Caveman, sans Geico, get prime ABC slot

Maybe it will increase the ad industry's self-esteem to know that ABC is giving its sitcom based on the Geico cavemen a good time slot—8 p.m. on Tuesday night. Though the series features different actors, and seems to have only one creative person from the commercials involved—the Martin Agency's Joe Lawson—who will be executive producer—somehow the attention this thing is getting makes it some kind of litmus test of whether the ad industry is relevant anymore. If the thing fails, expect headlines about how it wasn't an idea that could support endless iterations; and if it's a huge success, expect headlines and pats on the back about how good content is good content, no matter whether it starts as advertising or something else. At the end of the day, though, I don't think the caveman phenomenon should be taken quite as seriously as it seems to be. Every now and then, people in every industry actually succeed in catching lightning in a bottle, and this stuff is watchable over and over, but it's also nothing more than one of those instances.