Traditional Advertising vs. Branded Content 2

By Bill Chipps

Let me first apologize for the long pause between the first part of this write up and this concluding part. As good marketing and brand management students/lecturers and professors (you can figure out where you fall into), I am sure we still recall the issues raised in the first part of this article.

As a refresher, the salient points are;

· Traditional advertising is no longer delivering ROI

· The lack of strict adherence to set rules and regulations in this part of the world even makes nonsense of traditional advertising

· High increase in media proliferation & audience fragmentation

· Global financial recession has affected not only the multinationals, but also the local organizations; hence we see huge advertising budget cuts, delay in approvals (advertising concepts, media plans, etc.) et al.

· Great value must be gotten from the small budget approved for marketing communications

· A likely way out is Branded Content; It’s a form of creating an entertainment property in partnership with content developers, agencies, broadcasters/distributors and brands.

· It means taking the philosophy and message of a brand and translating that into entertainment properties that consumers want to engage with, e.g. films, TV programs, music, events, digital, sponsorship, and merchandising.

Basically, brands can now get consumers’ attention when they put the majority of their marketing naira not in regular media spends, but in providing consumers with useful content and great entertainment.

Forms Of Branded Content

Being an entertainer simply means showing people a good time and there are various ways a brand can do this;

1.. Branded Content: A form of original programming that communicates the brand’s essence. In this case, a story is developed with the brand in mind; it somehow revolves around the brand, subtly showcasing the brand values and essence.

For instance, in ‘Extreme Makeover Home Edition’ (one of Endemol’s most popular shows in the U.S syndicated in dozens of countries) a house of a family in need gets completely rebuilt and redecorated in 7 days. Every piece of furniture comes from SEARS, who the show was exclusively produced for. The one I like most is the movie Cast Away. It tells the viewers how Fed-Ex operates in a purely entertaining manner. Bringing is back home, Extended Family a drama program that ran on a couple of TV stations pan Nigeria last year had an episode written around Indomie Noodles. It was highly entertaining and interesting, yet so natural. You cannot help but notice the brand and its importance and values. (By the way I wonder why such an entertaining program went off air!)

2. Product Placement: This is done by subtly integrating the brand into the program without fully owning the program. That is using real commercial products or services within a content, e.g. brand’s logo in shot, or a favorable mention or appearance of a product in shot.

This is done without disclosure, and under the premise that it is a natural part of the work; it is usually subliminal. There are countless examples of brands that have been integrated into programs and this has been in existence for many years now. From the days of James Bond 007 – where some of his films featured Aston Martin Cars, BMW, Ford and Omega wrist watch – to the days of ‘24’ and ‘House MD’ – which also featured Ford cars, Apple laptop computers (MacBook Pro and MacBook) and iPhones. Back home also, Indomie Noodles is one brand that has also done this successfully with the TV comedy Fuji House of Commotion. Little wonder why the brand controls about 90% of the instant noodles market even in the face of stiff competition. MTN has also tried to do some product placement in the popular family soap Super Story.

3. Program Sponsorship: This is the regular program sponsorship that we all know where content is developed and the producer/media owner/marketer begins to search for sponsors for the content. In this case however, the mileage the brand gets from this is minimal; no story weaved around the brand, no expression of brand values, etc. On the side of the producer it could be frustrating selling such contents (except if it is football). In this part of the world “seeing is believing”; most brand managers and marketing directors would like to see the content on air first and probably see it run for a few weeks before deciding to put their hard earned advertising naira behind it.

Platforms For Branded Entertainment

Branded Entertainment can be done via different platforms, below are a few. Note however that this is not exhaustive.

1. Music: The music industry in Nigeria is fast growing and icons are being created from different parts of the country. Evidence of this trend can be seen in the dominance of MTV Base by Nigerian music stars who have started to win awards at the prestigious MTV Europe Music Awards. When I watch Channel O these days I am amazed at the very good quality of Nigerian musical videos I see; and I keep saying to myself “wow these are Nigerians!”

2. Movies/Dramas/Soaps: Nigerians focusing more on themselves has resulted into tremendous growth of the movie industry, which is rated 3rd in the world, coming after Hollywood and Bollywood. We tell our stories to ourselves and to Africans in general hence, 2 dedicated African movies channels have been created (Africa Magic & Africa Magic Plus) on the successful pay TV platforms across Africa i.e. DStv. You would notice that 95% of the contents shown on Africa Magic are Nigerian. It is important to state at this point that Africa Magic is the most watched DStv channel across the African countries where the cable TV exists; it is rated 1st within the top 10 DStv channels across the continent. [i]

3. Football: That the FIFA World Cup will hold on the African continent in 2010 is an indication of how much the sport has grown on the continent with the African Nations Cup now featuring 16 teams, same as European Nations Cup and Africa now having five representatives at the World Cup, up from just two 20 years ago. Coming home, it is no news that football is the one thing that holds us together in this country; it is what I call a “barrier-less” platform. The U-17 World Cup will be hosted here on our soil and that is a huge feat for Nigeria. Though sponsorship of these football tournaments are limited and have all been taken up, there are several opportunities for ambush marketing that other brands can take and get great mileage from. One brand that does this well is Pepsi; they are not a world cup sponsor or partner but they leverage their football association very well during the world cup period. Coca-cola owns the world cup but Pepsi “owns” the key players. Talking about the players, Nigerian footballers are also doing well internationally, as most European leagues feature Nigerian players who now hold their own against the best players in the world; what can be done with these players?

4. Fashion: Catwalks the world over now play host to African fashion designers and models and international fashion designers are also beginning to look into the use of African fabrics for their designs which is helping to create a modern look for the 21st century African and the deemphasising of European centric fashion. Our Nigerian designers are getting more creative by the day and hence very successful. They participate in fashion shows outside the shores of the country and win awards. We also have Nigerian designers living in Europe, UK and America who dress up Celebrities (Actors, Actresses, Musicians, etc) in these countries and are doing extremely well (Estella, Kesse Jabari, Adebayo Jones, etc.). Some even come home annually to host fashion shows.

5. Digital: Wireless communications is connecting Nigerians like never before. Since the inception of GSM into the country in 2001, the market has grown tremendously with about 58 million active subscribers.[ii] This growth is driven by the absence of reliable fixed wired/wireless telecommunications (popularly known as landline) prior to the launch of mobile services, hence the mobile industry has achieved 88% penetration. [iii] What are we doing with the mobile phones beyond passing information to consumer via text messages? Have we considered gaming?

With the CDMA & GSM operators providing internet services, penetration of internet have also increased over the years with the bulk of the users found in key markets within the country (Lagos, Kano, Rivers, etc). This is another opportunity to consider gaming.

As stated in the first part of this article, branded entertainment is not entirely new, brands round the world have done it over and over again and it works! The tables show examples of some brands as entertainers and the vehicles they used.

Whichever platform/vehicle you choose for your client or brand, it has to be engaging and interactive; remember our objective is to move from the ‘consumer interruption age’ to the ‘consumer engagement age’.