Arrested Development Season 4: Seen a Real-Life Bluth Banana Stand Around Lately?

Culture

There's always money in the banana stand. At least that's what the advertisers of the new season of Arrested Development are hoping.

Netflix is continuing its new practice of producing new content by picking up the fourth season of the cult favorite show Arrested Development, which debuted in 2003 (with the success of their last series, House of Cards, we can probably expect Netflix to continue making new content for a while). To promote the new season, they're employing stunt marketing, in the form of the famous Bluth Banana stand. The frozen banana stand is touring around the U.S., selling frozen bananas with chocolate and nuts, and gathering the attention of the media.

Stunt marketing is a non-traditional form of advertising that is gathering steam in the last few years. Other famous examples include the 007 stunt for Coke Zero and the drama button stunt for TNT. It is a relatively inexpensive and eye-grabbing way to promote a brand. It isn't easy (can backfire), and takes a lot of creativity, but can pay off greatly if it catches the media's eye. Parodies, water cooler conversation, video sharing, and media reporting are the ultimate goal of these campaigns, not the original exposures themselves.

While not the flashiest campaign I've ever seen, and greatly limited in scale, this campaign has been pretty successful at gaining the attention of the press. With the fan following that Arrested Development has, though, it isn't that hard to get them excited and talking about a new season coming out in under a week.

The new season comes out this May 26, and all episodes of the season will be released simultaneously on Netflix, to be watched as quickly or as slowly as each fan desires. For many, myself included, that means an eight-hour binge next Sunday.

What are your impressions of the campaign, and of the Netflix-exclusive release of the season? Are you excited for the new season, or do you have your reservations? What do you think is next for the infamous Bluth family?