Pop-culture Evolution

In Consumed: The Geico Cavemen: What an ad campaign spawning potential sitcom characters really reveals.

The recent news that ABC was willing to entertain the possibility of a sitcom starring the Geico cavemen seemed a sort of watershed. Here were characters dreamed up as part of an advertising campaign, potentially crossing over into a venerable form of mainstream, pop-culture entertainment. While that sounds momentous, it misses a larger point. As characters in a successful advertising campaign, the cavemen are already part of mainstream pop culture. More so, in fact, than the characters in most current sitcoms….

Read the rest of the column by way of this New York Times Magazine link, which will probably expire in a week, or this Boston Globe link.

[April 20 Update] Some blog references/reactions to the column: Scott Goodson/StrawberryFrog; Jason Oke/Leo Burnett Toronto; Disney corporate blog; PSFK.