Market must be educated on branded content

Producer and head of digital marketing for IBM Martin Walsh told emerging producers that Australian marketers are still largely unaware of the potential of branded content.

“The marketing community needs to be educated about branded content; the problem is there are not many local case studies, and you can spend a lot of time trying to learn about brands and their situation in order to pitch a concept,” said Walsh.

At a branded content session at SPAA Fringe, Walsh said there are people within large organisations with a progressive view, 360 perspective, but fundamentally, branded content has to be about entertainment.

The panellists said that they’d be “pretty much dreaming” if they pitched fully-branded content for primetime on the main commercial channels, but the networks are more open to branded content on their digital offerings because they want to see incremental revenue coming from those channels.

They also recommended producers to discuss branded content possibilities with media agencies rather than going to advertising agencies or directly to the potential sponsors.

Client services manager for the LifeStyle Channels Tammy Stone said pay TV executives had to be “smarter” with their branded content and less obvious than their free-to-air counterparts, since viewers are already paying for the service.

Pay TV, however, is open to branded content. Having a limited amount of local production, every one of them becomes a priority.

“When we do something local, it’s huge for us,” said Foxtel director of programming Ross Crawley. “With branded programs advertisers get what they want, which is something richer than a 30-second ad, and they also advertise with us.

“Of course, the ideal situation for a broadcster is to have a program concept funded by a client, but also supported by advertising spend,” added Stone.

Anthony Damianakis, MD and executive producer at Vokyo Entertainment, spoke of his experience creating The Party Garden for OMD Fuse and Yates Australia.

“Most people can’t distinguish between product placement and branded content; clients generally think dropping the brand name randomly in the script is how branded content works,” he said. “You need to shoot examples of how branding will be treated before production, so marketing managers with limited imaginations won’t struggle. They need a snapshot of what branded content will actually look like.”