Exploding Cows? An industry committed to dollars over consumer well being? Lawyers trying to “wash” away problems? People eating things that shouldn’t be consumed? Sounds like the day in the life on Monsanto. But alas, it is the very entertaining miniseries Farmed and Dangerous sponsored by Chipotle. Available as free content on Hulu, it takes a spoof approach as mimicking Big business agriculture and processed foods.
Now, oddly enough, the show isn’t branded with Chipotle at every opportunity. From watching all episodes, I rarely saw product placement, branding, or imagery screening “Home of Burritos.” The focus is all content, which was entertaining, funny, and inventive. It is a new way of marketing that doesn’t try to oversell you with the product and emphasizes entertainment deliverables. Starring Ray Wise, the quality is tv worthy and could compete with any current shows. It reminds of Dallas, except the business is agriculture and oil.
On Hulu, an ad plays before the show featuring Ray Wise as his character in the series, Buck Marshall, the owner of the Industrial Food Image bureau that represents Animoil. “Farmed and Dangerous is an attempt at the sustainability crowd to draw your attention to issues with industrial food production in America. These hippies want to manipulate you into believing that real food is better than processed food. That we can feed the world with “sustainable” agriculture. Smells like communism to me. Now surely there is something better to watch on Hulu. Avoid Food Inc though. More hippie propaganda.” Hilarious!
I love this approach to not only addressing real issue with satire, but this new form of sustainable marketing. Expect to see more of this high production, entertainment driven, sponsored content as I have a feeling it will make for some interesting campaigns. Three of the four episodes are available on Hulu and you can also watch them below. The last will be released in a week. Watch the first episode and let me know what you think!