Welcome to the age of the fleeting consumer. The American attention span is getting shorter. Oops, just lost half my readers. People are finding ways to avoid marketing efforts. Online, they can choose to ignore when not engaged. Radios get flipped the minute the commercial break hits, if you're listening to commercial radio at all. TV gets TiVoed and commercials get skipped.
For many brands, products and marketers the answer lies in becoming part of the content instead of part of the interruption. It's a trend called "branded entertainment." According to the New York Times, the new TNT show "Trust Me" features a fake ad agency with real world clients. A number of products, including a Dove line of hair care products and Bertolli food products, have signed up to be clients of the fake agency. They pay real money for the mentions and have to agree to not try and influence the story lines. Even the actual Dove brand manager appears in the show as a client. The real products add realism to the show and give a showcase to the brands. You can't fast forward them without missing plot points.
Pepsi also got in on the branded entertainment bandwagon with commercial versions of the Saturday Night Live skit "MacGruber" – a spoof of the old MacGyver TV show. It didn't work so well in the Super Bowl. But while watching SNL the night before, Pepsi ran three different versions, all as the first spot in each commercial break. So, viewers thought it was just the next SNL skit instead of the first commercial. Each one had the original MacGyver as a side kick and the Pepsi tie in got more intense each "skit" – you can see all three here. Frankly, I've never been a big fan of this skit and thought these were funnier than the usual skit.
But how does a smaller company get into the world of branded entertainment. Can retailers or regional brands have content created for them and be able to afford it? Absolutely. They won't be as high profile as a network TV show, but there are ways to create entertaining content online that is affordable. It's one of the programs we've been working on here at Yaffe. Short films featuring entertainment or lifestyle content that is relevant to your target and creating a regionalized distribution mechanism is the key. If you'd like to know more about how you can get into branded entertainment, just drop me a line.
Mike McClure, ECD, mikem@yaffe.com
