Why I hate the expression: “branded content”
The Glue Society co-founder Jonathan Kneebone today gave the keynote address at The Festival of Branded Entertainment. Here is an edited text of his speech:
I have to start by saying that I genuinely hate the expression “branded content”.
I think perhaps even more than that, like most people in the real world, I have absolutely zero interest in watching something called “branded content”.
If by calling it “branded entertainment” someone somewhere is hoping that I might think it suddenly becomes something worth watching, I think that someone is kidding themselves.
A few years ago, I recall someone made and somehow aired a 60 minute documentary feature hosted by Deborah Hutton – called Billion Dollar Baby about the technology in the new Holden VE Commodore.
I think I managed to watch 30 seconds of it. Before it became apparent that this wasn’t a show made with an audience in mind. It was self-indulgent marketing purporting to be entertainment.
And what this entire segment appears to be unveiling is a sea of wishful thinking, a wave of naïve attitudes and a tsunami of assumptions.
This is the no-holds barred bit, by the way.
The reality is, no-one knows what the hell branded content and entertainment is.
It is perhaps the most ill-defined area of our business.
Is it product integration? Is it cross-platform? Is it when an advertiser funds a program and pays to air it? It is content marketing? Is it filmed entertainment?
And this lack of definition is being exploited by agencies of all descriptions – traditional agencies, media agencies, digital set ups, pr shops and activation companies – all of whom are desperate to prove to their clients their credentials and expertise in this hot new area.
And many clients are finding themselves not only overwhelmed. But almost harangued into this territory. Because it’s suddenly vital to go viral. And do anything as long as it isn’t an advert.
The free to air networks are entirely disinterested – and in the main – disengaged. They’d prefer to keep running – and prefer to keep making more money from – ads that last 30 seconds, rather than ads which last 30 minutes.
They are being forced by clients to do more than just play 30 seconds of advertising for them – but they are resisting because their current structure does not allow for the flexibility required.
And frankly, as a result, there remains only a handful of genuinely worthwhile pieces of valuable film entertainment where a brand has been involved.
But there it is. There is the upside.
A valuable piece of film entertainment where a brand is involved can be extraordinarily worthwhile.
It can be not only groundbreaking. It can make sales go through the roof – and brand awareness enter territories which conventional advertising can only dream about.
I’m sure you will see these today – but BMW films who kick started things – and Chipotle who are currently leading the way – are examples.
SO…
Going back to the beginning, the reason I hate the term “branded content” is because it is so unambitious.
It’s self-focussed, self-interested and as a result, I would argue, self-defeating.
Let’s be frank. Calling advertising something different doesn’t make it suddenly more palatable to an audience.
In fact, people have come to like advertising.
They admire it when it’s clever, funny or worth talking about. They like to share it. And share in its success by sending it to friends.
They don’t mind when it works on them. They like it when it’s good.
Everyone is too aware of what’s going on these days to think they are somehow being manipulated or Gruen-ed.
The reason that it’s worth having a festival dedicated to new unconventional approaches to advertising is that new, unconventional approaches to advertising are potentially beneficial to everyone.
And that – rather importantly – includes the audience.
Audiences actually rather enjoy things that surprise them. They respond better to things which take them somewhere new and inspire them.
Today is about starting to understand a new area of advertising.
Where marketers and brands use their budgets to reach audiences through untried and untested avenues.
It may be that the best use of your money is to run a 30 second ad which just tells people why your product is worth buying. Using TV remains the cornerstone. As long as you make something great.
But it might just be that the best way to make your brand valued and valuable – at a deeper level – is to create something rather more different.
To move forward we need to really define the world we are playing in. And in essence it’s screen-based communication – in other words, television.
What makes things a bit confusing is that it just so happens that television itself is undergoing an enormous change.
It is currently redefining itself.
Television isn’t now just about networks and channels.
With the rise of Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, and Smart TV, the sources of entertainment are rapidly evolving.
And television is now becoming a fluid medium. Fully controlled by the audience.
Television now means more than the box in the living room. Television is what we watch wherever it pleases us – on mobile phones, tablets, laptops, watches.
Without having the benefit of someone from America having already written a book creating a new buzz word for it – I’m going to have to do it.
Television is now AnyVision. I might as well trademark that – because who knows, it could just catch on.
With the advent of AnyVision – audiences are bringing themselves along for the ride, they are sharing their experiences instantly, and they are contributing to conversations with producers as they congregate around virtual watercoolers.
And when I say they, I really mean we. Because the distinction between audiences and originators is potentially now closer than ever.
And everyone has the capability to contribute. And they are. 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube per minute.
The question I find myself asking is, when brands have Anyvision at their disposal, surely we can do something great.
We could make a program. A series. A drama. A documentary.
We can do anything that television above every other medium can do. Which is move people emotionally.
We can educate, inspire, motivate or simply amuse or even arouse.
But creating something as profound and exciting as House of Cards, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones won’t happen by accident.
TV is having this golden age – I think – because they are PRIORITISING the AUDIENCE.
Things like The Office, Girls, The Inbetweeners – don’t become successes without a shed load of hard work, inspired development or an understanding of the importance of investing in high quality production.
To create great programming, it seems to me we need to bring together the important voices in the process.
It is naïve to think just because we as an industry for 70 plus years have created remarkable 30 second television spots, that we can suddenly believe that making television is the same thing.
Anyvision might be more our kind of thing.
But then again, really great AnyVision might require new collaborations and groupings to be born.
And people in television are interested in this. People in marketing are. Writers and creative people are. Television production people are.
When we worked on Gamekillers in 2006, we learned that not only did you need everyone to be in the same room, everyone needed to have a shared agenda.
Here is the trailer for that show.
I cannot believe it is really that long ago. It probably just shows how hard these things are to do.
BBH had an idea for Axe Deodorant – which basically said if you wanted to score with a girl, you needed to keep your cool in various dating situations.
And the most challenging dating situations usually involved Gamekillers – a group of various individuals put on the planet simply to stop you from getting your end away.
The agency and client realised this was an idea too broad to limit to just one 30-second TV spot. And Unilever were prepared to invest the right amount of money to make it work in a longer format.
We were asked with our production company at the time to get involved and write it into a full length show.
We were given time and money to do this.
But a show without a broadcaster was worthless. This was pre-YouTube – that’s how long ago we’re talking.
We approached MTV.
Unilever wanted to speak to young adults. MTV wanted to speak to young adults. The marketer and the brand wanted the same audience. And therefore there was a shared agenda.
There were some rules. Good rules in my opinion.
MTV would not allow the brand in the show itself – but would allow the brand to advertise in the breaks.
They shared the revenue of on-selling the remaining adspace to other advertisers.
MTV re-ran it 14 times. On both their channels and on their digital site. It got 10 million viewers. Rated 4 in its time-slot on its first showing. 28.5 million media impressions from PR alone. As well as winning awards, more importantly MTV commissioned a second series.
Genuinely, the result achieved more than a conventional TV ad might have done.
And I think what this shows is that at its best, remarkable things can happen.
Great is when Chipotle work with CAA to create Back to the Start. Nike work with MTV to create Battlegrounds. Grey Goose work with Sundance to deliver Iconoclasts.
The lesson we learned is that you need the right people in the room. People who can make sure everyone’s agenda is being met.
It requires a mutual respect between the TV voices, the creative voices, the client voices and the agency voices.
And it’s why we’re excited to be part of Michael Ritchie’s new set up, Will O’Rourke.
Michael Ritchie realised that the skill set a production company has in making a TVC (through Revolver), can be applied to unconventional production too.
And he’s brought together a very new type of roster. Of architects, artists, music experts, documentary makers, writers into an environment where they can direct projects beyond the norm.
And that includes Television – or indeed – AnyVision.
As I’ve said, to create great AnyVision, you need to have the right people in the room.
And as well as writers and directors like ourselves, Michael has brought in comedian and writer Charles Firth. Industry insiders like Jacquie Riddell (who used to run XYZ Studios & SBS Marketing) and Kristin Marlow (from SBS Progrmaming).
People with broadcasting experience and understanding of how an idea needs to be shaped to make it either worth broadcasting or worth investing in as a production.
With new forums like this, genuinely new things become possible.
Documentary series for Qantas which really educate and inspire – or unearth something profound about humanity. Comedy shows for Colgate which make us want to show off our whiter teeth. Thrilling drama where audiences can help detectives solve the crime by texting through Telstra or Vodafone.
New things no-one has even thought of yet. But it’s by bringing together expertise from all areas that they become possible.
I think we’re going to see a move away from rather trite and meaningless product integration into something that is a far more worthy successor of BMW Films. (Wikipedia does indeed credit as the true pioneer).
So while Masterchef product placements, X-factor Snapple or Coca Cola cups, Vodafone voting lines are currently necessary evils for producers and audiences alike, there is some hope.
Recipe to Riches is at least an attempt to bring brand and programming together.
Perhaps the balance was still a bit favouring the brand rather than the audience.
There are examples where brand, network and audience all get something from the arrangement.
Of course, finding big audiences on broadcast screens is only one option.
As with major programming successes, brand stories can find huge audiences online.
Whether via YouTube, Facebook or via other digital channels or arenas, brands have the chance to use films and programs to tell their own stories and build their own audiences.
The purity of a good story, well told, meets our human need to feel engaged in something.
And to some extent it does go beyond specific box or device.
It requires investment and commitment – and skill and experience – in the medium. And to think otherwise is naïve.
One of the reasons I suspect that marketing directors love the idea of their film going viral is that it does suggest that you are going to get enormous results for very little investment.
What the better examples of self-propelled creative work are showing is that the audience respect the brands who put their money where their mouth is.
Very recent examples are Volvo Trucks and Intel.
But for every shining light, there are thousands of exhausting and unbearable examples of try hard, self-interested creative.
And there are too many people confusing a desire to innovate with a requirement to communicate.
In our documentary series for Think TV, 2020 Vision, we were lucky enough to speak with Sir John Hegarty about this area.
He said:
“A lot of people talk about product placement, branded content and all those things. Honestly, I’m yet to see something that I thought was truly outstanding.
“I think creating programming is very, very difficult. And I think our industry suffers from believing it can do everything. Which is a big mistake, it can’t.
“I’m sort of slightly suspicious of what it’s achieving. Is it really doing the job that it’s intended to do, which is to persuade an audience to the value of that brand?
“If it’s just about presence, fine, if that’s all you want to do. And brands like Coca-Cola are particularly good at placement and maybe producing some branded material.
“But realistically, that brand has had more fame, and more value out of one commercial called “I’d like to teach the world to sing” than anything else.”
But, it’s also important to see this world from the perspective of people making great entertainment.
In his MacTaggart speech at the Guardian International Television Festival, Kevin Spacey summarized the situation in this way:
“The audience has spoken. They want stories. They’re dying for them .They’re rooting for us to give them the right thing.
“And they will talk about it, binge on it, carry it with them on the bus and to the hairdresser, force it on their friends, tweet, blog, Facebook, make fan pages, silly GIFs, and God knows what else about it. Engage with it with a passion and an intimacy that a blockbuster movie could only dream of. And all we have to do is give it to them.
“The prized fruit is right there, shinier and juicier than it’s ever been before. So it’ll be all the more shame on each and every one of us if we don’t reach out and seize it.”
The aim of this keynote was not to put a damper on proceedings or indeed pour scorn on this area of creativity.
It was actually to inspire us to make it meaningful and valuable.
For me, the opportunities that Television – and Anyvision – are offering us are truly extraordinary.
Programmers genuinely believe this is a golden age of Television. Where we can gorge on series and share our experiences with people from all over the world.
With the right investment, and with the right collaborators, and skills at their disposal, brands have the opportunity to reach and engage audiences so powerfully it will blow all of our minds.
In summary then
Let’s respect the fact that this is a different world.
And remember that we have to prioritise the audience.
When all these things are in place, I, for one, cannot wait to see what between us we are capable of.
Nice one – thanks for sharing.
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best thing I’ve read on here all year
Isn’t this guy a silver-tongued devil! No, it’s not “branded content” or even “branded entertainment” – it’s nothing more than the lowest card in the deck, the compromised world of “advertorial.” Always has been, always will be. Stick it on those digital shopping channels with the endless array of exercise machines, junk jewelry and cheap make-up that everyone flicks through on their way to something hopefully a little more enlightening, although that’s a disappearing commodity on commercial TV these days.
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Get your heads from up your bums. On the commercial networks from the age of Burkes Backyard every infotainment prog depended on Branded content. Show me a local production that doesn’t have it please… The ABC doesn’t count because we fund that…. Elsewhere producers have to sell the show to get the dough to make it…
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Finally a lone voice of sanity in the wilderness. Well done JK. It’s scary, hard, new and likely littered with failure, but it’s exciting and interesting and has the potential to be great. Thanks for the injection of faith.
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A great read Jonathan. I agree there is a greater need for content creators to understand their audience, and Kevin Spacey’s keynote was a brilliant expression of this. Call it what you will, if content involves a brand, then the onus is on the brand custodians to understand the nature of content consumption before they even think about content creation. Lifting the bar requires brands and content creators to be better educated, to invest in new ideas, to challenge the norm and to be prepared to fail along the way. Surely Dumb Ways To Die (as our jewel in the crown) will find a successor soon????
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Long.
… Moo.
Very good points though regarding PRIORITISING the AUDIENCE, and the need for the marketer and the brand to have a shared agenda.
I would almost argue they need a shared spirit or perspective… Vice is particularly interesting in their approach.
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So basically, you are reinventing the soap opera? Procter & Gamble have been created unbranded content for specific audiences to place their advertising in for over 60 years. Same old thing, new term for it.
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It’s easy for creative people to prioritise the audience, we do it naturally. Marketers and people in business, however, find it impossible. I have made ads for Toyota that were solely aimed at ‘the dealers’, it’s mental. As soon as you turn from human into businessman, all your compassion, judgement and humanity goes AWOL. Go ask any CEO how interested he is in storytelling, he’ll probably ask you what that is. Reason? No soul.
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