"Donovan Life" is an interesting experiment in low-key advertising mixed with high-concept entertainment. At the website donovanlife.com you'll find twenty-something Anya, her gay best friend, Dougal, and a handsome new neighbor named Jack. Anya and Dougal can't tell which one of them Jack is more likely to find romantically interesting.
So far, so sitcom. But the series is actually five short webisodes designed to show visitors the attractions of a building called Donovan, a high-rise in the hip Yaletown district of Vancouver. Following in the footsteps of BMW's Hire series of short films, Cressey Developers decided that a funny and trendy mini-series might be the best way to generate buzz.
It worked. It attracted lots of media attention and then visitors--more than 20,000 a day when the weekly series started. Working in its favor is that it looks good, the acting is professional, and there are quite a few laughs along the way. Best of all, it's not heavy-handed--if you didn't know that it had a marketing function you wouldn't necessarily have guessed it.
The films were made by Roger Larry, who wrote the scripts with his wife, Sandra Tomc. Although the budget has not been revealed, costs were kept down by the fact that Larry was able to piggyback the production with shooting a film called "Crossing," which features the same actors.
This could be the start of a popular format for advertisers who want to keep a light touch--and if they're all done this well, it'll be a painless alternative to the kinds of ads we're used to (as well as an interesting new market for writers, of course).