For Eric Hirshberg, president/chief creative officer of Deutsch LA, to separate branded content from content is inherently a mistake. “Consumers don’t make this distinction,” he observed, noting that so-called branded content has “to compete on its own merits….People have no lower bar for branded content as opposed to content.”
Hirshberg’s remarks came during The Next Big Idea: The Future of Branded Entertainment conference last week in Beverly Hills. He offered several guiding principles for agencies and brands in the brave new media world of content, including:
• Don’t let them feel the money changing hands. To illustrate this point, Hirshberg screened a music video he directed for Jon Bon Jovi in which the performer sketches a pissed-off happy face character for an autograph-seeking fan. The fan then takes a picture of it with his cell phone and the video chronicles how the sketch spreads like wildfire throughout society. The virus began spreading via a Sprint phone–thus fulfilling a contractual arrangement whereby Sprint was to have a product placement in a Bon Jovi video. The placement, though, was organic and you “couldn’t feel the money changing hands.”
• There’s a difference between branded content and brand loitering. Hirshberg observed that consumers today are “marketing mensas” who readily recognize and are turned off by a brand’s intrusive appearance in content. He cited as having seen in Survivor a particularly bad example of brand being scripted into a storyline when contestants dying of thirst win Pringle’s potato chips. On the flip side, the manner in which Mini Coopers were woven into the feature film The Italian Job was masterful, assessed Hirshberg, who also lauded the Iconoclasts series on the Sundance Channel, created and commissioned by Grey Goose Vodka (and produced by @radical.media). “There’s a Grey Goose logo at the beginning and end of the show–and press coverage for a party attended by the icons who were on the show during the season,” related Hirshberg. “Iconoclasts is basically a branded gift for consumers. Grey Goose gets it and they get you.”
• Branded content has to be brand appropriate. The BMW films had clients scrambling to follow suit but that’s not a good idea for all brands. “A-list directors doing chase scenes for a brand like BMW–I’m there,” observed Hirshberg. “But that’s only because BMW already was a cool cult brand that had license to go there.” In sharp contrast, Hirshberg was critical of Tide detergent’s webisode series Crescent Heights, kind of a wannabe Melrose Place. “I’m not sure it will affect my affection for Tide.”
• There’s a difference between branded entertainment and branded engagement. While branded entertainment conjures up sometimes grandiose images of films, TV and pop songs, a good idea can sometimes be best served by the simplest of forms. Hirshberg cited as an example Butterball’s Thankgsgiving Hot Line, which helps people cope with any turkey cooking emergency. “That’s great branded content–it promotes good will, is relevant, brand appropriate and people want to engage with it.”
And by the way, commercials can still be great entertainment content. Hirshberg observed of the Geico cavemen, “They’re more entertaining as ads” than as a TV series.
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