According to a sampling of agency producers, branded content—while unlikely to replace traditional TV advertising—will continue to gain favor with clients seeking to marry entertainment with advertising. But opinion is divided on exactly what form branded content will take in the future
Among the advertisers to have ventured into branded content are: Budweiser, Absolut Vodka, Reebok and, most famously, BMW of North America. BMW made a major splash two years ago with "The Hire," a series of Web-based short films directed by A-list feature filmmakers via Fallon, Minneapolis. That original package of five films, produced by bicoastal Anonymous Content, was followed by a second "Hire" series of three shorts last year, this time produced by bicoastal RSA USA. The latest round comprises: Beat the Devil directed by Tony Scott, a principal/director at RSA USA; Hostage, helmed by John Woo; and Ticker, directed by Joe Carnahan.
Brian DiLorenzo, the Fallon executive producer who produced the second round of "The Hire" series, notes that due to the success of the first round of films, there was great curiosity and interest the second time around. "People found there was a tremendous amount of merit to the project, creatively," explains DiLorenzo. Artisans interested in the project included directors—both feature and commercial—actors, music composers, and others.
DiLorenzo relates there were many lessons learned between the first and second round of BMW films. Chief among them, he says, was how to deal with Hollywood entertainment lawyers, agents and business managers. "You reach a whole new level of complexity in negotiating," he comments. "It was an eye-opening experience. It’s a very different world to get into—you must speak a different language. [Commercial] producers always have to retrain themselves, anyway. You’re always jumping into new terrain, trying to do more with less. This is just another evolution in the process."
In contrast to BMW, Anheuser-Busch (A-B) has adopted a more cost-effective strategy in its forays into advertainment with its Budweiser brand. In conjunction with agency DDB Chicago, A-B sponsored several short films based on Budweiser’s ongoing "True" campaign. The first short, Best Man, debuted in November ’02 on actor Kevin Spacey’s Internet film site, triggerstreet. com, and can also be viewed on Budweiser’s Web site. The piece additionally ran on FX, Comedy Central, and VH1 this year. Both the A-B films and "The Hire" shorts were showcased and discussed at the inaugural Brand Integration Honors, presented by the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP) earlier this month.
Written by DDB Chicago group creative director John Immesoete, Best Man was the directing debut of Immesoete and Greg Popp, senior VP/group executive producer at DDB. (Production of the short was run through bicoastal/international Partizan, and Radke Films, Toronto.) Popp, who also produced for the agency, explains the film is a sequel to a prior Bud spot, "Birthmark" (directed by Kuntz & Maguire—Tom and Mike, respectively—of bicoastal/ international Morton Jankel Zander), in that it reintroduces Greg, a character (played by Jason Jones) who has chronic foot-in-mouth disease.
In Best Man, Greg makes humorously inappropriate comments while attending a wedding reception. In the process, he offends everyone he encounters—including a female wedding guest whom he mistakenly assumes to be pregnant, and the father of the bride whom he insults with remarks about the wedding’s exorbitant cost and his visibly much-younger wife.
"Best Man is the antithesis of [BMW’s ‘The Hire’]," says Popp, who notes that A-B looked favorably on he and Immesoete directing because it saved money. "We’re exploring [branded content] in a different way. There is no story; it’s just a series of sketches meant to make you laugh. The tonality is somewhere between Dumb and Dumber and Meet the Parents. It’s not an auteur piece; it’s supposed to make you feel a certain way about Budweiser’s personality."
Creating a short Web-based film also appealed to A-B, says Popp, because DDB was able to create a :30 spot, "Wedding Toast," from the footage shot. He adds, "The idea was—we gotta have something we can lift from it to be used in traditional media."
Budweiser has sponsored two more short films co-directed by Popp and Immesoete that can be seen at www.budweiser.com: Company Man, which features the bumbling Greg character at a corporate party; and Gas, Food, Beer.
Popp believes now is a good time for A-B to explore branded content. "I constantly read articles saying everything’s going to change, but nobody mentions specifics," he says. "But [branded content] has got to be here to stay—my nine-year-old kid spends far more time playing video games than watching TV."
Art & Commerce
In conjunction with its agency TBWA/Chiat/Day, New York, Absolut Vodka and its unit Absolut Pictures has been turning out branded entertainment—in the form of mock movie trailers—for five years. The project started in ’98 in Latin America, and was based on the idea of spoofing different movie genres, relates TBWA/Chiat/Day senior producer Nathy Aviram. Trailers included "Hey Stranger!," which poked fun at films like Desperado, and was directed by Sam Raimi; and a Trainspotting-inspired piece titled "Beat Crazy," directed by Tarsem, of bicoastal/international @radical.media.
For the first time, Absolut has taken its marketing approach a step further by creating an actual 12-minute film to go along with a trailer. The piece, Mulit, is a Bollywood-style send-up that purports to tell how the mullet haircut originated. "If you’re shooting a trailer," says Aviram, "you have to shoot so many scenes to make a realistic looking trailer anyway. We wanted to entertain and tell a story, and Bollywood—where the dance numbers and songs become a part of the storytelling—lent itself to making a full film."
Mulit was directed by Ivan Zacharias of bicoastal Smuggler and London-based Stink. The film was shot on location in Bombay and Jaipur, India. Written by art director Joseph Mazzaferro and copywriter Lynn Branecky, Mulit pays homage to the Bollywood genre, and draws its laughs from the story: the prime minister’s daughter falls in love with a Bombay hairdresser, but the two are separated when the angry father sends guards to arrest the hairdresser. The guards capture the hairdresser before he can finish cutting his lover’s hair—thus, accidentally creating the mullet.
Throughout the film, viewers can discern various items in the shape of Absolut’s bottle: a few are obvious, such as prison bars, while many, like a government official’s stamp on a document, are much more subtle. "The bottle shape is such an icon," says Aviram, "you don’t have to make it a hard sell." The film has been shown at film festivals around the world; the company is also giving DVDs of Mulit away at promotional events. The trailer for the film was recently honored in the cinematography category at the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP) Show; DP on the spot was Jan Velicky.
While the agency considered spot and feature directors, ultimately Zacharias was chosen because his treatment was most true to the genre. "It was important for him to achieve a realistic feel, like [for instance] the close-ups on eyes," notes Aviram.
While Mulit authentically recreates the costumes, hairstyles, music, choreography and scope of a Bollywood movie, its budget was not much larger than that of a traditional spot due to the low production costs in India. Stink handled the production out of London.
"I think more and more advertisers will realize the benefits of making films that are entertaining," says Aviram. "No one’s really figured out what to do with the Web yet, but a project like this allows people to gravitate to the Web."
Creating entertainment content seems a natural choice for alcohol manufacturers bound by the advertising restrictions of traditional network television. Last year, in a campaign conceived by its agency Margeotes Fertitta+Partners, New York, Bombay Sapphire gin sponsored three cinema-style :60 spots—"The Green Shore" written and directed by Victor Robert, and produced via now defunct Palomar Pictures; "South," written and directed by Carlton Chase of bicoastal Neue Sentimental Film; and "The Intellectual," written and directed by Robert Logevall via now defunct Wonderland (Logevall is now with Anonymous). The spots, which ran on cable networks and are on Bombay Sapphire’s Web site, were aired under the moniker "Sapphire Inspired Films."
This year, Margeotes and Bombay continued the series with two soon-to-break spots: "The Big Idea," directed by Randy Roberts of Rhythm & Hues, Los Angeles, and "Drift" by Psyop, New York. Agency credits go to creative director Fritz Westenberger, director of broadcast production/executive producer Annette Suarez, and producer Meagan MacDonald.
Bombay, says Suarez, positions itself as a "patron of the arts," which led to the cinematic fare. After looking at reels, the agency contacted a group of directors and paid them to do treatments.
The budgets were "much less" than traditional spots, says Suarez, noting that the directors were willing to work for less in exchange for complete creative control to write and direct. "It was an untraditional process," she adds. "Meagan [MacDonald] and I didn’t go to the shoots. We asked for very tight storyboards upfront, and gave suggestions as to cable network restrictions, but otherwise let the directors have control."
In the case of Reebok, it was a four-minute DV film sent to its ad agency, The Arnell Group, New York, that led the shoe manufacturer to link its brand to a fictitious former football player named Terry Tate who uses football field tactics to maintain an orderly office. Written and directed by Los Angeles-based filmmaker Rawson Thurber, who is now represented for spots via F.M. Rocks, Santa Monica, Terry Tate: Office Linebacker showcased the 6-foot-6-inch, 300-pound Tate, who tackles workers in an office setting for various infractions. It was produced through bicoastal Hypnotic.
Peter Arnell, chairman/chief creative officer of The Arnell Group, loved it and thought it would be perfect for Reebok, relates agency executive producer Miriam Franklin. "[Arnell] recognized that the film had a lot of legs and a huge amount of potential," she notes.
The agency commissioned Thurber to write and direct a series of Reebok ads, as well as four short films featuring Tate. The first spot, "Terry Tate: Office Linebacker," debuted during this year’s Super Bowl. Like all the spots, it directs viewers to the Reebok Web site to view the short films.
Franklin reports that the agency is now working with Thurber in developing phase two of the Terry Tate campaign. "The Web is such an integral part of culture today," says Franklin. "To draw people’s attention, you really need to show entertainment. You have to make them want to log on and stay on [a Web site]. TV is one small component of positioning your brand. Web sites, print, out-of-home, [point of purchase]—they all have to be completely integrated. Terry Tate was a carefully thought-out strategy."
While stressing that commercials aren’t going away, Franklin says that she sees the cross-pollination of Hollywood and Madison Avenue just now coming into its own. "Consumers, more and more, want to be entertained," she explains. "Branded content is here to stay if it’s done properly. For agencies, branded content has to truly help to keep the brand going—as opposed to shooting short films for the Web for their own sake. They also have to take care that the property they’re using doesn’t get overused."
Cat TV
While the idea of Meow Mix sponsoring branded entertainment seems a bit odd, so, too, is the purported target audience of its first such project: cats. The cat food maker set a precedent by becoming the first to commission a half-hour program for felines, Meow TV, which debuted last month on the Oxygen network. It was created by New York’s Lime Public Relations + Promotion, a division of Kirshenbaum Bond Creative Network, and produced by Half Baked Productions, New York.
"We determined that the corporate positioning for Meow Mix is that it keeps cats happy," explains Dave Freeman, executive producer/ strategic planner at Lime, "and that would ultimately leverage into other products that keep cats happy. My research revealed that there are seventy million cat owners in the U.S., and there is anecdotal evidence that some cats watch TV and some owners keep the TV on for them."
After hearing the idea of a TV show aimed at cats, Freeman says, Meow Mix CEO Richard Thompson saw the PR value in it. The show itself, which Freeman described as a "Saturday Night Live for cats," consists of a series of fast-paced humorous sketches. The show is hosted by Annabelle Gurwitch (co-host of Dinner and a Movie on TBS), and her cat, Stinky. "Cats have a short attention span, like many people, and the bits are fun, topical, irreverent and surprising," says Freeman.
Freeman compares the process to an independent film, in that they had the idea, produced it and then shopped it. It was hard for a lot of programmers to understand the idea of Meow TV, he says, adding, "One guy said, ‘Nielsen doesn’t rate cats.’ He didn’t get it; it was meant to attract attention and to get cat owners to watch."
Oxygen not only got it, but proved an ideal fit for Meow Mix with its similar demographic target—females 25 to 55. The budget for Meow TV was "a couple hundred thousand," says Freeman. "The primary goal was to create buzz around the brand, and the results far exceeded those expectations. It’s hard to get a dry cat food in People magazine. With the millions of PR impressions it’s received, it’s way more effective for the dollar."
