almost none of the pitched campaigns feeling like they were cohesive with the very well-known Dunkin’ brand. We were not only surprised with which campaign resonated with the test crowd during the head-to-head, but that Dunkin’s execs picked the less on-brand of the two campaigns. Given the idea that they’re supposed to be rolling out the winning campaign to over 10,000 locations after the episode airs, it feels like something they’ll do for a few weeks than quickly forget about, whereas the losing campaign was one that could have had legs.
I’m pretty much in line with Keller’s verdict, except for the unrealistic part. I’ve mused on several occasions about how there have been missteps aplenty that I’ve both been directly a part of and now eye-rolling like I suspect many of you are. Between Balenciaga, MSNBC and Cracker Barrel–not to mention the never-saw-the-light-of day Venu Sports--we’ve had a LOT of fodder of late. And within these clicks you’ll notice I had a few misadventures of my own with CMOs and agency folks who actually are paid a lot more and last a lot longer than the intrepid folks that Fallon picked to initially staff his “agency”.
What’s missing are the kind of competitors that the real genius of THE APPRENTICE–Mark Burnett–found, most notably in the presence of the polarizing yet effective Omarosa Manigault Newman, who not only clawed her way to success on the show but inevitably wound up as part of the host’s real-life staff. In fact, perhaps the closest thing to someone like Newman may indeed be Saint John. A 2022 HOLLYWOOD REPORTER piece authored by Chris Gardner revealed a lot about her character:
It’s rare for a marketing executive shuffle to inspire the kind of coverage that hit when Netflix confirmed that chief marketing officer Bozoma Saint John was exiting the streamer after less than two years in one of Hollywood’s buzziest and most demanding marketing jobs.
After the publication of congenial statements from both sides — “I’ve loved working with Boz and have been inspired by her creativity and energy,” said Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, with Saint John adding, “It’s been a transformative two-year experience for which I will always be grateful” — came reports of behind-the-scenes friction. Some alleged that she focused too much time on personal brand-building and side hustles like The Badass Workshop and leading a Harvard Business School short program. Others indicated that a potential move to Paris caused a rift with Sarandos. There were other stories, like The Hollywood Reporter reported last summer, about senior staffers in Netflix’s marketing department being fired after complaining about the management on Slack. (Netflix denied that the messages targeted members of management and said they were instead about peers.)
Saint John is used to the attention. She counts 388,000 followers on Instagram, a platform she utilized in the days after her exit to add to the swirl by declaring her freedom. “I’m free in every sense … physically, emotionally, and mentally. That is my super power. I’ve fought hard for it, and believe me when I say it’s still a daily struggle to maintain my freedom. Especially when the world tries to make me feel like I have to shift and change to fit into somebody else’s standard,” she wrote on March 7. “I refuse to bow down because my very being is in active revolt, so I expand.”
If I didn’t know marketing folks who were equally as arrogant yet a lot less successful, I’d probably have more tolerance for her presence in this venue. But the fact is that someone like Saint John was sought out by several top brands, including Pepsi, and commanded seven-figure packages at most of her later stops. Knowing what Netflix was paying out during its pandemic spending spree, I’d offer Saint John is more than set for life. Anyone want to offer what genius she may have shepherded during that run? I do know personally more than a dozen people whose jobs were cut as a result of the spend and subsequent retraction of her tenure.
Even more importantly, high-profile missteps like this have soured more than just Netflix on the need for any sort of marketing intelligence, a point MARKETER.COM’s Samuel Edwards made clear in a piece he authored this past July:
UPS, Etsy, Walgreens, Lowe’s, Hyatt Hotels, McDonald’s, Johnson & Johnson, Uber, and Lyft are just some of the major companies that have recently eliminated or reduced their standalone CMO positions. Why is it that CMO positions are falling out of favor with these large, industry dominant companies?
There are several possible explanations, which intersect in interesting ways.
— Technology and automation: With better technology, a company can lead from within, analyzing data and generating ideas to see better results. And with the help of automation, there are fewer needs for human marketers.
— Integration of marketing responsibilities into other roles: Half a century ago, marketing was an independent silo; developing marketing messages and advertisements was a unique art, often separated from the rest of the business.
–Declining prioritization of marketing. In some ways, we’re seeing a decline in the prioritization of marketing, at least from a high-level decision-making standpoint. Most businesses still rightfully recognize marketing as an important priority, but they see it as subservient to other priorities.
We can see this manifest in the rise of a new type of CEO; CEOs of Fortune 500 companies most commonly come from high-level financial positions, rather than high-level marketing positions. Accordingly, finance takes precedence over marketing in most of these businesses, and CEOs make decisions with the company’s bottom line and financial operations as top considerations.
So it’s both gratifying and concerning that Saint John’s role in ON BRAND is muted, and we’re therefore even more aligned with Keller’s ultimate verdict:
SKIP IT. We’re curious if Bozoma Saint John is going to actually guide these contestants or just give them insights like “We’re going to be sending people home if the ideas and thinking aren’t big enough.” We don’t think many effective campaigns are going to come out of On Brand With Jimmy Fallon, and it doesn’t help that Fallon adds little to the proceedings beyond being his usual goofy self.
Maybe we’d all be a tad more optimistic if Fallon had picked up some reality show sechel from his interactions, rather than a likely case of head lice.
Until next time…