With the world of online video advertising driving towards $2 billion annually, marketers are exploring new ways to get viewers excited about watching their ads. As more buyers enter the market, they’re finding that running repurposed television spots may be expedient, but it’s not going to facilitate meaningful engagements with online audiences.
One area of significant growth has been in original Web shows that incorporate brands directly into the programming. The benefit from the marketer’s perspective is that the viewer watches the brand message via an integration that hopefully feels organic and can’t be skipped or ignored.
The goal is for the consumer to have a positive brand experience without being able to draw a distinct line between the brand message and the content. Recent examples include the Wrigley’s Orbit campaign starring Jason Bateman, or the Bailey’s Iced Coffee Break Series.
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What this trend actually reveals is the evolution of a very specific economic transaction that takes place millions of times a day between marketers and consumers. Advertisers “pay” for consumer attention by indirectly (or directly) funding content production costs.
In interstitial or pre-roll advertising the transaction is overt and the lines between the fee and the goods are clearly delineated. Consumers simply pay a fee (the time and attention required to watch a 30-second spot) to receive the goods (watching the show).
With branded entertainment, the advertiser is acknowledging the increasing value of consumer attention and is attempting to reduce the upfront “fee.” In fact, well-executed product placement adds value to the content and no longer becomes a “cost” to the consumer at all.
This is all a rational response to the increased leverage consumers have been gaining in these transactions. But simply reducing attention costs is not going to be sufficient over time.
Tools of engagement
The problem with most branded entertainment campaigns is that they still tend to fall into a broadcast mentality. It’s all about producing content in a studio and blasting it out over a network of publishers and driving views.
It’s not about forming relationships with that audience and constructing durable communities of fans that last beyond the confines of a single campaign.
Some brands are beginning to think outside of the broadcast model. They’re using platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare to create communities and to engage them in an ongoing dialogue.
Toyota’s recent launch of the new Camry and Corolla highlights how this type of campaign can work. The company’s Facebook page has more than 200,000 fans and an active community of people posting pictures, video, and comments about their experiences with Toyota cars.
This is supported by a fairly large media buy in which selected families have had their experiences highlighted in 1-3 minute clips that have been distributed across YouTube and a network of targeted publishers.
This campaign wasn’t cheap, but they don’t have to point to a study on increased brand to demonstrate return on investment; they now have a growing community of engaged consumers that can be tapped to support future campaigns.
The no-so-lonely case of LonelyGirl15
You can trace the roots of these types of campaigns to the pioneering 2006 Web series LonelyGirl15. The series focused on a teenage girl named Bree who was being pursued by an evil organization called “The Order.” The effort came under justifiable criticism for initially not being transparent about the fact that it was fiction, but it still provides some valuable lessons.
Where Loneygirl broke new ground was in its use of MySpace to create profile pages for fictional characters in the show. These pages blurred the lines between the show and reality and gave the audience the ability to participate in the narrative.
LG15 ultimately used its large audience (110 million views across the 18 months the series ran) to introduce one of the first examples of integrated product placement in a Web video series with the episode Truckstop Reunion, sponsored by Hershey’s Icebreakers Sours Gum.
Time to get social
While this is four years and a billion dollars in US online video ad spend behind us, the things that made LG15 so successful are missing from too many of today’s branded video campaigns.
Agencies marvel over the viral success of Wieden + Kennedy’s Old Spice campaign, but the reality is that the videos didn’t really go viral (i.e. gain attention beyond paid media) until the Old Spice guy started responding to tweets and engaging influencers on the social web.
Getting people to share videos with friends is nice and the way most agencies and brands think about viral success today. But this is still a broadcast mentality: “How can we get free impressions through viewers sharing the videos with each other?” More durable brand equity is built when every dollar spent on production and distribution is also working to build a community of fans by involving your audience in the content creation process.
The faster that buyers in video and social media can work together to create these types of experiences, the faster they can help brands deliver value to consumers instead of simply minimizing the cost of the virtual tax on attention that most ads represent today.
In the future, brand equity will be measured by the strength of the brand’s community. How strong is yours?
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RT @Sparksheet: The future of branded entertainment is social http://bit.ly/dqtIwL Alex Rowland on the ROI of online video (new spark)
RT @Sparksheet: The future of branded entertainment is social http://bit.ly/dqtIwL Alex Rowland on the ROI of online video #mergemediaTO
RT @Sparksheet: The future of branded entertainment is social http://bit.ly/dqtIwL Alex Rowland on the ROI of online video (new spark)
RT @Sparksheet: The future of branded entertainment is social http://bit.ly/dqtIwL Alex Rowland on the ROI of online video #in #fb
Alphabird COO featured in Sparksheet today – "The Future of Branded Entertainment is Social" – http://bit.ly/dmgG1Y
Smart post on the importance of engaging viewers & PERSONALIZING content — Future of Branded Entertainment is Social: http://bit.ly/9wJF7M
Smart post on the importance of engaging viewers and PERSONALIZING content — entertainment experiences need a… http://fb.me/INSPO316
Interesting post on branded content. http://bit.ly/9wJF7M
A+ examples. I also like @BrettErlich's Nissan ad. RT @Sparksheet – The Future of Branded Entertainment is Social http://tinyurl.com/37smd35
The Future of #Branded #Entertainment is Social | Sparksheet http://bit.ly/cLSH9w
"In the future, brand equity will be measured by the strength of the brand’s community. How strong is yours?" http://bit.ly/9wJF7M
RT @Sparksheet: Goal of Branded Content=Have a positive brand experience without drawing line btwn brand msg & content. http://bit.ly/9wJF7M
RT @Gennefer: on the importance of engaging viewers & PERSONALIZING content: Future of Branded Entertainment is Social: http://bit.ly/9wJF7M
The Future of Branded Entertainment is Social http://is.gd/fOtxx
The Future of Branded Entertainment is Social http://is.gd/fOtzt
RT @Sparksheet: Goal of Branded Content: Have a positive brand experience without drawing distinct line between brand message & content http://bit.ly/9wJF7M
Branded entertainment 101 — the last principle regarding the Old Spice campaign may be the most important. http://lnkd.in/Ec6uNA
The Future of #BrandedEntertainment is Social http://bit.ly/dqtIwL Blurring boundaries between brand message and content
Power to the Pixel: The Future of #BrandedEntertainment is Social http://bit.ly/dqtIwL Blurring boundaries between… http://bit.ly/dwWQ6E
RT @sparksheet: The Future of Branded Entertainment is Social http://bit.ly/cVuzCF
Online video advertising near $2 bn annually. Marketers are exploring social as way to engage viewers : http://bit.ly/944wuH #integrated
Nice post on Branded Entertainment from @sparksheet – helps you get a grasp of what it is and what makes it tick http://bit.ly/cVuzCF
RT @Sparksheet – The Future of Branded Entertainment is Social – http://tinyurl.com/37smd35 << Couldn't agree more!
RT @sparksheet: In the future, brand equity will be measured by the strength of the brand’s community. http://bit.ly/cVuzCF
The Positively Insidious Future of Branded Entertainment is Social – http://tinyurl.com/37smd35
[…] Sparksheet, 10/6/10 SUBSCRIBE FOLLOW FANS […]
[…] The Future of Branded Entertainment is Social […]
[…] There’s a lot of confusion among brands and content creators about the difference between branded entertainment and viral video. Most brands want their videos to go viral, but these are two distinct terms in the […]
@whitecircleUK And here's another good article from the same guys: http://t.co/vmpUav0 This sells online branded content to actual brands
Future of Branded Entertainment is in the #culture, and its social http://t.co/tVgPhIn
RT @BrandOneCulture Future of Branded Entertainment is in the #culture, and its social http://t.co/w2us8fi
RT @BrandOneCulture Future of Branded Entertainment is in the #culture, and its social http://t.co/w2us8fi
RT @sparksheet: The Future of Branded Entertainment is Social http://t.co/P69XmqZ
Is "branded entertainment" good or bad? I welcome your comments:
http://t.co/5aXfCK11
[…] Alex Rowland wrote in Sparksheet , branded entertainment works best when users forget they’re watching an ad and when they’re […]
When branded entertainment goes viral, check out this awesome video! What is the best branded video you have seen? http://t.co/quhhSOWr ^JS
When branded entertainment goes viral, check out this awesome video! What is the best branded video you have seen? http://t.co/quhhSOWr ^JS
When branded entertainment goes viral, check out this awesome video! What is the best branded video you have seen? http://t.co/quhhSOWr ^JS
Completely agree. Completely love my job. "The Future of Branded Entertainment is Social" @Sparksheet http://t.co/r60GZag7
[…] Sparksheet, 10/6/10 […]
[…] social media, the audience becomes a key distributor of advertising. For social video advertising, the success of a campaign is frequently measured by the number of views that were earned through […]