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holiday-themed episode of A Very Brady
Renovation, which will air in December.
The Brady cast loved their experience so
much—“Has any project we’ve ever done
since our original shows ever felt this
magical?” marvels McCormick—that they
hope to continue working with Discovery,
and the feeling is mutual. “Yes, we are do-
ing other projects with the Bradys,” says
Finch. At least one Brady-related project
is already in the Discovery development
pipeline, with more to come.
Discovery, which has been increasingly
trying to leverage the resources of its entire
portfolio since last year’s merger, plans on
repeating the same effort as it did on this
project with next year’s HGTV revival of
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. “I will
be knocking on those doors again, saying,
‘What else can we do?’ because there are big
ideas when we all pull together,” says Finch.
Meanwhile, HGTV execs are busily
searching for another pop-culture land-
mark property to similarly renovate.
But so far, “we haven’t found anything as
iconic as The Brady Bunch, and one of the
things we pride ourselves on at HGTV is if
we’re going to do another version, we want
it to be as equally special as what we’re do-
ing now,” says Ruch.
As for the Brady home itself, HGTV is
running a contest offering fans the chance
to stay there for a week in December (vid-
eo submissions are due by Sept. 11). Af-
ter that, no one is sure what will happen
there next, although Discovery’s original
plan for the property—to sell the house
after filming—was definitively scrapped
during production. “That’s part of HGTV,
that great home you can walk through the
doors of, with so many memories and so
much fun,” says Zaslav. “That’s going to be
part of our company forever!”JASON LYNCH IS ADWEEK’S TV/MEDIA EDITOR,
COVERING TRENDS, TECHNOLOGY, PERSONALITIES
AND PROGRAMMING ACROSS BROADCAST, CABLE
AND STREAMING VIDEO. @JASONLYNCHwere more in the dark as filming began. “I didn’t know that
we were going to actually be holding jackhammers and
things until we got into the house,” says Olsen.
When production kicked off last fall, HGTV immediately
rolled out its marketing campaign, stoking consumer inter-
est through weekly press hits and months of social media
posts from the Brady siblings and HGTV talent. In February,
the network further fanned the marketing flames and gave
production a boost by asking Brady fans to help them source
iconic props, like the vintage radio in Greg’s attic and the
ceramic donkey statue in the family room, that would ap-
pear in the finished home. By making the series “relevant”
on social media for so many months prior to air, says Cullen,
“they were very creative with how they marketed this.”
In addition to the social push, HGTV created seven online
packages, including digital series like Building Brady and
Back Home With the Bradys. “There’s a universal interest
in everything Brady, so we’ve gone across all different paths
we can to reach an audience,” says Loren Ruch, an executive
producer on the series and HGTV’s svp of programming,
partnerships and special projects. That includes tapping
HGTV’s sister networks, which will air Brady-themed epi-
sodes of five different Food Network and Discovery Channel
shows (Chopped, Worst Cooks in America, The Kitchen, The
Pioneer Woman and Fast N’ Loud) to promote the series.
The combined Discovery Inc. portfolio “controls 20% of the
female viewing audience every night” across both broadcast
and cable, says Finch, and the company intends to point as
many of them as possible toward A Very Brady Renovation.
After all that work, execs are expecting big ratings this
month. “We think it’s going to kill,” says Zaslav, while Finch
says, “If you are a Brady fan and you grew up with Brady, this
is appointment television. Everybody’s going to be gathering
around the television to watch this the way we all did when
we were growing up.” Yet even if ratings end up below those
lofty expectations, A Very Brady Renovation has already
been a massive success on one level: building HGTV’s reach,
which it’s been doing since Discovery bought the house a
year ago. “The hardest thing to do anymore in television is
grow your reach,” Finch says. “This is reach gold for us.”
HGTV says fans won’t be disappointed when they see the
finished product. “ You have wa lked into your child hood when
you walk into this house,” says Finch. “It is a mind-blowing
experience.” According to the network, the home now ap-
praises at $3.9 million without the furnishings or décor.
When the show’s four-episode run wraps in Septem-
ber, there still will be more Brady projects to come, even
though the home renovation is complete. HGTV shot a fifth,Product integrations are a
staple of HGTV shows, but they
weren’t possible on A Very Brady
Renovation. “We needed the
house to match identically, so we
couldn’t really have the hindrances
of needing to work any specific
products in, because it wasn’t that
type of project,” says HGTV svp
Loren Ruch. But Discovery Inc.
ad sales chief Jon Steinlauf still
found a way for eager brands to
partner with the show, lining up
three major sponsors, including
Wayfair and Constant Contact,
which will be spotlighted in ads,
in-show billboards and custom
content that will air in and around
A Very Brady Renovation. Wayfair’s
“robust” sponsorship package, says
Steinlauf, revolves around the online
retailer’s efforts to “bring home a’70s look in a 2019 way that’s
fresh and modern” in four areas
of the home: the kitchen, bedroom,
living room and outdoors. For its
sponsorship, Wayfair created five
pieces of Brady-inspired custom
content, which will be divided into
everything from 30-second ads
to spots as long as 180 seconds,
running on linear, social and digital
platforms. (The longest spots, says
Steinlauf, will air as “full-break
content on the Go apps.”) Constant
Contact, a digital marketing
company for small businesses,
will also be nodding to the Brady
era, running spots comparing ’70s
technology to that of today. —JLThat ’70s Show
The cast in an original
publicity photo (from left):
Olsen, Lookinland, Plumb,
Knight, McCormick, Williams,
Ann B. Davis, Florence
Henderson and Robert Reed.
Build It and They Will Come McCormick
and Knight were hands-on in the renovation
with the help of the Property Brothers.