Branded content—what one agency creative calls "glorified product placement"—is the topic du jour in the advertising community these days. But so far, only a few agencies and advertisers have been adventurous enough to take the plunge, most famously Fallon Minneapolis and BMW North America for their two rounds of "The Hire"—a series of short films directed by A-list feature filmmakers—airing on BMWFilms.com. (The most recent round of shorts was produced by bicoastal RSA USA, while the first round was done via bicoastal Anonymous Content.)
Like Fallon, most agencies that have produced branded content have turned to commercial production houses to execute the projects. But it isn’t a given that spot houses have a lock on a segment of the ad business that seems destined to explode in coming years.
Fallon had no preconceptions when it started "The Hire" project, says Mark Sitley, director of production for North America at Fallon, which has offices in Minneapolis and New York. "At first, we didn’t think of commercial production companies at all," he says. "The first person we spoke with was [the late] John Frankenheimer. We went first and foremost to people we thought had the proper mentality for understanding what we wanted to do, and who trusted us and knew we wanted to be breakthrough in a new medium and also set a production value and directorial tack that was commensurate with BMW’s technology and brand cachet."
Sitley and the Fallon creatives talked with a long list of top directors about the project, several of whom were signed up, but it was conversations about directing with David Fincher of Anonymous—and later Ridley and Tony Scott of RSA USA—that led the agency to their companies.
Two agencies, TBWA/Chiat/Day, New York, and GSD&M, Austin, Texas, have taken more active roles in doing films that qualify as branded content in that they entertain while supporting brands in subtle ways. TBWA/Chiat/Day is working closely with client Absolut Vodka’s Absolut Pictures unit on its ongoing movie trailer send-ups, the most recent of which includes a short film. And in what may well be an agency first, GSD&M has produced an IMAX movie in-house for client The Bob Bullock Texas History Museum, with backing from Southwest Airlines.
The Absolut trailer and short, Mulit, is inspired by India’s "Bollywood" style, and came out of an effort to hype the brand through mock movie trailers designed to amuse while advancing the Absolut bottle-shaped icon that has been a staple of its print ads. "The project was first started in 1998 for Latin America and South America movie audiences," says Joseph Mazzaferro, creative director at TBWA/Chiat/Day. "In some of those markets, that was the best way to reach the audience because we weren’t allowed to communicate through print advertising."
Each trailer poked fun at a hot movie genre. "This past year, with the rise of movies like Monsoon Wedding, and the interest in Bollywood musicals and the Indian film community, we thought it was the perfect time to do a Bollywood film," says Mazzaferro. Mulit—written by Mazzaferro and copywriter Lynn Branecky, and directed by Ivan Zacharias of bicoastal Smuggler and London-based Stink—is the story of the first mullet haircut, an unfinished ’70s trim by a Bombay hairdresser named Mulit.
"This is the first time Absolut had completed a full film beyond the sixty-second promotional trailer," says Mazzaferro. "We developed a plot line so we knew when we arrived in India we could pull off something that was accurate, authentic and felt like the full production value of a two-hour movie. We worked with top casting agents, choreographers, wig stylists and location scouts, and tried to replicate the Bollywood genre. We didn’t want to make fun of the genre. The comedy, we thought, would come through the storyline."
The trailers and film were produced under the umbrella of Absolut Pictures, Stockholm, with the agency doing the creative and production out of New York. "In every case so far, the directors have their film division run out of a production company," Mazzaferro says. "TBWA/Chiat/Day handles most of the post work in a traditional agency role, and we work with the production companies that really produce the shoot for us and work out all the pre-prep with the director." For Mulit, Stink handled the production out of London.
The full 12-minute film was produced for the pure enjoyment of doing it, Mazzaferro says, something that was made possible by low production costs in India. The only connection with Absolut is the credit to Absolut Pictures and the bottle icons that appear in an almost "Where’s Waldo?" fashion. "There was no marketing intention when we were creating it, beyond the [theatrical] media that was purchased to run the trailer," he says. The trailer and film are on the Absolut.com Web site. Mazzaferro says there is some interest from cable networks, and he is exploring opportunities at European and Canadian film festivals.
Completely bypassing the production company is GSD&M, where Jan Wieringa, who has worked on the production house side at shops such as RSA USA and now defunct Propaganda Films, is producing the large-format IMAX feature Texas: The Big Picture. "Three years ago, Roy Spence, president of the agency, hired me to start a movie division for them," says Wieringa, who was head of broadcast for the agency, but is now a freelancer. "This is the first thing that we were able to finance and produce. It came in from [The Bob Bullock Texas History Museum, which] had just been completed, and wanted a film about Texas."
The 40-minute film is directed by IMAX specialist Scott Swofford, with Wieringa producing and Tim McClure, an agency founder and president of M Group, GSD&M’s strategic branding unit, serving as executive producer. Texas premieres May 3 at the museum and will be available to IMAX theaters everywhere Sept. 3.
"It might be the first movie that an ad agency has actually produced," states Wieringa. "The sponsors were Southwest Airlines, which is one of our clients, and Exxon Mobil, which is not a client, but is a big supporter of the museum."
The $6 million project is fully un-derwritten, Wieringa says. Sponsors are credited at the open and close, but neither Southwest nor Exxon Mobil had script approval. Wieringa hopes to do more such films, and she is in discussions with Wim Wenders and David Lynch, both of whom are available for spots via Cielo Films, Santa Monica, about directing a film on cyclist Lance Armstrong and the Tour de France.
Wieringa says top production companies are well positioned to take advantage of the interest in branded content, and suggests that they may want to explore bypassing agencies and going directly to advertisers. "One of the reasons I shifted over to the agency side is that that’s where the clients are," she says.
When BBDO West, San Fran-cisco, embarked on a branded content campaign for Pioneer Electronics, it didn’t turn to a traditional production company, but to Mekanism, a division of Complete Pandemonium, San Francisco. Jim Lesser, executive creative director at BBDO West, was trying to reach the "tuner" crowd of automotive and audio enthusiasts, a small audience that spends heavily to transform their cars into rolling—and sometimes bouncing—boom boxes. (Nissan sought to appeal to the same crowd with its ad agency, TBWA/ Chiat/Day, Los Angeles, which last year produced Master of the Sixth Speed, a short animated film.)
"We came up with a campaign that was four simple thoughts—’Disturb,’ ‘Defy,’ ‘Disrupt’ and ‘Ignite’—a campaign where everything is working together," Lesser says. The episodic campaign started in March with a "Disturb" print ad to drive the tuners to the www.pioneer-disturb.com Web site, where the offerings include an animated spot called "Headbangers," done by director/animator Mike Overbeck for Mekanism, and a short documentary film on one aspect of tuner culture.
Tommy Means, then executive producer at Mekanism, directed the films. (Means is now with Roaring Tiger Films, San Francisco; see separate story, p. 23.) "We decided to make each one of those four words a separate micro-site that we could drive people to," Lesser says, noting that Disturb is the first site.
The key to the campaign is its episodic nature, Lesser says. "A print ad comes out and launches a new episode of the campaign—a new Web site, new film, new downloads, new posters. That keeps people coming back again and again."
Fifteen years of helping Pioneer reach car stereo buyers allowed BBDO West to build a strong relationship and a deep knowledge of the target audience—setting the stage for a non-conventional campaign. "We have a dedicated, passionate audience," Lesser relates. "We wanted to give them more than just print ads. We were able to take a small budget and really make it scream by bringing people to us instead of having to go to them."
Lesser hadn’t worked with Mekanism before the campaign, but when reps at the shop made a cold sales call as the campaign was coming together, Lesser saw it as the right company to execute the project. "So much about this was getting someone who could really get under the skin of the audience—understanding these guys, youth culture, music and those elements," Lesser says. "The other was finding someone who could do it all: animation, documentaries and the Web site."
Growth Medium
Lesser believes branded content is a concept that can only grow in a TiVo era of diminishing commercial impact, and he thinks production companies will have to evolve—add more skills and better understand how to reach audiences—if they want to be players in the medium. "It’s going to take somebody focusing on it, somebody saying, ‘That’s what we do,’ " he notes. "I’m not sure now how many production companies are saying that."
Taking a straightforward, production-company approach to branded content are: Crispin Porter + Bogusky (CP+B), Miami, for the Mini Cooper, and The Lambesis Agency, Carlsbad, Calif., for SKYY Vodka. Baker Smith of Harvest, Santa Monica, directed Web-based spots for the Mini, while Lambesis called upon Tate & Partners and its @Tate division, and Independent Media, both of Santa Monica, to execute a series of short films. Another spirits company, Bombay Sapphire Gin, and its agency, Margeotes|Fertitta+Partners, New York, have also used commercial directors to create short films.
The SKYY films are pure branded content, with Lambesis approaching writer-directors, most with feature film credits, with the assignment of doing an original short film—the only requirement being that it must include a cocktail situation and a shot with the blue SKYY bottle. The films are on www.SKYY.com, and have been exhibited at film festivals since their inception in ’98. "We gave the directors complete creative freedom," says Chad Farmer, executive creative director at Lambesis.
The current film, Falling in Love in Pongo Ponga, is the directorial debut of actor James Woods, who is signed to @Tate, which represents feature filmmakers for select spot assignments.
Farmer says Lambesis has had a long relationship with Independent, which is producing spots for the SK-YY Blue malt beverage. (Susanne Preissler, who heads up the production house, was formerly head of production at the ad shop.) "They were instrumental in helping us get it going," says Farmer.
Farmer expects production companies to benefit from the trend. "They’re the best suited," he notes. "Most commercial production companies do high-end production. So do feature studios, but what they lack is an understanding of dealing with brands and strategy. Even though these are pure pieces of art, there is always a strategy that needs to be communicated. Those are things commercial production companies are used to dealing with."
CP+B designed four spots for the Mini launch as Internet content, says David Rolfe, co-director of broadcast production at the agency. (One of those spots, "Clown Car," led to Smith’s win of this year’s Directors Guild of America Award for best commercial director.) "They started out as branded content for the Internet," Rolfe says. "We converted them to cinema because they worked out so well. Consumers are receptive to different forms of media. Television is effective, but it’s quite the obvious way of marketing your product. Alternative forms are something we try to specialize in."
In Theory
Elsewhere, others are thinking seriously about branded content. John Garland, executive VP/creative director of broadcast and development at J. Walter Thompson (JWT), New York, points out that so far there’s been more talk than action. "Branded content will happen," he notes, "but exactly how, and what it will be and whether it fits into the same cookie cutter, we’re imagining right now."
One of Garland’s charges at JWT is to find new ways to service clients. "We’ve got a number of initiatives where we’re looking to learn more and identify the opportunity that’s there to exploit," Garland says. "Part of the problem is that you can’t just take an idea to a client for an Internet movie or whatever and ask them to sign off on the millions of dollars that it’s going to cost, because the budgets for most big advertisers need to be applied back against an efficiency equation. Most of the territory we’re talking about now doesn’t have enough history to be able to build that kind of data base."
Garland thinks opportunities for production companies are enormous. "Much branded content will be along the lines of the programming for niche television, like the Food Network, where they produce half-hours for twenty to thirty thousand dollars," he says. "That’s not the general experience of production companies. The savvy ones will benefit—the ones that have the flexibility of thinking that allows them to produce at both ends of the spectrum."
