Leagas plans TV show spin-off from Seat ad

Spanish car maker Seat’s advertising agency Leagas Shafron Davis is planning to turn the car company’s latest “soapvert” advertising campaign into a television series.

The agency is setting up a production company called LSD TV, and claims to be in talks with Channel 4 and ITV about producing the programmes.

The soap opera-style Seat campaign broke at the weekend. It features a series of eight commercials, each of which is broadcast only once (MW April 26).

Volkswagon-owned Seat is spending half its 4m UK 1996 advertising budget on the campaign.

The ads are directed by Blackadder director Jeff Posner and star Dennis Waterman, Jean Boht (from Bread) and Jim Broadbent.

The proposed television series may star actress Helena Bonham-Carter.

Leagas Shafron Davis new business director James Sanderson says: “Lots of television ads are better than TV productions. What’s to stop an ad agency jumping on the bandwagon?”

Sanderson says there is no precedent for turning an ad campaign into a television series, and it would need to be given the thumbs up by the Independent Television Commission. But he says financing is already being put in place with the agency’s investment bank.

Another proposed television series from LSD TV would be a weekly magazine programme about the media world, fronted by the agency’s chief executive Ron Leagas.

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