GroupM Clients in Front Row at ‘Project Runway’

Three clients from media agency GroupM have been integrated into the new season of Project Runway on NBCUniversal’s Bravo.

The season launched last week, with the second episode scheduled for Thursday.

TRESemme is the exclusive hair care partner for Project Runway. The brand’s global stylist, Justine Marjan will appear throughout the season.

Maybelline New York is the exclusive cosmetics partner for this season of the series. The brand’s makeup artist, Grace Lee, will offer tips during all episodes of the show.

Paramount, which will be releasing the Elton John biopic Rocketman later this year, will be sponsoring a custom challenge calling on the designers to create a 1970s look. Rocketman costume designer Julian Day will be a judge and video and pictures from the film will help contestants capture its atmosphere.

Some of the sponsorships spilled into other parts of the NBCU portfolio. In February, when TRESemme styled a fashion show for designer Christian Siriano, it was covered on E! News.

“Bravo offered our clients unique and powerful brand integration opportunities that are embedded in Project Runway’s storyline,” said Lyle Schwartz, president of investment, GroupM. “As television media consumption and consumer expectations about advertising evolve, innovating non-interruptive and highly relevant brand messaging becomes highly valuable, but the key is fit between brand and content, which we’ve brilliantly achieved with TRESemmé, Maybelline New York, Paramount Pictures and Project Runway.”

In addition to its exposure within each episode of Project Runway, TRESemme has a social content program with a custom Instagram video series to drive fans online to show them how to create looks from the show at home.

Maybelline’s Lee will be featured in digital editorial and custom social content, providing fans with assists from one of the industry’s top makeup artists.

Jon Lafayette

Jon has been business editor of Broadcasting+Cable since 2010. He focuses on revenue-generating activities, including advertising and distribution, as well as executive intrigue and merger and acquisition activity. Just about any story is fair game, if a dollar sign can make its way into the article. Before B+C, Jon covered the industry for TVWeek, Cable World, Electronic Media, Advertising Age and The New York Post. A native New Yorker, Jon is hiding in plain sight in the suburbs of Chicago.