Did You Know?

Italian jewelry and perfume maker Bulgari was one of the first companies to sponsor a fictomercial, the 2001 novel by British writer Fey Weldon entitled “The Bulgari Connection”.

A portmanteau word combining fiction and commercial, a fictomercial is a book, tv show or any other piece of creative writing in which a company pays the writer to incorporate its products into the story. It is part of a trend to use non-traditional ways to promote products and has become a burgeoning business for writers over the last fifteen years.

Why? Because advertisers are always looking to make people see things in different ways. They like to take existing concept in new directions, making up new words along the way (like fictomercial, advertorial, jeggings or masstige).

As a side note, fictomercials are referred to as “publifiction” in French.