'Date My Ex': Reality Show Retreads Bring 'Jo & Slade' To Your Cell Phone

Jo and Slade are coming for your cell phone - so whatever you do, don't answer.

She is Jo De La Rosa from Bravo's "Real Housewives of Orange County" - never mind that she wasn't a housewife.

He's Slade Smiley from same - never mind that, thanks to "Real Housewives," he may never land a wife.

Together, these two headline a new show, starting tonight, entitled "Date My Ex: Jo and Slade," in which (I'm not making this up), Slade gives his ex-fiancé advice in finding a new love via a kind of dating contest ala "The Bachelorette."

She may seem like the last person you'd want on speed dial, but as part of a promotion for the show, she's offering a "Jo Ringtone" for those who are willing to snap a camera phone picture of an ad appearing in US, Star and In Touch magazines (see image shown here) and then send it to a shortcode.

Participants will also receive the show's theme song ("U Can't Control Me," sung without irony by Jo - despite the fact that her ex now apparently controls her music career), and will be invited to join Bravo's Scoop Club, which will send alerts and offers tied to other shows.

As Lisa Hsia, Bravo’s senior VP of new media and digital strategy, tells TV Week, it’s the first time this image-recognition technology (from Mobot) has been used in the U.S. by a television network.

“I’m interested in just trying this new technology, seeing how the users react: Do they find it fun, do they find it useful, is it something we get a high response rate to,” Ms. Hsia tells the pub.

“We love having people signed up for these things,” said Ms. Hsia. “Hopefully they’re going to start interacting with the Bravo brand outside of the TV screen.”

As readers of BRANDING UNBOUND the book and blog know, people have been interacting with Bravo shows via mobile phone for several years now, most notably, perhaps, through promotions for "Top Chef," "Queer Eye" and "Project Runway."

A better ringtone for "Jo and Slade" might have been this quote from the show cited in today's New York Times, in which Jo recounts one of her dates thusly:

"What possibly could have been the worst experience ever, Lucas turned into the most funnest thing in the world.

U Can't Make This Up.

Read more here.

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