Is Your Company Ready for the 3.0 Shift? Branded Entertainment Replacing … Traditional Advertising and Marketing
The Birth of On-Line TV
Branded entertainment as you know it is evolving faster than you are. Why a Web Series?
The Power Has Shifted from Networks to …
Consumers and Communities of Consumers
Social media, UGC*, and new web technologies are changing the way your consumers interact with each other -- and with your brand. * UGC=user generated content
Viewing habits have changed dramatically in the course of just one generation.
Internet to overtake TV by 2010 Europeans will spend more time on the internet than watching television by June 2010, according to research by Microsoft. Microsoft Research, April 2009
Web 1.0 Connected people to information.
Web 2.0 Connected people to each other.
Web 3.0 Everything is connected to everything else.
What is … ?
Branded Entertainment Original entertainment content, distributed through Broadband, and mostly spread through Social Media.
Branded Entertainment 1.0 Integration and product placement.
Branded Entertainment 2.0 Conversation, engagement, and chaotic creativity.
Branded Entertainment
3.0 According to Myers Publishing, branded entertainment, including product placement, is one of the fastest-growing advertising media.
In 2009, $9 billion will be spent in the space, growing 4% from the previous year and accounting for 4.5% of the total media share.
In the report, titled "Branded Entertainment Marketing Forecast 2008-2012," PQ Media defines branded entertainment marketing as event sponsorship and marketing, paid product placement and advergaming and webisodes. Event sponsorship spending rose 12.2% to $19.18 billion in 2007, paid product placement grew 33.7% to $2.9 billion, and advergaming and webisode spending increased 34.8% to $217 million. While it's the smallest branded entertainment segment, advergaming and webisodes is the fastest growing, climbing at a 51.7% compound annual growth rate from 2002 to 2007.
The outlook for branded entertainment marketing through 2012 is for double digit growth overall despite slower economic expansion. The sector is expected to grow at a 12.8% compound annual growth rate from 2007 to 2012, exceeding $40 billion.
…Now it seems we're moving into a programming universe where the advertisement is part of the show.
… the fact is that traditional forms of advertising -- the minute-long spot; the 30-second spot; the split 30s, [which are] two 15-second ads, and so on; the magazine ad; the newspaper ad; the billboard -- it might seem that many of them are being phased out.
Case Studies
Branded Entertainment Programs Conceived and Produced by Corporations Incorporating Their Own Products …
Following the pattern of the 1950’s and 1960’s, brands begin to create their own webisodes advertising their products or services around the web and on TV as microseries
For marketers, the Internet represents an opportunity to talk directly to consumers in whatever form they choose rather than fit into the 30-second pods or product-integration opportunities that TV networks make available to them. While many top brands maintain elaborate Web sites, few have gone to the length of defining themselves as entertainment channels. In 2001, another car manufacturer, BMW, played a pioneer role in this form of entertainment, introducing a series of branded short films for the Internet titled "The Hire."
Product: BMW Car as a Character
Why Maybelline Funded The Broadroom Web Series
Lesley Jane Seymour, More's editor in chief, pointed to recent data that showed women over the age of 35 -- the 55-plus demo in particular -- are among the fastest-growing and biggest users of the web, not to mention the recession's most active consumers. Lipstick isn't the only product "The Broadroom" is pitching. Ellen Archer, founder of Voice, a female-focused imprint of Hyperion Publishing, expects the series to have a halo effect on Ms. Bushnell's book sales as well. "Candace is one of those authors who has the ability to transcend. She has the opportunity with these webisodes to reach this whole new audience who loves her, from college kids who still watch 'Sex & the City' repeats to the older woman who's active in the digital space."
Even Candace Bushnell is scaling down in a recession. The author, whose career has spawned a hit HBO series and accompanying blockbuster movie ("Sex & the City"), two seasons of an NBC drama ("Lipstick Jungle") and society-obsessed books such as "Trading Up" and "One Fifth Avenue," debuts her first web series this week, with an all-star cast and content partners that belie its small budget.
It started as a Webisode Show Funded by $50K from IKEA … SOURCE: PRWEEKUS …and rapidly went here … -- CBS picks up YouTube show: Comedy seriesEasy to Assemble, has just been picked up by CBS ( NYSE: CBS), after having garnered 300,000 views on YouTube and spending just five days on the video sharing site. CBS's TV.com will be broadcasting the new episodes, which spoof Ikea employee training videos featuring Illeana Douglas, Jeff Goldbum, Tom Arnold and more. SOURCE: WASHINGTON POST Product: IKEA storefront as set and all IKEA PRODUCTS
Women turn to all sorts of places for advice and stimulating conversation, from “The Oprah Winfrey Show” to their next-door neighbors. But are they ready to take their life cues from a soap company? Dove is betting several million dollars that the answer is yes. The hair- and skin-products maker owned by Unilever is trying to create a new online community for women that offers entertainment, blogs, advice and advertising.
Unilever, too has gotten into the micro-series action. Singer Alicia Keys was selected by Dove and MTV to star in their "real beauty" microseries called "Fresh Takes." The series revolves around a group of twenty something year old females and the pressures they must overcome in order to pursue their dreams. Each mini series aired as a commercial intersitials during the March 24th 2008 premiere of "The Hills."
The micro-series is intended to promote the new Dove products while confronting the issues of the self-esteem. Products: All Dove products and featuring a natural look and feel …
Inspired by best-selling “chick-lit” author, Jane Green, "Fresh Takes" uses entertainment and humor to give viewers a look at three 20-something girlfriends as they put their everyday pressures in a fresh perspective. Using the budding microseries TV format, "Fresh Takes" will broadcast three-minute episodes nationwide during "The Hills," MTV's No. 1 show for 20-something women, over a fiveweek period beginning March 24 (10 p.m. EDT / 9 p.m. CDT). The micro-series was created and produced by MindShare Entertainment and MTV. CLICK BOX ABOVE TO WATCH
WHY DID DOVE CREATE THE SERIES? According to recent Dove research, 68 percent of 20-something women believe that their lives would be much more fulfilling if they did not put so much pressure on themselves. Dove wants to give women in their twenties a fresh perspective and help, recognize a wider definition of success and ultimately feel beautiful.
Dove Creates its Own Digital Channel With Original Content
Bringing Fresh Takes to You Women can interact with "Fresh Takes" in several ways, including viewing content on their PC or mobile phone. All five episodes will be available on www.dovegofresh.com after each air-date as well as exclusive behindthe-scenes footage of Alicia and the entire cast. Episodes will also be available on www.dovefreshtakes.mtv.com. www.dovegofresh.com can be found on the new dove digital channel, www.dove.com, a consumer destination site that brings Campaign for Real Beauty and the Dove product portfolio to life for visitors.
WHAT’S NEXT? Taking a NY Retail Maternity Store and Its Owner Rosie Pope… Turning Both into Characters and a Story on-line in Webisode Series
Pregnant in Heels will star Rosie Pope, who operates Rosie Pope Maternity business -- a high-end maternity brand for "sophisticated urban mothers." In addition, the series will also follow Pope as she advices her clients on everything from planning baby showers and hiring staff to decorating nurseries and organizing Brazilian waxing for the labor room.
YouTube Based Web Series Funded by DKNY
Product: “Femme for DKNY Jeans”
CLICK BOX ABOVE TO WATCH SERIES
DKNY MICRO-SITE ALSO CREATED
Lexis Funds Web Therapy Series Shown Only At its On-line Channel
Now there's a new entrant in the genre of "webcam narrative": Web Therapy starring, co-written and co-produced by the brilliant Lisa Kudrow. But Web Therapy as the name might imply, is not another one-sided windbag borefest, it's -- hello -actual two-way conversations that purportedly take place in real time (just 3 minutes per session!) over dual webcams between annoying psychologist Dr. Fiona Wallace and her exasperated patients. What a simple, yet clever idea! One that makes sense that it occurs over webcams. T he initial episodes of Web Therapy -each co-starring Bob Balaban Tim Bagley -- are terrific viewing, and really hilarious. It's the very first web series where I thought "I'd watch every episode" and that's really saying something. T here needs to be more stuff like this. Kudos to Kudrow and her collaborators for this little gem of a show.
“In the Kitchen” 10 Webisodes in Production Beginning March 2010 "Branded entertainment campaigns have proven to be very effective in communicating the brand's essence to a very targeted audience," said Richard Shore, COO, RedLever. "Our team is providing Jenn-Air with a web series that will reach the right audience at impression levels that guarantee boosted awareness of its super premium line of kitchen appliances."
Product: Jenn-Air Kitchen Products Featured in Series
On January 24, CBS will debut a "microseries" called The Courier. The first sixtysecond segment of the show, which will air during the first commercial break of CSI: Miami. It will be followed by shorter segments which will also air during the first commercial break of the 9 p.m. hour during following days. The series will conclude on February 1. The series will center on a man who must perform death defying feats in order to save his kidnapped wife. Famous BASE jumper Iiro Seppanen will star.
The series will also be available online and via mobile phone.
Product: GM/Pontiac Products
TBS's micro-series "Commuter Confidential." In 2008, TBS debuted a two minute episode of "Commuter Confidential" featuring Revlon products and Match.com, during "Sex and the City." The micro-series plotline mirrors the comedy of the HBO produced Sex and the City. "Confidential" features four female characters and their diverse ways of dealing with the world around them.
Products: Revlon cosmetic products and MATCH.COM dating service
Sometimes a spin-off microseries is created from a popular TV show, for example, NBC's prime-time hit, Heroes. In November 2008, Sprint Nextel sponsored a four-episode microseries called Heroes: Destiny on mobile, online and television. Each five to seven minute episode would debut on Monday nights. The micro-series featured Sprint's Instint phone in some scenes in what David Lang, head of MindShare Entertainment, calls "subtle integration." Sprint ads also aired adjacent to the onair promos.
Product: Sprint-Nextel Instint Cellphone
What Can Your Company Do?
So what is the future of successful marketing & advertising? Future success will depend on the ability to initiate experiences that evolve, adapt, and are contributed to by your consumers.
Introducing 360 Degree Multiplatform Marketing and Distribution of Engaging Video Content
Engaging or Compelling Content is All “Story Based”… It Can be Actual Stories About Your Company Your Products Testimonials About Your Products
OR A Fictional Series which Integrates Your Brand as a Character or Theme into the Series
Q1: Why Do Consumers Want to Repeat, Share or Talk About Your Company or Product Story? Compelling stories about real people in real situations are the currency of far-reaching, emotional impact. Stories motivate, persuade, inform and inspire. Stories are memorable and powerful. They can be cathartic. They move us. Strange then, how stories and storytelling aren’t used more in the chatter of the workplace. We’re faced with a remarkable amount of complex, abstract, dry and one-way words and principles when a simple, memorable story about a person faced with a particular dilemma who took a particular course of action to help out a colleague or customer could just say it all in an instant. And if we spent more time using inspiring stories to illustrate success we could actually change the way people think and do things.
Q2: Why Does Your Staff Need to Know and Watch Your Corporate Story? Life would be easier for most businesses if staff could be made to buy into the ethos and direction of the organization. Not just understand it, but really take the key values to heart to the extent that the very way they carry out their everyday work is affected. You can bombard them with policies, mission statements and various other motivational garb, yet what they really need is something simpler that not only delivers your key message succinctly but is also instantly understandable and, most importantly, memorable.
This isn’t a new idea; managers have been using narrative in business advertising for ages. It’s only in the last few years that a number of leading companies have realized the value to be had from using stories to motivate their staff.
Q3: Why Must the Stories Make an Emotional Connection with The Consumer or the Employee? Engagement and emotional connection can only truly be achieved when a person aligns their personal journey with that of the organization.
CLICK BOX TO WATCH
When the two align, and that individual’s able to discover the personal role and contribution he or she can make, the sense of ownership, empowerment, belonging and meaning can have an immediate and dramatic effect on his or her beliefs, attitude and actions.
Integrated Marketing + Web 3.0 Usages = 360 Degree Marketing
Integrated Marketing User Will
User testing of product
USER CENTRIC
User Mean
Market research
User Need
Product concept definition
User Goal
User communication
Web 3.0 Usages Listen to Conversations! User-Generated Content Users generate content on-line User Ratings Users rate the content User Communication Users Communicate About the Content RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH Click on box above to watch
On-line and Off-line Tools Social Media
Brand On-line and Off-line
•Marketing Communications •E-Communications •Sponsoring •Multi Media •Print Media •Events
Users talks and shares about the BRAND outside the boundaries of the BRAND.
oForums oOnline Communities oBlogs oVlogs oSocial Networks oBookmarking oDigg oStumbleupon oDelicio.us oTwitter
RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH Daisy Whitney's The New Media Minute is a weekly show covering the business of online video. The New Media Minute is the only Webcast that offers the inside scoop into how the white-hot business of Web video operates. As a reporter, Daisy covers new media for NBC’s KNTV, ABCNews.com, Beet.TV, MediaPost and others. She is one of the first journalists to launch her own online newscast that covers the business of Internet video – the New Media Minute. Her work is regularly read and watched by executives across the television, cable, advertising and Internet businesses. She also hosts the top-ranked iTunes audio podcast “This Week in Media,” which you should totally subscribe to.
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Welcome to the Revolution of On-line TV – Web Series
Futurescape, which researches the latest developments in the dynamic Web TV sector to provide in-depth analysis of new Internet TV series, business models, sponsorship and audience interactivity, today publishes the second edition of its report The Birth Of Online TV. The report identifies three major trends in original online TV series.
Trend 1: Increasing numbers of famous actors, producers and directors are launching Internet TV series, with blue chip sponsors Futurescape co-founder Özlem Tunçil said, "In the 15 months since the first edition of our report The Birth Of Online TV, Web shows have progressed from experimental projects to become creatively and commercially successful productions in their own right. Web TV offers a new, more interactive medium for stars to reach fans. Futurescape's reports explain the commercial models in online TV series and provide crucial insights for producers, actors, agencies, brands and broadcasters to seize the initiative."
Trend 2: Sound business models and commercial opportunities are emerging The maturing Web show market offers actors and producers proven ways to benefit commercially as well as creatively. Major advertisers increasingly appreciate how Web series can enhance a brand's image and connect it with specific demographics or online communities.
Digital download sales: Buffy creator Joss Whedon self-funded superhero musical Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog with a $200,000 budget. T he production has been distributed online via video aggregator Hulu, with advertising, and as a paid-for download via Apple's iTunes, before its DVD release. Whedon says the show became profitable from downloads alone.
Major brand sponsorship: Many web series are fully-funded by international brands. Lisa Kudrow's comedy Web Therapy is backed by Toyota's Lexus. Maybelline sponsors Candace Bushnell's comedy The Broadroom.
Southern Comfort dropped television advertising for digital, with branded entertainment Web series on men's site Break and video comedy site My Damn Channel. Levi's also funds comedies on Break. Web site commissions: Video aggregation sites Babelgum and My Damn Channel offer Web show producers new commissions and exclusive distribution windows. MySpace and Bebo commission original drama, reality and entertainment series. Cross-promoting commercial interests: Hilary Duff's series The Chase features her fashion collection, Femme for DKNY Jeans.
Reaching TV viewers via games consoles: Microsoft funded two seasons of gamer comedy The Guild to provide original content direct to TV viewers for the Xbox 360 Live Marketplace. The show, also distributed via MSN and the Microsoft Zune media player, reaches a potential 14m viewers in 26 countries.
Keanu Reeves stars in Spärhusen, a musical comedy about a fictitious Abba-style Swedish Seventies rock band. Candace Bushnell (Sex and the City creator) has premiered her business comedy The Broadroom, sponsored by Maybelline. Hilary Duff (Lizzie McGuire) has debuted her YouTube series The Chase, featuring her fashion collection, Femme for DKNY Jeans. Lisa Kudrow (Friends) co-created and stars in comedy Web Therapy, sponsored by Toyota's Lexus. Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator) produced superhero musical Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, profitable from iTunes video downloads. Felicia Day (Buffy actor) co-created and stars in Microsoftsponsored online gamer comedy The Guild: a song from it hit no.1 on iTunes music video downloads. Ashton Kutcher (Punk'd) launched reality series KatalystHQ, sponsored by Nestle Hot Pockets. Miley Cyrus (Hannah Montana) stars in reality series The Miley and Mandy Show. Director Bryan Singer (X-Men) is working on a scifi Web series. Director Ridley Scott (Gladiator) is backing scifi production Purefold.
Trend 3: Web shows will break out across the entertainment sector generally The Guild also demonstrates how a Web series can successfully break through into other forms of entertainment. To promote the show's third season, the producers created a music video with an original song, Do You Wanna Date My Avatar, uploaded it on YouTube and invited fans to buy the song as iTunes and Amazon downloads.
Directed by Joss Whedon
Without a conventional marketing campaign or record label, the song gatecrashed the music download charts, going to no. 1 on Amazon MP3 downloads and no.1 on iTunes music video downloads, overtaking acts such as Black Eyed Peas. Keanu Reeves comedy Spärhusen will release a whole album by its fictional band. Futurescape co-founder Colin Donald said, "Felicia Day and The Guild Web series are popular with online gaming fans. Their music video success demonstrates significant opportunities for other artists such as Miley Cyrus and Hilary Duff who already have large fan bases and their own Web series." "Creating your own Web series gives an actor, producer or director a springboard to take the intellectual property, such as characters and storylines, across many forms of entertainment, from music to games to books."
Yahoo Creates its Own Webisode Content and Micro-Site
Collaboration and Development “JT” Thayer Business Development and Research
The Legacy Productions http://www.thelegacyproductions 603-729-3066 legacyproductioninfo@gmail.com