Brands becoming broadcasters: what does quality branded entertainment really look like?
In this guest post, Emily Bull suggests that the debate should be less about defining branded entertainment, and more about why more brands aren’t making it.
Last week I attended Mumbrella’s Festival of Branded Entertainment, the first of its kind in Australia. Whilst participating in this joyous celebration of all things branded content and participating in some twitter banter I realised that I needed to do some thinking on the definition of branded content/branded entertainment, and why it was being discussed and debated so often.
Really the definition is so straightforward even Wikipedia has it nailed.
Branded content blurs conventional distinctions between what constitutes advertising and what constitutes entertainment. Branded content is essentially a fusion of the two into one product intended to be distributed as entertainment content, albeit with a highly branded quality. Unlike conventional forms of entertainment content, branded content is generally funded entirely by a brand or corporation rather than, for example, a movie studio or a group of producers. Branded entertainment is used in events and installations, film, video the internet, and television.
Two thumbs up Emiliana!
Branded entertainment is just entertainment. Who pays for it is irrelevant. What the advertising industry are in denial about is – we’re shit at entertainment. Look at the facts. The advertising industry only pulls off two or three entertaining tv spots a year –out of hundreds of attempts. And a couple of viral campaigns if we’re lucky. What makes anyone think we can compete in the notoriously fickle entertainment business with any degree of certainty. Entertainment is always a long shot at the best of times. This whole genre is being driven by deluded ego manics – mostly creatives.
Some questions for these branded entertainment start-ups: How many projects have you made this year? How many even got noticed. How much money did you convince clients to piss away so you could do your dream job? And how did you convince your clients to take the financial risk away from production companies and media outlets, with such miniscule odds of success?
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Well put Emily!
Personally, while I used to be a blue-in-the-face-Mel-Gibson-braveheart-bezerka-type warrior in the fight about WHAT ‘brand entertainment’ is, I’d love to see us spending less time defining it, and more time making it. Whatever IT is.
Thanks for the great post.
Very good piece.
The biggest barrier to brands being broadcasters calls for a mindset change of the brand team as well as ad agencies. Brand teams chase overt branding- logo, product demo, supers, vo much more than the overall take out. Agencies chase the 30 seconder spot with a vengeance. And in both camps, branded entertainment sometimes seems to be falling short of a quick sharpshooter impact an ad can deliver.
Hi Tim
Thanks for your description of what happened. Did you ever bring this up with the CEO at the time. What was his reaction please?
Kind Regards
John