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.