BRANDED ENTERTAINMENT

2008

branded entertainment / index p.02

CHAPTERS /

INDEX / page 02BRANDED ENTERTAINMENT

01 / page 03EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

02 / pages 04-05INTRODUCTION

03 / pages 06-07BACK TO THE FUTURE

04 / pages 08-14BRANDED ENTERTAINMENT/ AN OVERVIEW

05 / pages 15-20OPPORTUNITIES & PARTNERSHIPS

06 / pages 21-23THE FALLOUT/WHEN THINGS GO WRONG

07 / pages 24-31AROUND THE WORLD

08 / pages 32-52THE WORK / CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP

09 / pages 53-54FUTURE VIEW

10 / page 55RESOURCES

02 /INTRO

01 /SUMMARY

03 /HISTORY

04 /OVERVIEW

06 /THE FALLOUT

07 /THE WORLD

08 /THE WORK

09 /FUTURE VIEW

05 / O&P

10 /REFERENCES

branded entertainment / executive summary / p.03

CHAPTERS /

01 / pages 03EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

02 /INTRO

01 /SUMMARY

03 /HISTORY

04 /OVERVIEW

05 / O&P

06 /THE FALLOUT

07 /THE WORLD

08 /THE WORK

09 /FUTURE VIEW

10 /REFERENCES

02 / Introduction

As a concept, branded entertainment (BE) isnothing new. But recent, irrevocable changes inthe way we consume media has thrust it backinto focus for brands and advertisers. In orderto cut through, messaging now has to be enter-taining, and ideally with interactive elements. Thenew challenge for advertisers in the 21st centuryis finding a way to do that while staying onmessage.

03 / Back to the Future

Branded entertainment began in earnest with theProcter & Gamble-sponsored radio plays of the1930s, which later evolved into the televisionsoap operas of the 1950s. For the next 50 years,the combination of brands and ad messagingcontinued along fairly conservative lines, withproduct placement and straightforward sponsor-ships being the order of the day. All that changedwith BMW's The Hire film series in 2001,which paved the way for marketers to re-addressbranded entertainment as a concept.

04 / Branded Entertainment / An Overview

What we call ‘branded entertainment’ can take avariety of different forms, spanning sponsorship,product placement, the creation of originalcontent, alternate reality games, experientialsolutions such as live concert and social events,

interactive campaigns, video games and more.Subtlety, creativity and tonal appropriateness arethe keys to success. As planning and projectsevolve, branded entertainment will becomemore sophisticated, emcompassing multipletouchpoints and technologies.

05 / Opportunities and Partnerships

This is the era of the media partnership. Thenew advent of branded entertainment opens upa number of mutually beneficial partnershippossibilities for brands. Proven hotspots includethe hobbled music industry, IPTV (Internet televi-sion stations such as Joost), digital televisionservice providers, and social networks, who manybelieve have the capacity to reach the Y and Zgenerations in a way that television no longer can.

06 / The Fallout / When Things Go Wrong

Success in branded entertainment is aboutfinding a balance between legitimately com-pelling content and on-point brand messaging.Stay true to your brand’s tone: the worst, mostdestructive thing you can do is get involved inbranded entertainment for the sake of it.Execution and openness are key; make sure yourcontent is simple to access and share. If it’sworthwhile and entertaining, consumers will behappy to do both.

07 / Around The World

A quick scan of the world’s branded entertain-ment landscape: France’s broadcast legislatureallows for sponsored, bite-sized pieces ofcontent in primetime; China is a sleeping giantbut is slowly starting to get involved; Sweden isyears ahead in the digital game and thereforemarket leaders in interactive work; India is hugelystratified, but branded entertainment is makingstrides thanks to Bollywood, sport and desperatealcohol and tobacco companies.

08 / The Work

Here we take a look at over 40 significantbranded entertainment projects to emerge inthe last 18 months, worldwide.

09 / Future View

Branded entertainment will not replace regularadvertising; better to consider it as one of manytools in a marketer’s toolkit. There are home truthsabout what works, but by and large, there is nofinal word: this is a time of experimentation andexploration. As ever, technology and the web willdrive and shape this sector, but mainstreamtelevision also stands to play a big role in BE’songoing maturation. All brands have a right to thisarena – there is no velvet rope.

branded entertainment / an overview p.08

04 / pages 08-14BRANDED ENTERTAINMENT / AN OVERVIEW

Like ‘viral’ and ‘digital’ before it, ‘brandedentertainment’ is one of those container termsthat represents a vast array of drasticallydiffering disciplines and forms, a lot of whichagencies, entertainment companies andbrands are still in the course of refining. So,in the interest of adding some definition tothe subject, we thought it’d be helpful toprovide a rough taxonomy of the most preva-lent and promising trends within brandedentertainment.

04.01 / Advertiser-Funded Programming

Since AFP, or advertiser-funded programming, is oneof the quickest ways for brands to get immediatelyinvolved, it’s also one of branded entertainment’s mostpopular categories. And although AFP encompassesa raft of strategies that range from simple brand /content partnerships to the development of bespokecontent, you can more or less divide the work intothree basic subcategories:

1. Sponsorship

Essentially just a glorified update on the traditionalsponsorship work that brands have been participatingin for decades (‘This show has been brought to youby…’), sponsored AFP generally presents a low-effort,low-stakes opportunity for a brand to soak up the haloeffect from a particular piece of content. Examplesinclude the 2006 Nike-sponsored video for

Common’s Be, which married the Chicago rapper’scritically acclaimed single with Nike products andrelated imagery; and NBC Universal’s recentcampaign for the drama Life, which featuredMasterCard-sponsored ‘pod-busters’ during thecommercial breaks that reinforced the show’scharacters with a series of small clues that sent theviewer back to the MasterCard-sponsored Life portalon NBC.com for more.

2. Product placement

Although often derided as a patently unsexy solution,product placement still accounts for a significantchunk of AFP’s transactional tally in America, andthanks to legislation announced by the EU inNovember, looks poised to become a factor in Europeas well. Under the new EU directive, television, IPTVand TV-on-demand networks will be able to broadcastproduct placement in ‘cinema, films for TV, sportsbroadcasts and light entertainment’ programmes, withthe proviso that broadcasters must demarcate thebeginning and end of each segment with title signals.

Elsewhere, though, the advent of serialised web-based content has already created more opportunityfor brands. A good example is the recent Bebo.comsmash KateModern (more on that later), whichfeatures ‘deep brand integration’ from names likeOrange, P&G, Disney, Cadbury and Microsoft. Asever, success in product placement favours a subtletouch. ‘Brand placements become forced the momentthere's any overstatement,’ says Bates Asia’screative group head Diptanshu Roy. ‘It has a

NBC Universal / Life

CHAPTERS /

02 /INTRO

01 /SUMMARY

03 /HISTORY

04 /OVERVIEW

06 /THE FALLOUT

07 /THE WORLD

08 /THE WORK

09 /FUTURE VIEW

05 / O&P

10 /REFERENCES

u

Bebo / KateModern /

branded entertainment / an overview p.14

CHAPTERS /

While the agency had pre-written enough plot points over thecourse of the five days to ensure the story’s general arc, a hugeportion of the campaign was ultimately supplied by viewers, who,through chat requests, polls and blog posts of their own, helpedguide much of the action. And while having three photogenicmodels prance around in their skivvies on a live webcam didn’t hurtthe site’s traffic figures (which reportedly tripled as a result ofthe campaign), it was ultimately the level of engagement andmeaningful interaction that kept users there for the better part of aweek. It’s these kinds of experiences, says Farfar’s creative directorNicke Bergstrom, that brands need to deploy if they want to haveany real claim to the word ‘interactive’. ‘Let's say you go to a carwebsite that's [branded] an interactive experience, but the interac-tive part is you can choose between green, blue and red for the rim.In some ways that's interactive, because you can pick and choose,but they could have made a catalogue with the same content.’

Another award-winning interactive campaign from 2007 was theCalifornia Milk Processing Board's Gettheglass.com, built bySwedish whiz kids North Kingdom and backed by an integratedcampaign from Goodby Silverstein & Partners. The site boastsbeautiful graphics that wouldn't be out of place in the latest com-mercial games releases coupled with a compelling narrative, urginggamers to overcome a series of challenges while moving alonga board game grid towards a life-giving glass of milk. The siteachieved lengthy dwell times of up to 30 minutes at weekends anddeservedly gained a Gold Cyber Lion at Cannes.

This year sees the Got Milk campaign continue with a new web-site at www.whitegoldiswhitegold.com, this time in collaborationwith design studio Odopod. The campaign features an irreverentrocker White Gold, styled like an over the top Ben Stiller completewith flowing white hair, backed by The Calcium Twins. White Goldstarted life as a mess of frail hair, a dull smile and a scrawny body.Before he hit the milk. Now, he's a model of masculinity and a truerock God. The highly interactive website – which needs to beexplored rather than uncovered through simple menus – featuresgames, videos and footage of the band, whose album can also bedownloaded.

02 /INTRO

01 /SUMMARY

03 /HISTORY

04 /OVERVIEW

06 /THE FALLOUT

07 /THE WORLD

08 /THE WORK

09 /FUTURE VIEW

05 / O&P

10 /REFERENCES

Gettheglass.com /

Links/www.nbc.com/Lifewww.bebo.comwww.bartleboglehegarty.comhttp://channel.audi.co.ukwww.idealogue.comwww.greygoosevodka.comwww.sundancechannel.comwww.mtv.comwww.radicalmedia.comwww.gluesociety.comwww.officemax.comwww.iagr.netwww.cakegroup.comwww.benjerry.com

www.visitlondon.comwww.42entertainment.comwww.ilovebees.comwww.beinggirl.comwww.cathysbook.comhttp://cpbgroup.comwww.farfar.sewww.diesel.comwww.gettheglass.comwww.northkingdom.comwww.goodbysilverstein.comwww.whitegoldiswhitegold.comwww.odopod.com

branded entertainment / around the world p.28

CHAPTERS /

07.02 / China

As evidenced by the advertising industry’s increased awareness ofChina and its intimidatingly enormous market, the one billion strongnation is catching up on the marketing front, and branded entertain-ment is an unmistakable part of that. OgilvyOne China presidentChris Reitermann has witnessed the industry’s incredible growthspurt firsthand, and although he’s doubtful that the traditional televi-sion model will relinquish its stronghold on the country any timesoon, he’s also noticed a significant uptake in consumption andinterest levels in other kinds of entertainment across other kinds ofmedia. Because television is so heavily regulated, he says, a lot ofthat content is heading towards the web. And although brandedentertainment as a discipline isn’t nearly as well-defined in China asit is in the US or UK, the nation’s burgeoning interest in new kindsof advertising combined with the opportunities afforded by theweb’s slightly less-controlled environment has opened the door forsome world class-level work.

One such piece is an OgilvyOne initiative for adidas called TheRook. Designed to leverage adidas’ NBA professional sponsoredstarpower against China’s basketball-crazy demographic, theproject attracted over 200,000 registered users during its six-weekrun from November to December 2007. Over the course of five15-20 minute instalments (which the agency has dubbed‘gamisodes’), users undergo a full rookie season from a first-personperspective, starting with The Draft and finishing with The Finals.

With a full-screen interactive film module at its core and cameoappearances from some of the NBA’s biggest stars, the project alsooffered up exclusive footage, interviews and unlockable bonusmaterials. The fact that it took over 100 different people to facilitatethis particular production, says Reitermann, speaks to China’sincreasing interest in making content of this kind. ‘There's a lot ofstuff happening online that's happening much faster and moreaggressively than it probably does anywhere else,’ he says. ‘Theonline space is kind of a big, kind of laboratory right now. There’smany things where nobody knows the best way to do it, and I thinkclients are a bit more open to like let you just try things.’

02 /INTRO

01 /SUMMARY

03 /HISTORY

04 /OVERVIEW

06 /THE FALLOUT

08 /THE WORK

09 /FUTURE VIEW

05 / O&P

10 /REFERENCES

adidas / The Rook /

07 /THE WORLD

u

branded entertainment / future view p.53

09 / pages 53-54FUTURE VIEW

You’ve probably realised by now the one simpletruth about branded entertainment: there is noone simple truth about branded entertainment.More than anything, this is a time of experi-mentation and exploration. Some initiativesare going to capture public imagination,while some are going to fall by the wayside.This scattered marketplace makes it almostimpossible to say with any certainty justexactly how things are going to play out, butthere are some things we can say for sure.

In June 2007, the New York agency Droga5and New York’s Smuggler Films launched a boldand expensive new venture called HoneyShed.Bankrolled by the Publicis Groupe and furthersupported by brands, HoneyShed is basically anonline television channel that merges original contentwith the sales pitch. David Droga describes thevision: 'Most of the time the strategy has been tocreate entertaining content and then seed it, put it onYouTube, or elsewhere. So content is king but the kingdidn't really have a throne. Our idea was wouldn't it bebrilliant to have a site where you could be overt aboutthe brand. The site gets at the entertainment value andthe sociability of shopping.'

While early results on the venture are still out, thesite (which some have likened to a home shoppingchannel for hipsters) has been the source of intensepublic scrutiny. Where its supporters maintain that thevision behind it marks a brave new evolution for the

branded entertainment model, HoneyShed’s detrac-tors hold that the model goes completely against theway people normally conduct commerce on the web.While we’ll reserve our judgement until all the cardsare in, we applaud the intent behind Publicis’commitment. The fact is that branded entertainment isonly going to get bigger; the brands that realise thissooner are more likely to be rewarded.

It's not just the creative entities who need to paymore attention: branded entertainment has thepotential to shake things up on the media side as well.The digital distribution model that most BE is foundedon seriously undermines our concept of the traditionalmedia spend.

Whereas in the old-school broadcast model, itwasn't uncommon to spend a wodge of cash on anadvert and then five times more on the media buy,these kinds of projects invert the ratio: you mightspend more money on the production, but relativelyless to get it seen. You can see why some brands whocan't compete on the level of massive media buysmight find this compelling.

BBH's Mark Boyd cites their recent project forAudi, TT Remastered, as a perfect example. 'It wasan album, it was a podcast by Jo Wiley, it was a musicmixer where you could upload the tracks that weowned, it was a TV programme, it was a radio show, itwas a partnership with Observer Music Monthly, allwith that kind of central idea of TT Remastered at theheart of it and all with very clear consistency you canfeel across every execution,' he says. 'We took thewhole lot and went "Listen, for the kind of consumers

CHAPTERS /

02 /INTRO

01 /SUMMARY

03 /HISTORY

04 /OVERVIEW

06 /THE FALLOUT

07 /THE WORLD

08 /THE WORK

09 /FUTURE VIEW

05 / O&P

10 /REFERENCES

HoneyShed /

branded entertainment / credits p.56

CHAPTERS /

02 /INTRO

01 /SUMMARY

03 /HISTORY

04 /OVERVIEW

06 /THE FALLOUT

07 /THE WORLD

08 /THE WORK

09 /FUTURE VIEW

05 / O&P

page 56CREDITS

Produced by Contagious Communications

Editorial DirectorPaul Kemp-Robertson

Series EditorGeorgia Malden

Written byMark Pytlik

Additional ResearchGiacomo Bracci, Katrina Dodd, Will Sansom

Edited byJess Greenwood, Emily Hare

Cover imageDiesel ‘Heidies’, courtesy of Farfar

Illustrations byChellie Carroll / www.chelliecarroll.co.uk

DesignFLOK / www.flokline.com

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Published April 2008

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10 /REFERENCES