Brand TV: Argentine airtime goes cheap, so advertisers go long--with their own shows.

Martin leaves his gated-community home to pick up his cultured brother and mother from the airport then, as he tells his stuffy wife, instead drove to the state prison. So begins a television comedy of cover-ups and crime starring, of all things, a Chevrolet.

No es lo que parece (It's Not What it Seems) is, in fact, a three-hour commercial for Chevrolet's Mervia, yet entertaining in the vein of the improbable 1969 Disney hit The Love Bug which featured Herbie, a Volkswagen Bug. Throughout the show, Martin and other characters drive the roomy, family car, accelerating, braking, filling it with luggage and then unpacking. "It's not possible to show off a car like that in a 30-second commercial," says Guillermo Mute, the McCann-Erickson Argentina manager who helped develop the mini-series for Chevrolet.

These days in Argentina, alongside reality-show contestants and old-fashioned paid actors, brands are increasingly taking on roles of their own.

A main reason for this is money. The country's economic collapse at the end of 2001 provoked a 35% plunge in ad spending in 2002, shriveling broadcasters' budgets. So they've scrapped orders for pricier dramas from studios and resort instead to cheaper game, gossip and reality shows

The economy's return to growth--it expanded by 7% in 2003 and is on track for a little less in 2004--has brought ad revenue and some relief. Yet money remains tight as the networks, two of which are in bankruptcy protection, try to recoup losses, says Fernando Alvarez Colombres, general director of media buyer Brand Connection.

To change things, networks need money for new shows that will find a faithful and large audience and thus encourage advertisers to buy commercial time. In step advertisers. Coca-Cola, General Motors, Unilever and other companies are looking for original and lively ways to generate brand awareness. Increasingly, they are turning to entertainment to find this.

Advertisers have long used product placement to cheaply and effectively place their names into shows. But it can turn viewers off if a brand is too crudely shown and seems intrusive, says Guillermo Gimenez y Bretons, manager of flavored drinks and new products at Coca-Cola in Argentina.

Instead, companies want innovative concepts that stand out in a media market swarming with options such as cable and satellite channels, Internet sites and video games. To do this, Coke is using script placement and other methods that put, its products into the context of a program, helping soften viewer disdain. On one drama, the protagonists search for a missing Sprite soft drink truck. On a sitcom, the heroes--ad executives--develop campaigns to launch a red-grapefruit version of a drink as part of the screenplay.

On "Sprite te ve" (Sprite Sees You), teenagers show off their talents in an open forum. "This doesn't replace traditional advertising but gives it a balance," says Gimenez y Brotons.

Risk management. For networks, too, advertisers have become a source of content that they couldn't otherwise afford, says Alejandro Stoessel, artistic manager of leading broadcaster Telefe, a unit of Spain's Telefonica. By covering production costs, fully for branded shows or partially with script placement, advertisers reduce the risk of a weak return on ad sales if the show fails, he says.

Often they work. A series of short films created by rookie directors and bankrolled by Unilever drew a large audience. Each stars a woman with red hair, colored by Unilever's Sedal brand. The brand is never mentioned in the films, yet the five films provide "an experience for women that is richer than what can be achieved with traditional advertising" says Ricardo Martin, Sedal's brand manager in Argentina.

For the same reason, Unilever developed Lux Star, nace una estrella (Lux Star, A Star Is Born), an acting talent contest for women. It is part of a wider campaign to transform Lux's image from a soap of the stars--Argentine supermodel Valeria Mazza previously appeared in a commercial--to a product that "brings out the star in you," says Unilever brand manager Federico Rubinstein.

Will it last, this trend of creating TV shows embedded with marketing messages? As long as it remains fresh, says Andrea Raggio, marketing director for Unilever in Argentina. Viewers could lose interest, hurting the brand. "When it becomes more of the same thing, we will change and do something different," she says. So, for now, no re-runs, at least not on the brand-heavy television of the future, here-and-now in Argentina.

CHARLES NEWBERY * BUENOS AIRES