Branded Content & The Future Of Advertising

By Author: Larry Chetan
Total Articles: 189
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Branded content is a relatively new, and rapidly evolving advertising medium that blurs the conventional distinctions between advertising and entertainment. Branded content is essentially a fusion of the two.

With people spending more and more time on digital platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube, traditional advertising is becoming less and less effective.

Consumers have grown tired of blatant product pushing, which means companies are finding new ways to engage an audience. By focusing on high production values, a great story and intelligent delivery, brands are able to form strong and long lasting impressions.

Branded content isn’t a gimmick. It’s here to stay. So much so in fact that companies are dedicating an increasing proportion of their marketing budgets to the creation of ‘custom branded content’.

As a Corporate Video Production, and Post Production company in the UAE, we at Nomad Productions appreciate a clever, moving or amusing piece of branded content;

The Beauty Inside, 2012, Toshiba & Intel ...
... - https://vimeo.com/47683831

This Cannes and Emmy award winning social film follows Alex, a man with a unique condition; every morning he wakes up in a different body. Pivotal to the story is the Toshiba Ultrabook Alex uses to keep an online diary, the only piece of product placement in the films. The series received over 70 million YouTube views and 97,000 Facebook likes. Creators Pereira & O’Dell are now working on the next series for Toshiba and Dell entitled ‘The Power Inside’ which will is scheduled for release on the 15th August 2013.

Uncle Drew, 2012, Pepsi MAX - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DnKOc6FISU

In the spring of 2012, Pepsi launched its Pepsi MAX campaign named “Uncle Drew”, a 5-minute online film starring one of the NBA’s rookie stars, Kyrie Irving. The agency that made the film, The Marketing Arm, decided it would be fun to dress Irving up as an 80-year-old man and have him take on a group of unsuspecting young players on a suburban New Jersey basketball court. The film, which again uses minimal product placement, received 10 million YouTube views in the first 3 weeks alone. It was so successful that Pepsi reacted by purchasing prime time advertising space on US network ABC in order to broadcast a 30-second trailer for the video during the NBA Finals series. Pepsi have now created a second film also starring Irving and fellow NBA star Kevin Love and more could follow.

Dove Real Beauty Sketches, 2013, Dove - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpaOjMXyJGk

This short film, commissioned by Dove, used an FBI-trained sketch artist hidden behind a screen to draw women, first based on the individuals perception and then based on those of a stranger. In spite of some criticism, the video’s self-esteem boosting message resonated with a mass audience, quickly becoming the most watched video advert of all time. It has been uploaded in 25 languages on 33 of Dove’s YouTube channels and watched more than 114 million times in over 110 countries.

“Dumb Ways To Die”, 2012, Melbourne Metro Trains - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJNR2EpS0jw

This animated video, commissioned by Metro Trains in Melbourne, is part of a campaign aimed at preventing train-related deaths in Victoria, Australia. The campaign was devised by advertising agency McCann Melbourne, with a remit to engage an audience ‘that doesn’t really want to hear a safety message.’ The video, with its cute animated characters, catchy tune, and blackly comic lyrics garnered 14 million views in its first week and has now been seen more than 50 million times. It also swept the board at the 2013 Cannes International Festival of Creativity, becoming the most successful ad campaign in the history of the awards.