Branded content a hit at MIPCOM
Kate Edwards, partner of brand-funded content company Quail Content reports from MIPCOM 2010.
For the first time ever, MIPCOM put together a program about the rise of brand-funded content. This day’s program coincided with the announcement that @Radical Media was being bought (60 percent) by Fremantle worldwide – this only further proves the relevance of such a convergence model both in today’s clutter interruption advertising market and the TV production space.
The branded-content seminars were full and the panels put together were representative of some of the sector’s BIG players – again only proving the merit of this form of content creation and moving further toward legitimising it. The panel included Peter Tortorici – GroupM Entertainment UK, Doug Scott Ogilvy Entertainment US, Robert Friedman @Radical Media US, Domonique Delport – Haavas Intl France, Cameron Death NBC Digital Studios, Marcus Vinton – Publicis Entertainment UK.
The key out-take of their mission in the brand-funded revolution is the notion of return on engagement vs. return on investment and establishing a metric that can accurately establish both of these for clients making it easier for them to buy into branded content and see the bang for their buck.
Of Australian formats proving popular Packed to the Rafters, Gruen Transfer (re-packaged as The Big Sell for overseas markets) and MasterChef all had pretty high profiles here, so opportunities are looking promising for the people responsible.
This year the spotlight at MIPCOM was specifically on Australia, an initiative which was very well received. The Aussie contingent was quite large and comprised people from Screen Australia and the state-based screen agencies, Tourism Australia and some of the state tourism boards, the ABC, SBS, Channel 9, Channel 10, Channel 7, Telstra, Microsoft Australia, ninemsn, Fremantle Media and then a number of independent players including Quail TV and Quail Content. Missing from the main trading floors was Foxtel, but perhaps they were doing their deals out of the public eye.
On everyone’s lips was the huge success of the Australian MasterChef series, and you couldn’t help feeling for the Seven Network every time the huge over-branded X Factor truck droveup the main street, La Crosisette.
Australia, like many other countries exhibiting here, has some solid incentive programs to attract foreign productions to use our country as their production base. Unfortunately though, the distance still seems to be a barrier.
As for Quail TV, we had a great response at MIPCOM – especially from the Americans and Canadians with regards to Pat Farmer’s Pole to Pole run [in which legendary Australian ultra long-distance runner Pat Farmer will attempt to run from the North Pole to the South Pole, raising funds for the Red Cross, with Quail Television providing live-via-satellite television coverage of every step of Pat’s journey].
The run itself cuts through both countries and provides a great platform for networks to engage with both live and feature content they would otherwise not have access to. The worldwide water access and sanitation situation has only worsened with the Pakistan floods, and this is something every single man, woman and child can understand, making Pat’s selfless attempt to raise $100 million for clean water projects under the International Red Cross an objective within reach!
