Call it another angle on interactive television marketing: News Corp.’s FX is teaming up with sister movie studio 20th Century Fox on an iPad app that will follow along during airings of the hit show on organized crime “Sons of Anarchy” and offer up ways to buy products that appear on screen.
Some of the items include “Gimme Props Reaper Gold Rings,” which are exact replicas of ones used in the biker gang show, and boot-cut jeans from Seven For All Mankind.
The app, called “SOA Gear,” is set to launch 11/1, the same day that the ninth episode of the current fourth season will air on TV. The app will also work with Blu-ray discs of season three. The app follows along by picking up on audio clues in the show, or through a timer that the user can start when the show begins. Alternatively, users can flip through manually.
“Sons of Anarchy” is having its best season yet, drawing on average 5.8 million viewers per new episode, up about 30 percent from the previous season.
RBR-TVBR observation: iTV marketing is taking on so many different forms–driven from the networks, local broadcasters and cable operators alike. With tablets becoming a bit of an iTV remote control, consumers have even more options to interact with the show–and advertisers as well. It’s also obvious the networks are not going to wait for Canoe to roll out standardized iTV marketing via the remote.
