The latest and greatest in branded entertainment

Although traditionally a content market, these days more and more advertisers and brands are attending MIPTV to look for ways for themselves to become part of content and to find a way to embrace new media technologies and digital platforms in their advertising strategies.

Blended together

The title of this conference session at MIPTV in Cannes, France, over-filled the venue once again this year as eager delegates, both content produces and advertisers, wanted to find out how advertising and content could be blended together as entertainment.

This is my seventh visit to the MIP markets, which are essentially content-trading markets, but as advertises and brands struggle with the challenge of engaging consumers over multiple platforms, more and more agencies and brands are attending to find out how they can be the entertainment, rather than the interruption between it.

This is evidenced by Ogilvy, which is the first agency group to take stand at MIP and which has also put out briefs for content on behalf of its clients and is offering a €10 000 prize and development fund for each successful pitch.

Its advertising in various MIPTV publications has echoed its intentions: “We know that sometimes 30' just isn't long enough to tell a Brand's story. Come and meet the Ogilvy team at our stand and find out how our brands can work with your ideas.”

60 delegates from 17 offices

Ogilvy has 60 delegates from 17 offices in seven countries at MIPTV and was represented on the branded entertainment panel by Douglas Scott from Ogilvy & Mather USA and Russell Jarman Price, who heads up branded content for the Ogilvy Group in the UK. They presented two successful case studies, one for Unilever's Pond's brand and the other for IBM.

For Pond's it developed an extremely successful branded entertainment project, with Debra Messing starring as the smart, beautiful, savvy and wryly funny Molly Kagan in the TV series The Starter Wife. The brand got involved before the series was made and any brand integration or placement was credible and was built into the storyline even shaping the character of Molly. Aimed at the over 40s, it included a total 360 degree approach with many cross platform applications. The results for the brand, in both sales and consumer engagement, were incredible and benchmarked branded entertainment projects of this nature.

IBM had a different challenge, however, and needed a very different approach. IBM is one of the world's most recognisable brands but no-one really knew what it did and traditional advertising didn't communicate this either. This was the challenge facing the agency, which partnered with CNBC and developed a series of reality-style/observational documentaries which showed how its products are used and make a difference in our lives, without us realising this. It included emergency services and air traffic control and was filmed in a non-commercial style, creating true branded entertainment.

Robert Friedman, from the very successful and specialist branded entertainment company Radical Media in the US, presented DriverTV, which offers consumers with unbiased three-minute video views of car to purchase. DriverTV is currently available as a branded video-on-demand channel in almost 30 million cable homes and 500 000 hotel rooms in 47 of the top 50 markets through distribution agreements with Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox, Charter, Insight and the Hotel Network.

Simplified researching

According to eMarketer, 63% of adults used the Internet to research their most recent vehicle purchase or lease decision. DriverTV has simplified the researching process by creating the first completely video-based automotive shopping experience to provide car shoppers with the facts they need to make decisions.

From the panel discussion, there's no doubt that branded entertainment is a very viable and successful solution for both brands and viewers. Brand-funded content has high production values and understands and respects that the viewer needs to be entertained and will reject overly branded content. The wildly successful Extreme Makeover Home Edition, funded primarily by Seers, is another very good example of Branded Entertainment. Judging by the interest at MIPTV, this new content genre certainly has a bright future.