I need to come clean about a guilty pleasure. I’m a Real Housewives addict. My life stops when new episodes of the Bravo series premiere. I study repeat episodes for missed one-liners, read the housewives’ blogs, get a Google alert when bonus clips are posted online and have joined the Talk Bubble from my BlackBerry.  My favorite housewives are on my Facebook fan list, and I follow the crazy ones on Twitter.

Until the Real Housewives of New York series began, I wasn’t fanatical about anything, except maybe Bruce Springsteen back in the 80’s. Judging by the thousands of new comments to the blogs every week, I’m not alone. Google reports over three million searches a month for “real housewives”. Bravo has filled satchels of gold from mining my demo (Women 18-49) with the precision of the plastic surgeon’s scalpel that enhanced Teresa Giudice’s bubbies.

Women tend to be the heaviest users of media. Bravo’s approach for promoting the series on screen, online through social media channels, entertainment news (print & web) and mobile has demonstrated genius in the ratings race.  The holistic approach also helped several of the reality stars build successful brands outside the series. Product placement featuring Bethenny Frankel’s Skinny Girl Margarita garnered immediate interest from viewers and the drink is now a successful bottled brand, http://skinnygirlcocktails.com/. The network is pacing for another record-setting year in 2010. For the first time in Bravo network history Bravo averaged one million total viewers for the week of June 14.

Bravo built a multi-media playground and it has enticed women to carve out more time in the day to interact with their reality TV stars. I’m fairly certain I’m not far off with the notion fans are stealing time from areas that should be devoted to more productive endeavors. Lucky for me analyzing target audiences and keeping abreast of media developments is part of my job description. At least my foray has helped  reaffirm  one of the actionable insights in my media tool kit…when the consumer is emotionally invested, they’re hooked. Once hooked, the consumer will increase the amount of time they’re willing to spend with your brand. Let me borrow a line from Ramona and label this, “Tuuurrtle Tiiime”, http://www.bravotv.com/the-real-housewives-of-new-york-city/videos/turtle-time.

Time has value. Face time with your brand increases the likelihood of moving into top-of-mind when the consumer has decided to purchase. Analytics from recent campaigns where a multi-channel media strategy was executed indicates digital is driving new and returning visitors to our clients’ websites where consumers are engaging for longer periods of time. Radio and print campaigns are generating greater than anticipated response. Offer conversion rates, the critical next step in the path to utilization, have been positively impacted. The Real Housewives, albeit a guilty pleasure, is a case study of a brand successfully integrating new and emerging channels in an effective blend with traditional.