Earlier in the week, ViacomCBS announced the subscription streaming service CBS All Access will transform into Paramount+ on March 4. Now, they have launched a new promotional campaign leading up to the relaunch. New TV commercials that started running on Sunday night star characters from across the ViacomCBS family, including two from the upcoming series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
Star Trek joins Paramount+ promos
On Sunday Paramount+ rolled out two new 30-second commercials, each featuring characters from shows in the ViacomCBS family. Both spots highlight the “mountain of entertainment” theme by featuring the characters climbing a literal mountain, including Captain Pike (Anson Mount) and Spock (Ethan Peck) from the upcoming series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which should be going into production early this year. Star Trek: Picard star Sir Patrick Stewart also provides the narration.
The first commercial is titled “Roll Call.”
The second is titled “Call to Adventure.”
Campaign is just beginning
The two commercials premiered during the NFL AFC Championship game, which aired on Sunday on CBS. According to the Wall Street Journal, ViacomCBS is planning a 13-week campaign to promote Paramount+ which includes ads during the Super Bowl, the Grammy Awards, the Masters and March Madness.
The ads will be part of a broader campaign with spots airing across the ViacomCBS networks, including MTV, BET, CMT and Comedy Central. These will be complemented by ads running on ViacomCBS’ digital platforms, such as the free streaming service Pluto TV, and social channels.
Burnham from Star Trek: Discovery leads promo on CBS.com
Keep up with the Star Trek Universe on TV here at TrekMovie.com.
Pike is the leader and should have been the one talking.
Pike may be the leader, but Dora’s the explorer.
wait, so is SpongeBob a NCO now or what the hell is this?
Spongebob is a frycook. We never saw Enterprise’s chef, so maybe he was Spongebob all along.
So Captain Archer has been eating Crabby Patties on the ship all along? 🤪🖖
LOL
Verily so.
I remember when Starfleet were explorers.
Didn’t I see Hondo from SWAT (Shemar Moore)? I might consider him over Pike if we were in a fire fight.
The 2nd batch of Short Treks still aren’t even available out of the the US and Canada, just like these videos
If you look at the Paramount Plus Twitter stream, you can view the video directly. For whatever reason those videos aren’t geoblocked.
Pike is lookin’ a helluva lot more gray.
Indeed!
Aren’t we all? Times have been very hard lately.
He took the crystal, didn’t he…
Well, Jesus, that was awful.
I’m glad Par+ at least has Star Trek, The Good Fight, and a couple of other shows.
Indeed. Personally, I’ll subscribe to watch SNW. But if I weren’t in it specifically for Star Trek — and those of us who are probably already subscribe to CBS All Access — I’d be utterly scratching my head at who the target audience for this network is.
Another cutesy cartoon character and Jersey Shore? Or “an intellect”? HBO Max this is not. (I suppose they’re reviving Bevis and Butthead; I did get a chuckle out of that, but really, that’s so 1990s…)
I must say, Paramount just seems institutionally *terrible* at marketing, not just now, but literally over the past several decades.
Here too. If it wasn’t for Star Trek I wouldn’t give CBSAA or Paramount+ the time of day. At least Disney has enticed me with something interesting to subscribe for one month a year. Hell, last year it was my free WEEK! This was the first time I actually paid for a month.
There isn’t a target market. ViacomCBS really does not have a clue what they are doing. They are in no shape to compete with Netflix and Amazon and Apple and Disney+ and Hulu and HBO Max. Nobody can even handle all that content, maybe people get 2 o3 3 at a time. Nobody is going to look twice at Paramount+, it’s going to do a Quibi, and then Netflix-Amazon-Apple can have a bidding war over Star Trek so it can be put on a streaming service with a flipping future (and that a lot of us get anyway).
They really need to bulk up if they want to grow the base. They’ll get a bit of upswing from the rebrand and bundling, but none of the new shows sounds like it will be a breakout. Even Strange New Worlds is probably a show that would end up retain Trekkers vs finding new ones.
I like The Good Wife and Good Fight and of course will watch the Trek shows, but this is the service I’m always considering cancelling between seasons. Unless they create a few more bold new quality series and/or remaster DS9 and Voyager and tie them exclusively to the service, I can’t say I’m inclined to keep it going in the fallow months.
Exactly, none of the characters we see in this promo (maybe save Pike) comes from “must see TV” shows.
Where, here, is Paramount’s answer to THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT or THE CROWN or even shows like BORGEN or THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE? The answer is Jersey Shore? Seriously?
And let’s face it, non-Trekkies don’t necessarily see Trek as must-see TV. Paramount isn’t elevating Jersey Shore by its cast climb the Matterhorn alongside Pike and Spock. It’s yet again demeaning Star Trek, like it did with the infamous BEYOND promo, by bringing it down to Jersey Shore’s level. They know nothing about defining a brand.
There are food shows on CBS ALL ACCESS now. Twilight Zone. The Stand. There are food shows there.
*good not food
Greatest cooking show ever on the Twilight Zone…..”IT”S A COOKBOOK!!!”….
Thank you. I needed a belly laugh today.
But that gaffe still holds a candle to Shumer’s “erection” comment. LOL!!!
Not exactly must see TV compared with what Disney and HBO Max are planning. Paramount+ seriously has no hope. It’s over, they need to just admit it, sell Star Trek to Netflix and get out of this business.
You are always peddling this idea that Viacom and Star Trek need to be sold to a huge company. I think Paramount+ needs to bulk up, but the last thing I think we should want is for ViacomCBS to be enveloped by a big tech or bigger communications giant. If it needs to merge with Discovery or somewhere that gives it competitive size with complementary offerings, fine. But after Disney, Comcast and AT&T have wreaked havoc on the industry, I don’t think anyone should be encouraging a sale.
Man in the High Castle was good for one year and then fizzled out. The Crown was good when Claire Foy was the star, but has been in a freefall ever since. The last season, with a weepy, annoying Diana and astounding falsehoods about Margaret Thatcher, was terrible.
But Queen’s Gambit was the best thing I’ve seen on TV in the last year.
That episode that involved the coal mine from season 3 was quite good. But yes, they did not present Thatcher in a very realistic way. That said, they have always said their show was fictitious while still based on real people with real events. The show is getting recast for the final two seasons that will take it into the 2000’s. Which is where Morgan said it would end.
I thought the first episode of Season 4 (with the assassination of Lord Mountbatten) was good, too. The rest of the season was a train wreck.
As much as I’m curious to see The Man in High Castle, it STILL isn’t enough to subscribe to. Not even for one month. Besides… If I’m patient enough the discs seem to come to Netflix eventually. I already have Jack Ryan in my cue. Eventually I think even High Castle will be there.
The Man in the High Castle is great. I binged it pretty much straight through over a few weeks.
Unlike many series, they very credibly land the ending and respect the source at the same time.
I need to watch that show. I love PKD.
It has been years now and there is no sign of The Man in the High Castle on disc. Same for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Bosch. I have patrons come to my library asking for them from time to time.
True but I have hope since Jack Ryan (also from AP) has appeared there. I’ll just be patient. I just have no interest in paying for Amazon Prime. Not even for one month.
Where is their Mandalorian? HBO Max just announced a new Harry Potter series, so you can watch that the same place you watch the new Game of Thrones series, the new Dune series and all the new DC series and if you get bored, watch Warners movies or the HBO back catalog. ViacomCBS is badly outclassed in the streaming wars. Why don’t they just sell everything to Amazon or Apple and get out? They are wasting their money and our time.
Harry Potter might be good, but the Fantastic Beasts movies didn’t exactly set the world on fire, so we’ll have to see how another spinoff holds up. Max’s The Flight Attendant was pretty bad, it’s like a fund-raising promo for Alcoholics Anonymous and has a whole cast of unlikeable characters. Apple gave us For All Mankind which was okay and The Morning Show, which had good acting but was otherwise pretty dull, so I’m really not sure why they deserve to take over Paramount+.
Apple TV is another service I have no intention of subscribing to. There is one or two things I’d look at if they were available on something I already pay for. But nothing I would find even paying one month for.
If you don’t think the hundred million sunk into all the trek series doesn’t best disney reruns and one new show then something is wrong with you. Also hulu is junk reruns. Again one hit show. Netflix at 15 a month now and dropping sci-fi shows do to cost is overpriced now. Paramount is owned by a huge Viacom who also owns cbs and ran a network for years. They are hardly broke and have Kevin Costner with one of the largest audiences. I think they know their market but you just don’t like it
I thought Strange New Worlds has been aimed to old trekkers anyway?
What gave you that idea? Old trekkers don’t spend enough money. That’s why Snooki is joining the cast.
PIC and partially DSC obviously failed on old trekkers. Why would they bring back Pike (and Spock and an Enterprise with updated classic elements) and promise weekly stand alone episodes in an old fashioned way, if it wasn’t aimed at old trekkers?
Because you know they’re gonna smear sh*t all over canon and frankly piss off the old Trekkers with their bad take on Star Trek TOS
It also has ‘Why Women Kill’ and classic ‘Five-0’.
WOOOOOAH, WAIT?????
IS SNOOKI GETTING HER OWN SHOW????
Strange new worlds indeed!
She’s playing Uhura. You like her?
Go away weirdo.
Yep, you like her. :)
Love those commercials! Can’t wait to see more during the Super Bowl!
Can’t see the promo here in Sweden
You’re not missing out, they are pretty bad.
I had to double check to make sure it wasn’t a fan prank. That’s a professionally made ad???
Pike: ‘woo hoo’. (I think that’s what he said.)
Production is well under way in Mississauga. I drive by CBS Studios at Dixie & 401 weekly and there’s lots of activity.
Signs out in front parking lot “RESERVED FOR STAR TREK STRANGE NEW WORLDS ART DEPARTMENT” can clearly be seen from the street.
And union websites in Toronto list camera-shooting start date of February 12.
So just at the tip of the Toronto Pearson Airport runway is a full Enterprise production set.
How the studios buffer against the noise of the jets flying in all day is beyond me.
Nice. Thank you for the update. With all the polarization going on here in the US, it is refreshing to see there is a consensus. Pretty much everyone is looking forward to watching Strange New Worlds.
So lucky. Wish we could live near Toronto. Such a cool city. :P
Thanks for the great update. Will have to swing by and check it out next time I am down by Matheson and Dixie. Also, thanks to whoever said to check out the paramount plus Twitter feed. Will make sure to take a look later today.
They better cancel all the Air France flights.
I’m wondering if these ads were meant to show off the new AR wall at CBS Studios Mississauga.
It could just be green screen.
Can anyone tell us?
I live in Mississauga too! So wait — is the full Enterprise production set at Pearson or do you mean its at the CBS stage?
When are they going to announce the full cast for SNW? It seems like it’s taking forever.
Right. Isn’t it supposed to start filming in like 4 to 6 weeks? Time’s a wastin’.
They may not necessarily announce casting before the show starts shooting. We know Pike, Spock and Number One already. If the show will only be released in 2022 they may hold off on further information until closer to release. Maybe they plan a big reveal panel at some convention.
This is exactly what happens when you abuse the Guardian of Forever.
But also: no Twilight Zone? Did I miss that? Also I really liked the mosaic-y non linear police investigation dhow but how do you show that? And how did they feature The Stand, into which they put so much money? The previous assembly of clips has more resonance than this, obviously.
TZ didn’t get a 3rd round did it? That should have been cut loose after the first.
I’ll subscribe when they have DS9 and Voyager in HD.
They’d never make back the money it would cost to upgrade them.
I see it happening with new, less time consuming and less expensive techniques sometime in the future. They’ll eventually want to do something for the shows so as to have the entire lineup in HD. But yes, little chance of them getting a TNG-style refresh.
I’m optimistic about SNW. I think the challenge will be tone. Is it going to be retro futuristic, a la Buck Rogers, or will it be futuristic? It’s a tough needle to thread.
These showrunners don’t exactly excel with ‘tough needles to thread,’ history has taught us, imo. However, like I did with DSC and PIC, I’ll go into SNW cautiously optimistic.
I so WANT to be optimistic about it. It’s just that it’s the same behind the scenes people that brought us Discovery, Picard and Lower Decks. So it’s hard to think this show will break that history of (be nice now) below average productions.
Unless there are people involved with stand alone episode experience, it will be the same crap I fear. They would be smart to get someone on board from TNG, DS9, or Voyager with those production chops.
They really ought to bring back Manny Coto in some form. His “series of trilogies” format for season 4 of Enterprise was genius.
Yeah Enterprise was amazing in season 4. I actually wrote a big post about how smart they did it that season because most of the stories all subtlety connected to each other and gave this over riding arc although the episodes themselves felt isolated enough where you can watch them on their own.
That would seem like the better way to go for this group since doing these movie long seasons doesn’t seem to really work out.
Well, they did hire that one guy from Voyager…didn’t quite work out.
I don’t think you really NEED stand alone experience. Just be competent. And one does not necessarily need someone from the Berman era to run the show. I like the idea of new blood. Fresh takes and all that. But if they were to do that they could do a lot worse than contacting Manny Coto. If he’s not too busy with Next.
Already hating on the show before it airs. Wow.
Akiva Goldsman is the showrunner, and has championed the return of Pike & co from the moment he joined Discovery’s writers room in S1 (according to his interviews).
I think we can expect some pretty trippy Trek episodes.
They’ve been needling the thread with a hammer and welding gloves so far. As always, I hope it’ll be good while knowing it can’t be with these people in charge.
Not related, but I just read that Bablyon 5’s Mira Furlan passed away a few days ago. RIP.
R.I.P. So many of that wonderful cast are now gone: Michael O’Hare, Jerry Doyle, Richard Biggs, Jeff Conanway, Andreas Katsulas…
I WISH Discovery would take a leaf out their storytelling book – if DSC aren’t going to do the episodic-style, then then need a “bigger picture”/epic story thread ala B5.
I’ve been overall not that impressed by the output of DSC Season 3 ( I thought Season 2 with Pike was much better ).
Do it like Wandavision: it is episodic but you know…something…is…wrong…
That was pretty bad
2021 and teasers get region blocked…
Try going directly to the new Paramount Plus Twitter (or looking at it through your browser).
The videos embedded in the Tweets aren’t geoblocked.
Here’s all you need to know: Paramount+ is going down in flames. The promo was T E R R I B L E. There is no way they can compete with Disney+ and HBO Max. If you don’t already get CBS All Access, then don’t worry. You won’t have to bother with Paramount+. It’ll pull a Quibi before it comes to your country.
We’ll get more Star Trek, no problem, but it could be from Netflix, Apple or Amazon.
The promo wasn’t great, but given the incredible success of ad-supported Pluto internationally, ViacomCBS is well positioned to do well with a paid streamer.
Sounds like you’re spending too much time on the YouTube guys Nerdrage.
.. what about the DS9 reboot? Yep, y’all ain’t heard bout that one? The great Sisko may actually come outta retirement
Please cite your rumor source. You have made that claim before, but there is no indication from any credible news source that is happening.
Do not use this site to spread BS rumors. Locked
..basically, except for a new show here and there, mostly filled with paramount produced reruns. Probably will bring out Happy Days, Mork and Mindy, etc etc and all weekend long runs of the Trek movies
Cancelling CBSAA just got a whole lot easier. Good lord. That was dreadful.
The worst part is knowing a bunch of honchos at ViacomCBS approved that joke of a promo. They clearly don’t have a clue what they are doing.
ViacomCBS seems to have put the Strategic Communications team from Paramount in charge of everything as they thin out duplicate staff.
This generally seems to be the case as Baklish and the Paramount management have the confidence of the controlling shareholder, even if it was CBS that absorbed Paramount in the merger.
However, in this case, I’d argue that Baklish has an enormous blind spot. The Comms team seems to have a tendency to lock down as much information as possible and then promote with weak and confusing messaging delivered poorly.
It seems that their International comms folks are better from the way Pluto took off in Spain.
Good god, why is vapid trash like Snookie still getting TV shows?
We just had a reality TV star in the WH for four years. That’s why.
There is obviously a market for trashy reality shows; it’s not a highbrow market, to be sure, but it exists. But at the same time, it’s not the basis for a new streaming service. These streaming services get pitched (and priced) as somewhat upscale products — they’re not luxury goods, sure, but the value proposition is “you’re an intelligent consumer and are paying for quality.” That’s not Jersey Shore.
Paramount+ is trying to communicate that it will be a mass market streamer it seems. News, sports, kids shows, sci-fi and horror, law dramas, BET and MTV content, and some low brow reality too.
There have recently been consumer research studies that reveal what US audiences think of the streamers.
Disney+ is family.
Amazon is higher end and “curated”
Apple+ has quality.
Netflix is mass market.
ViacomCBS wants to shed the stodgy CBS image for the streamer. So they will be promoting how they have a diverse range of shows.
One doesn’t need market research to realize that the name Disney = family friendly content. It’s why they created Touchstone decades ago. They knew themselves they could not do mature content under the Disney name.
But I honestly do not know how Amazon and Apple automatically denote any kind of quality just by their names. But then, consumers in general seem to be swayed by shiny objects.
Hopefully for them they make an actual effort to show the public they exist.
Super Bowl spots? Maybe they can get a discounted rate now that Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Budweiser have all bailed out of that event.
You do realize that with the Super Bowl etc on CBS, there is a certain amount of advertising time for promoting ViacomCBS’ own products.
Just like I’ve been seeing CBSAA The Stand and Discovery S3 promoted in the network promotional slot in other CBS broadcast shows.
They may have. I don’t record anything on the CBS over the air network myself. Mrs. ML31 recorded the Amazing Race and I did watch it with her. But we skipped the ads and don’t recall seeing any promos for CBSAA or Paramount+ on it. So perhaps they do.
But if the super bowl is on CBS this year (I have no idea, honestly and really don’t care) it doesn’t give them discount ad rates per say… CBS Sports is different from CBS entertainment. Just like a large corporation that has their own, printing service for example. The printing service still bills the department for the job. It is reasonable to conclude that the Sports division would still charge the entertainment division for ad space.
Geeze, the “talking clipboard” ad was TERRIBLE! Whoever wrote that, please do not let them write any Star Trek!
I think it was Akiva Goldsman.
>;>}
I’d been hoping — still hoping, actually — that “Strange New Worlds” might ditch the design of those uniform collars that look like they came from the shirt that was sewn by Denise Huxtable for Theo.
Agreed! Maybe there is still a chance they will look more like those from TOS. I’m sure for this promo they just used what was available from Discovery. If I had my druthers there would be a gradual changing of the overall aesthetic over the course of SNW until it matches what TOS looked like… visual continuity matters to me and Discovery butchered it… An in-universe explanation could be Pike’s desire for things to be more simple, which was hinted at based on his aversion to holograms. And when he became fleet captain he had all the ships refit to look that way… it won’t happen, but an old Trekkie can dream :-)
I actually thought there was a subtle change in the uniform? At any rate, I’d expect some unique brand identity for SNW, just like DS9 did after TNG.
That uniform is unique to the SNW Enterprise even if we saw it on Discovery first.
While we know that Gersh Phillips likes to perfect things when she can, there is no reason to ditch the asymmetric collar. It’s great design.
LOL.
I hope Snooki is on the show
I like them. They are promo spots, not War and Peace….
Even by ad standards, that was wretched. It communicates that all they have is Star Trek. Are you going to subscribe to a streaming service just for Star Trek? No, you’ll wait, binge-watch and bail. Paramount+ is dommed.
Did we watch the same spot? News, sports, dramas, children’s broadcasting. And Trek. Others were griping that Dora was way to prominently featured. Saw the first spot on cable last night. Nothing wrong with it.
Like it or not, streaming services are likely impulse buys. I’m going to get HBO Max for Godzilla vs. Kong, from what I’ve read HBO Max is a horrid service. So, we’ll see how that works out.
This is really terrible marketing. What’s Paramount+? Oh Star Trek and…uh…a service so devoid of content that we are reduced to dredging up Snooki from Jersey Shore plus Beavis & Butthead.
Meanwhile Disney+ has a half dozen Marvel shows and another half dozen Star Wars plus Pixar. HBO Max just announced a new Harry Potter series so you’ll get that plus new Game of Thrones, new DC, all of Warners back catalog and all of HBO’s back catalog too.
Why the heck would anyone bother with Paramount+ for ten seconds? Poor Star Trek. It’s only hope is for Paramount+ to just fail completely so Netflix can buy Star Trek. This is really painful.
It would be cool to see these clips but I can’t. I live in Canada.
As I noted above, you can view them from Canada in your browser if you go to Paramount+ Twitter and look at the videos embedded in the Tweets.
(I’m in Canada.)
I’m so tired with rehashing that era of Star Trek.
As am I, agreed, Kev.
I am too (why I wasn’t big on Discovery) but I do admit being back on the ‘original’ Enterprise is really appealing to me as I imagine many others. If it wasn’t for that, I probably would be rolling my eyes. ;)
Once again people outside the US can’t see the videos.
I called it quits on NuTrek and CBS AA after Picard. This ad does nothing to make me reconsider. As if this coping with this pandemic was bad enough, now we get Pike and Snooki in the same ad? Sheesh!
Not enough to discontinue reading Star Trek blogs, though. ;)
Nope! Actually I still use the site for Trek news and info (hope always springs eternal). That, and I derive a lot of entertainment from reading comments. Go figure!
I love how the reaction is almost universally “this is hot garbage.” Like -_- why does everything CBS does have to be SO BAD? They can’t even write good commercials, why would we want to watch their terribly written TV shows?
This promotion just makes me wonder why Star Trek is on CBS. Pike and Spock definitely look… out of place.