What the Dickens

Sky Arts are promoting their new show that premièred last week, a literary quiz called What the Dickens. They’ve got a quiz you can go play as part of the promotion, asking you lots of questions, which I assume are in the style of the show. I surprised myself with my results, only getting wrong a Shakespeare question.

Now normally, I probably would not have written about this if the email about the quiz had been the only mention of it. But I’d heard about it through a different route as well – Dave Gorman’s blog

It’s a panel show with the brilliant Sandi Toksvig as host and Tim Brooke-Taylor and myself as team captains. It’s fantastic to watch Sandi work. She just seems to get better and better… she really is as complete a comic voice as I’ve encountered. And what can you say about TBT? He’s a Goodie for crying out loud! I loved The Goodies! What kind of ridiculous world is it where I go away for a week and film 6 shows with a Goodie? In a tent. In the rain..

That sells the show far more to me than the quiz. It demonstrates another route for promoting entertainment, the connections of the actors/participants. It’s not marketing, it’s not gone through some approval route, but gives a real taste of the show and what to expect. Credibility and realism is a bigger draw than straightforward advertising, the reason why brands that let employees blog and publish content often have a better connection than those that control absolutely everything.