FOREWORD

10 Years of the BCMA

Alison Knight

CASE STUDIES

Duck Tape Race of Gentlemen

Tenthwave

RESEARCH MARKET REPORTS

Stop Trying to Make Your Ads Go Viral: Top Tips for Video Success
Unruly

Carphone Warehouse Smarter World

Adjust Your Set

Chivas Regal MASHTUN

Somethin' Else

Dening Branded Content for the Digital Age: Phase One Findings
Ipsos MORI & Oxford Brookes

INTRODUCTION

Looking Forward to the Next 10 Years

Andrew Canter

Terra Penetras de Luxo

Wanted Agency and ASAS da Imaginao

Russia
Anton Emov

Unilever Dove Real Beauty Sketches

Ogilvy

Brazil
Patrcia Weiss

Barclays Your Bank

Red Bee Media

Metro Trains Melbourne Dumb Ways to Die

McCann

ABOUT THE BOOK

Contributors Producers Feedback

Unilever Surf TOWIE Summer DReem

ITV

THE FUTURE CLIENT VIEW

Volvo Trucks The Epic Split

Forsman & Bodenfors

Expert Predictions Report

Justin Kirby

CONTENTS

Sony Xperia Vs The Northern Lights

DigitasLBi

Copyright 2014. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the written permission of the publishers (BCMA, DMC, New Media Works) and the relevant copyright owner. Please contact online@dmc.co.uk in the rst instance to request such permission. All trademarks and registered trademarks acknowledged. All rights reserved.

PepsiCo Lyubimy Natural Love

Fuse Russia

Intel+Toshiba The Beauty Inside

Pereira & ODell

Eurostar
Nick Mercer

Unilever Hellmanns In Search of Real Food

Ogilvy

Back in the early 2000s, I worked with a number of companies who were advising brands to use different ways of communicating with their audiences,
Alison Knight Founder, BCMA

The number of interested parties wanting a forum for discussion, sharing of ideas, setting industry standards and development of best practice steadily increased and the Branded Content Marketing Association or BCMA was ofcially launched in October 2003. The BCMAs primary objective was to act as a catalyst in breaking the existing barriers between content providers, advertisers, agencies and platforms. It was formed to offer support, advice, share ideas, to develop best practice, share learning and to promote the adoption of branded content as a marketing medium by communicating its strengths to the wider market.

FOREWORD

often substituting and in some instances replacing more traditional advertising routes. It struck me that it seemed a good idea to try to bring together these interested parties and promote a new form of communication based on bringing consumers and brands together by invitation, not interruption, in an entertaining and engaging way through branded content.

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Over the last 10 years, the BCMA has established itself as the leading organisation for branded content. We have created a proprietary measurement tool, contentmonitor, giving us valuable insight into what makes branded content effective. We have opened dedicated BCMA chapters in the USA, Russia and most recently South America and Scandinavia. We were delighted with the response to our rst ebook showcasing great examples of branded content, which was published in early 2013. Due to its success and with special thanks to Tenthwave, Somethin Else, Ipsos MORI, Adjust Your Set, DMC and New Media Works for their help with

editing, production, distribution and promotion we have pleasure in publishing this, our second ebook. We envisage this being an annual publication showcasing the very best of branded content. We also publish the BCMA Weekly Digest that brings together all branded content news and stories from around the world. Our Insight Series of events brings together leading experts in the eld of branded content to share their views on the current and future trends. And our recently developed Leadership Series showcases the latest developments affecting the industry. Contained within this ebook are all things branded content, including the best

recent case studies, a report on emerging markets, expert predictions on future trends and an in-depth analysis of the rst phase of the Oxford Brookes University and Ipsos MORI Academic Study which sets out to develop a clearer understanding of this key marketing concept and dene branded content in the digital age. We look forward to our next ten years with great excitement and we hope you are inspired to join us on this amazing journey.

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INTRODUCTION

Andrew Canter! CEO! BCMA

2013 has been an incredibly exciting year with some amazing campaigns from major brands. Weve seen the growth of social media and the Internet as a real driver, and I think that brands that adopt strategies that embrace branded content to its full impact will maximise ROI.

Looking Forward to the Next 10 Years

We generally look back to look forward and predict the emerging trends, but the explosion of social media and the rapid development of technology has impacted positively on branded content and given us a glimpse of what the future may hold for brands. 2013 was the year that branded content marketing came of age. The recent content revolution can be traced back to a seminal moment in 2001 when BMW decided to take its US$30 million advertising budget and spend it on producing ve mini feature lms working with luminary directors and producers, such as Ang Lee, Guy Richie, John Woo, Ridley and Tony Scott. The star-studded line-up of actors included

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Clive Owen, Madonna, Don Cheadle, Mickey Rourke, Gary Oldman and Forest Whitaker. BMW Films The Hire series season one featured Ambush, Chosen, The Follow, Star, and Powder Keg. The brand followed this up with three more lms for season two: Hostage, Ticker, and Beat the Devil. Already ahead of the curve, BMW then created BMW Audiobooks in 2006, which were given to customers to play in their new cars, but were not deemed to be a great success. However, we often learn more from things that dont work than from things that do, so BMW should be congratulated for their vision and foresight.

We can surmise that this inuenced the decision of the likes of Audi (2005) and more recently Renault (2009) to launch dedicated channels to showcase their brands. We have also seen Jaguar producing the 2013 lm, Desire, starring Damian Lewis. It was created in collaboration with Ridley Scott Associates (RSA) and features music from Lana Del Rey. The masters of branded content, Red Bull have created some incredible content over the past few years, culminating in the Stratos project that saw Felix Baumgartner freefall from space. Who would have thought that a brand would be bold and condent enough to spend millions on achieving this? Money well spent? It certainly gives

a whole new meaning to the phrase, Red Bull gives you wings. Mobile telecommunications brands have been extremely active in the branded content market in the last decade. We have seen Orange create the music show Playlist with Initial (Endemol), broadcast on ITV in 2005. A year later T-Mobile decided to follow suit and co-produced a show with Channel 4 called Transmission, and Vodafones music show TBA ran on E4 from 2006, produced by Endemol. Drinks brands have relied heavily on branded content, with great examples from Bacardis B-Live events in partnership with Groove Armada. A drinks brand as a record label? Also,
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established brands such as Johnnie Walker have created a rich vein of content based on the history of the brand. Other brands like Chivas Regal have invested heavily in content creation with two lms based on real friendships directed by multi-award-winning Joachim Back: Heres to Big Bear and Heres to Twinkle. We also witnessed a huge change in attitude to content as brands such as Heineken reportedly increased their branded content marketing budget from under 5% to 25% over the course of 18 months. This culminated in their highly acclaimed 2011 Open Your World campaign that was created to engage in

areas that were at the centre of their core consumers life, i.e. music, football, nightlife and social media. With this campaign, they recognise the legend in all of their drinkers, those who know their way around and recognise a ne beer when they taste one. In The Entrance, the lms hero demonstrates his legendary-ness by making the ultimate party entrance. This was followed by their high-prole involvement in the James Bond movie Skyfall, which caused a great stir among Bond fans as beer replaced his Martini and generated huge coverage for the brand. It was a notable example of how brand integration can be subtle but effective, notwithstanding the 45 million investment.
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Weve evolved from, If [consumers] might skip my ads then Im going to try and hide my ads in the content theyre already consuming to Wait a minute, I actually have stories that I can shape and share with my audience that are worthy of their time. That is really a huge transfer of thought from a world of branded content being a tactic, to a world of strategic, story-based marketing where all forms of communication have to be put through the lter of What do I have to say that adds value to peoples lives and conversations?
Scott Donaton,
Global Chief Content O!cer,

UM

Branded content has always been at the heart of Luxury brands, with great examples coming from: Dunhills The Voice campaign, featuring distinguished gentlemen who have achieved great things in their chosen elds; Prada with The Therapy, a short movie directed by Roman Polanski, starring Helena Bonham Carter and Ben Kingsley; LVMH; Chanel, producing the 30-minute lm The Tail of a Fairy, created by Karl Lagerfeld and featuring Vogue cover girl Freja Beha Erichsen; and Cartier with their incredibly moving Painted Love campaign, featuring original music by French band, Air. The soft drinks sector has been dominated by Coca Cola who have fully committed to branded content with their

Content 2020 vision. They believe this will!leverage the opportunities in the new media landscape and transform one-way storytelling into dynamic storytelling that hopes to add value and signicance to peoples lives. Their Move to the Beat campaign in 2012 formed part of their Olympic Games association and achieved great results. We have also seen them diversify into sub brands, such as Coke Zero for which A Step from Zero was created with excellent results. The campaign consisted of launching a global social media audition to dene the next global dance move. After hundreds of original dance move submissions poured in from all parts of the world igniting thousands of social media conversations one guy

stood out with a tale of possibility that just had to be told. Not only did his dance move the Toe Tappy take off, but also he got the whole world dancing to it. And who can forget the Coca Cola Polar Bears that featured during the Superbowl in 2012? Another great example of branded content from a truly visionary brand. In sport, Nike have been the most active brand creating content around specic events, such as their city-based Run series for example, aligning Run London to the recent My Time Is Now campaign. Then there are the charities that have used branded content effectively. Of note is Movember that has helped to raise
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276 million over the past 10 years with 577 funded projects for mens health in 21 countries, focused upon prostrate and testicular cancer as well as mental health issues. There is also Cancer Research UKs Tesco Race for Life, the UKs biggest women-only fundraising event, which incorporates a 5km run for the charity. It has raised almost 500 million over the past two decades. There are many more great examples of brands using content effectively, which can be viewed on the BCMAs YouTube channel. There are also examples of where branded content has not worked as well as planned. It is often the latter campaigns we learn most from, and we must ensure that changes are

implemented for subsequent activity to ensure the best possible outcome. At our most recent BCMA event, BC: 2023, we asked our experts to look 10 years into the future and give us their views on what brands would be doing to engage with their customers. Eric Schwamberger, Partner at Tenthwave, said that brands will stop "disrupting what people are interested in" and try to "become what people are interested in", shifting marketing value from brand impressions and message frequency to brand engagement and experiences. His other prediction was that, as the rst Social Generation grows up, transparency and sharing will become
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I think one of the most interesting things about marketing today is just how much being a globally connected society has changed things. As more people enter the job market and [join] organisations that understand the value of relevant content and being a good social brand, and that value relationships over impressions as these people are put in charge of budgets, we are going to see more attention paid to branded content and content marketing. This is going to be essential for these people to succeed, because many brands will be competing to win the hearts and minds of their consumers. The successful agencies in the next ve years are going to become obsessed with delivering branded experiences that can create real bonds with their customers.
Eric Schwamberger, Partner,

Tenthwave
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part of a new global dynamic. The idea of social media will move past a line item in
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term that it tends to make any discussion of it broad and fuzzy as well. These quotes come from the literature review of our current academic study, Dening Branded Content for the Digital Age see the Phase One results report here. However, through the BCMAs desire and passion to drive forward creativity and establish academic understanding, champion best practice and share learning, we truly believe that branded content will continue to be an increasingly important part of the marketing mix. This will maximise the return on investment for those brands adopting a strategy that fully embraces the power of content.
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I dont think brands are taking enough risks in the content space. [They are] looking at what they bought from a mass media perspective and trying to replicate that in the realm of digital. I also believe that the content produced by brands is primarily passive and linear. I dont think it takes advantage of advanced platforms like Xbox One. I dont think it has a high level of consumer engagement. I dont think it is transmedia in the truest sense of delivering di!erent content experiences, be they entertainment or utility based. So I think there is tremendous growth opportunity.

the marketing budget to an integrated tactic of just about everything we do. We have seen an unprecedented increase in the level of branded content over the past year, and, although the process of producing great content has improved, there is still much debate and discussion about the best approach. This was summed up in 2013 by Robin Thornton of Shaman Marketing, who said, There is a signicant amount of confusion and controversy out there around what content is, what it does and how to use it. This is backed up by Cindy Gallop of IfWeRanTheWorld who said, Content is such a broad and fuzzy

Doug Scott, President,

OgilvyEntertainment

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The branded content segment is developing and becoming more popular among advertisers in Russia. Top TV programmes of general interest and top sport events are

In the Age of Social Conversation, the period of interruption-based advertising is diminishing and is being replaced by engagement-based advertising in most parts of the South American region. In Brazil, 2013 has been the year of the video, due to the social visual culture evolution. Naturally, marketers are planning to increase social video ad placements, leveraging the production investments of original content to create their own experience and conversation territory with the consumer - without causing an impact on the traditional, and still predominant, investment in TV." Because we are an emerging market, in many cases, the content created is still centred on the brand and

already branded. Further growth will follow the segmentation of content delivery channels (Internet and digital TV) and technologies that analyse audience preferences. Audiences will require more and more specicinterest content that will be produced in partnership with advertisers.

is media-oriented, demanding stronger planning and creativity to develop more entertaining, e#cient, involving, storied and relevant branded content initiatives within the consumers context to provoke shareability and relationship. The big challenge for the Brazilian market is in maturing and expanding branded content strategies by permeating other forms of connection between the brand and the consumer. When storytelling gets incorporated in the centre of the brand strategy, it will triumph as a powerful, meaning-conveyor marketing tool. More examples of compelling stories that manage to get the attention of a dispersive audience will be seen, informing and delivering value while entertaining. Marketers are getting serious about creating great stories that spread brand meaning and help to humanise the brands exactly now, when the most important universal currency is the conversation.

Anton Emov, Managing Director,

Patrcia Weiss, SVP Strategic Consultant"for Branded Content, Branded Entertainment and Transmedia Storytelling,

Fuse Russia

ASAS da Imaginao

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CASE STUDY

Campaign : The Race of Gentlemen Client : ShurTech Duck Tape Agency : Tenthwave Digital

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CHALLENGE

First run over an Autumn weekend in 2012, the Race of Gentlemen is an invitation-only series of races in which handbuilt, modied pre-World War II cars and motorcycles roar along a 1/8-mile sandy straight on the beach at Wildwood, New Jersey. The Race was conceived by a group of hot-rod enthusiasts from the Oilers Car Club, which was established in the 1940s. The Race invokes the bygone era when people built cars to push their skills and their love of speed, using parts pulled from other cars or fabricated by hand in their backyards and home garages. My vision was for a race much like you would have seen in 1910 or 20: people dressed up, with picnic baskets and good booze,

waiting to see a machine at its top speed pass before them on a wide open beach, said Mel Stultz of the Oilers Car Club and founder of the Race of Gentlemen. One of the spectators at the 2012 event was Brendan Kennedy now a Tenthwave Creative Director. Brendan went to Tenthwave in summer 2013 and pitched the idea of partnering with a brand to help raise the prole of the Race. The agency loved the idea, but had just three weeks to nd a partner, conceive and produce a campaign that would be ready to go live at the second annual Race in October 2013.

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SOLUTIO

When looking to engage a brand with a cultural event, Tenthwave aims to satisfy two important factors: 1. The event should be something that

niche target audience required the support of a cult brand thats relevant to that niche and interested in building its own prole within the same community. One of Tenthwaves clients, ShurTechs Duck Tape, was an obvious and natural t. Duck Tape was rst used during World War II, when US troops needed a strong, exible, durable, waterproof tape that

could seal canisters, secure cracked windows, repair trucks and more. The tape has been a staple in garages and toolkits across America ever since. Not surprisingly, drivers in the Race of Gentlemen were already using Duck Tape to build and patch up their cars, make pre-race modications and running repairs it was literally holding together vital car parts.

people care about and are already talking about, but there is an opportunity to expand the conversation in some way. 2. The involvement of the brand must

be relevant and authentic to the event a brand cant stomp all over an event and take it over, they have to be genuine participants with a right to be there, and they have to participate in a way thats not only on-brand but also feels natural to the consumers involved. For their rst challenge nding a willing and suitable brand partner the agency realised that a cult race series with a

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spending a lot of money. In fact, there was less than US$10,000 allocated for media. Hurricane Sandy had hit the beach the year earlier, destroying some of the historic beach huts and infrastructure. In order to support the event, Tenthwave
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would have to bring their own technical communications equipment, such as power and Internet connectivity, and get Duck Tape involved from the ground up.

So both culturally and from a product angle, Duck Tape was a perfect match for the Race. The brand agreed to get involved at short notice, trusting Tenthwave to come up with a branded content marketing idea that would expand on Duck Tapes existing goodwill and authenticity among race-goers.

The agency had several other considerations to take into account for the conception and production of a campaign. First, they had to do something highly effective for the Race and the brand with a very short lead-time and without

From a creative viewpoint, the energy and passion of the historic motoring event was matched by the amazing natural beauty of the backdrop itself the beach with its sand and sea spray, the crazy characters, the old jalopies and the heritage buildings would all enable the creation of great visual content.
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Tenthwave decided to create an experiential, branded content marketing pilot campaign, consisting of a mix of live activities during the Race from 4-6 October 2013:

Live photographic contest

Spectators were encouraged to take photos during the Race weekend and hashtag their photos with #raceofgentlemen and #ducktape for a chance to win US$500. Instagram was the main social media platform for the photos, however photos also appeared on Duck Tapes Facebook page where the brand has more than 5.5 million fans. The contest was promoted on the campaign website via a live feed of the Instagram shots, and it was promoted live at the Race, where Duck Tape and Tenthwave staff walked around chatting with attendees and handing out cards with directions on how to enter the contest.
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"This campaign worked because it was cool and fun and relevant for hotrod enthusiasts. Whatever it is thats culturally relevant, we want to bring that authenticity and relevance to all the brands we work with. This campaign is just one excellent example of facilitating the meeting of a brands product with cultural and social currency."

Live online broadcast of races

Tenthwave created a campaign website that included live streaming of race footage from the beach, so that anyone anywhere in the world could view the races and the surrounding activity. Social media, including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, was used to help drive trafc to the live feed site before and during the Race.

Drew Rayman, Managing Partner, Tenthwave

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Duck Tape giveaways stand

Duck Tape gave away free branded Tshirts, rolls of Duck Tape and cards promoting the photo competition from the back of a suitably modied stationwagon on the beach.

Archival video footage

A production crew lmed thousands of hours of footage during the Race weekend, with the aim to use this collection of stories and social content in future Duck Tape social and digital marketing initiatives.
"What was so great about this branded content campaign is that it was just an o!-the-cu! idea from a guy in a garage: Hey this is going on, wouldnt it be cool if Duck Tape was

p a roll y bag. I kee m in l o to rsatile king m prop-ma the most ve I' is n e e h p a w T it k f c o "Du e a ton wn and I us o I r a c ry e in ev men" is 1939 e of Gentle Club, and h r a C rs e for the Rac il ltz III, O n Riper Stu a V n o ld e M f Indian Chie

literally invited in to the event and they took a chance that it would generate some benets for them as well as for the Race of Gentlemen. And boy did it! Its all about nding the right idea and the right brand and bringing them together."

Kate Daggett, Executive Creative Director, Tenthwave

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S T L U S E R

ce c a e l op e p 0 0 0,0 3 st . a c c d a ro b e n i l ies n r t o n t u n o e ev +c 0 6 m ro f s r e iew v te i e s n i l n n o nt e O p s s te u n i m 15+ e g a r Ave tor i s i v ed r d n pe a r fb o s e c ie p n k o i e l l i e w m a in d c.1 e m su n o c t conten

iv l e h t ssed

Founded in 2010, Tenthwave is the customer-obsessed digital, social and mobile marketing agency. Its passion is to inspire customers through insight and understanding, creating share-worthy social content for brands that resonates with and between people. As a more personal, full-service digital agency, its core service o"erings lie in strategy, research, digital design, development, branded content development, user experience, social media management, online media, analytics, promotions and online marketing. Tenthwave has about 100 employees globally, with o#ces in New York City, Long Island, Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, Washington DC and London.

"My rst truck , a 1969 Toyo ta Hi-lux, had made of Duck a oor entirely Tape" John Illenye and his 1928 German-buil Hindenberg t Triumph an metal werks d sidecar

a d Duck T e s u e v I' " nts!" p my pa u ld Model A o d h r o o t F lt 0 e b 193 and his in e t S id Dav ter Speeds

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See more of Tenthwave's work here.

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OUTCOMES

The Duck Tape 'Race of Gentlemen' branded content marketing initiative matched the right brand with a relevant, relatively unheard-of, cool cultural event. It was the perfect opportunity to tell a story about Duck Tape in an authentic way a story that people could help create and share in real time from a live event via earned media. The brand was welcomed into the event, rather than having to buy its way in, and all the Tenthwave and Duck Tape staff rolled up their sleeves to help build the event infrastructure. This translated into a feel-good, morale-boosting story that brought kudos to Duck Tape for its support of the event and the traumatised Jersey Shore, and in turn helped the live, socially activated campaign to take off under its own steam. The Duck Tape partnership also raised the Race of Gentlemens prole, connecting this niche subculture with other enthusiasts who create and break! things. Looking at the impact of the individual Duck Tape campaign activities, the stand at the Race was mobbed by race-goers and the free samples ran out within minutes, tens of thousands of people from around the world tuned into the live event on the campaign website, and over a million social impressions ooded the Internet over a couple of days.

"Our goal with the Race of Gentlemen is to give car bu!s some pure, event-driven content that stirs passion and makes them the marketing engine. When a brand delivers content so cool that people want to share it with their friends, theres a credibility you cant buy."

David Rodgers, Senior Digital Marketing Manager, ShurTech Brands

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There were several useful outcomes from the photographic contest:

When Duck Tape and Tenthwave staff walked down the beach to hand out cards about the contest, the reaction was extremely positive and they were treated as part of the family. Duck Tape wasnt borrowing the equity of the Race; it was dedicated to helping build it a difference that was apparently obvious to event attendees and social media viewers alike. As a result, Duck Tape saw its largest spike in conversation across its social media channels. Through its presence at the Race and the inherent awareness this created, the brand also appeared in vastly more attendee photographs as an integral part of the cars, motorbikes, and general race experience.

The photographic contest also proved vital to the live broadcast activity. When there were breaks between races, the footage from the beach wasnt constantly riveting. However, the accompanying Instagram feed always featured shots that captured breathtaking moments in time and covered stories that were going on all over the beach, such as performer stunts that were pulled a racer standing on a motorbike, the passion and energy of the event. The archive lm footage of the event is being curated, along with all the fan content, and it will be distributed throughout the coming year. Building on 2013s campaign experience, Duck Tape and Tenthwave are now looking to scale up the reach and amplication of the pilot projects success.

For 2014, Tenthwave plans to involve additional strategically aligned brand collaborators to augment the campaign activities, create more rich content to share, and use it to build a larger cultural story for the Race of Gentlemen and its associated partner brands.

r with l my oo a e s d n ts a headligh y m t u o g" "I X I'm racin rd n e h w e p del A Fo o M 1 3 Duck Ta 9 his 1 ady and r 'G O J T p r pick-u roadste

"We use Duc k Tape on the seams betwe and grill and en the hood the hood and b o d y to help cheat th Ken Schmid e wind" t and his 193 2 Ford 3-win dow Coupe

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CASE STUDY

Campaign : Smarter World Client : Carphone Warehouse Agency : Adjust Your Set

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Carphone Warehouse appointed Adjust Your Set as its video agency following a competitive pitch, then challenged the agency to create a campaign with two objectives: 1.$ In 2012, Carphone Warehouse decided to return to its roots a new back-tobasics approach, with a focus on becoming the specialist smartphone retailer. With every network represented (7million+ purchase combinations), Carphone Warehouses unique sales proposition is to o#er more choice than any rival retailer, and to be the only place for truly independent expert advice. To full this aspiration the brand needed to inspire people about what smartphones can do: the mini-computer in the pocket that can make people laugh, cry, keep close to loved ones, educate, provide the soundtrack to a commute, help run a new business even spark revolutions and regime change. Video has an important role to play in this activity. Video consumption is becoming increasingly critical in the consumer research and purchase journey 39% of all smartphone shoppers now use video at some point in their buying process.
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CHALLENGE

Develop an ongoing programme

of entertaining and engaging video content that inspires people about smartphone possibilities. 2.$ Support the brands desire to

become the number one destination for smartphone research and browsing. The results benchmark for the campaign was to generate 6 million aggregated views and a 5% clickthrough rate within a year.

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SOLUTIO

Adjust Your Set came up with the Smarter World branded video campaign, creating a content strategy split into three phases; awareness, engagement and interaction. For the launch of the campaign, Adjust Your Set produced an introductory lm to a Smarter World, unveiling Cliff as a humorous salesman in a Carphone Warehouse store, fed up with customers not using their phones to their full potential. Cliff takes customers on a

Adjust Your Set has now started creating a series of six Smarter World documentaries focussing on different inspirational stories. The rst looks at an amateur photographers rise to fame through smartphone photography. The

lm crew took Dilshad Corleone to Barcelona to shoot the city with its stunning architecture and beauty, simply via his smartphone and the variety of apps now available to photographers.

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journey through the Smarter World lab where dogs can communicate, a DJ can spin tunes and you can work up a sweat with a personal trainer, all from your smartphone or tablet.

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To host this content and enable it to be shared with other people, Adjust Your Set designed and built a dedicated video player system that presents both the
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professionally produced content and user-generated content integrated across multiple channels (carphonewarehouse.com, YouTube, Facebook) and devices (desktop, mobile and tablet). When people upload their own

The next documentary features the achievements of blind runner Simon Wheatcroft who is using his smartphone to help him train for an ultra-marathon in the desert. The documentaries are complemented by how-to content created by Carphone

Warehouse and Geek Squad, showing!viewers how they can use apps to achieve similar style photos, videos and challenges. The audience is then encouraged to create and submit their own photos and videos.

smartphone content, as well as sharing via social media the ways in which smartphones have affected their lives they get the chance to win smartphonerelated prizes. The winning entries are then used to populate the Smarter World player to provide an immersive visual experience to the user.
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S T L U S E R

er t r a m S e h t , 13 0 d: 2 e n v i e i d h e h ac s a h Launc gn i a p m ca d l r o ws e i W v d te a g e r g ag + n o i h, l c il n m u a 1 l of s k e e w x i s nd n i e p s with a edi m y b d e k c a b ons i s s e r mp i e g a p + 0 0 0 , 36 d e t a r e -gen r e s u 00+ 0 , 4 ds a o l p u t conten

Adjust Your Set is a full-service digital content agency.

Their approach is to fuse content strategy, creativity and technology to enable brands to become always-on publishers in a customer-centric digital world.

As the most visible and powerful content format available to brands on digital and mobile channels, and the fastest growing advertising medium ever, video is the agencys focal point. Adjust Your Set have been pioneers and distributors of video in a multi-screen world since 2008.

Take a look at some more work from Adjust Your Set.

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OUTCOMES

The 'Smarter World' branded video

"Our customers want to

campaign achieved its core aims. The device that generated the most engagement, not surprisingly, was the smartphone. It drove 68% of the page impressions, followed by the tablet at 55%

connect with us in new and smarter ways, and video is the ideal content format to share our brand stories with them. We were really impressed by the strategic thinking from Adjust Your Set, and their expertise in retail video-commerce. The Smarter World branded content marketing campaign combines creative and technical innovation to deliver strong brand engagement."
Gareth Jones, Head of Online Marketing, Carphone Warehouse

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CASE STUDY

Campaign : MASHTUN Client : Chivas Regal Agency : Somethin Else

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SOLUTIO

Working with Havas, Somethin Else took Chivas overall campaign objectives and put their proven design approach to work. Somethin Else could have proposed

CHALLENGE

MASHTUN
Chivas Regal is a sophisticated, modern brand of Scotch whisky with over two centuries of history. Their Art of Hosting marketing campaign is sharply focused: Chivas makes the modern social gathering complete. Chivas asked their marketing partner Havas Worldwide London to include a smartphone app in the campaign. Havas challenged

a perfectly suitable game where little hosts barrel back and forth. However, creating a game that actually makes social gatherings go well was deemed a far better plan: the game should be a tool for hosts and should bring the campaign to life. Recognising that social gatherings

content design and creation company Somethin Else to come up with a game that showcased the Art of Hosting, which is all about creating an environment, a novel experience, and facilitating a good time.

are affected by personal digital technology, Somethin Else also decided to embrace that technology to turn the attention of party guests towards each other. This called for a
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social game that made players look at each other rather than their devices. Those two insights framed Somethin Elses mission: to reinvent the parlour game for the modern age; to make realtime social games; and ultimately to make you a better host. The starting point for developing the game was to look at the most successful parlour games from history and capture their essence. What made them popular games? What was the central mechanic that encouraged interaction? The creative team tested them out (a lot) and whittled the list down to around 20 games. The next step was to test these ideas against the central premise: the games had to make smart, entertaining and imaginative use of iPhone and iPad hardware, such as the touch screen, camera, gyroscope, accelerometer and microphone. A shortlist was then compiled and the resulting games were prototyped and tested to see if they t the bill. Scoring was an interesting challenge. The aim was for scoring to be arbitrary, something to be set by the party host to demonstrate that s/he had the qualities that Chivas was interested in fostering. The results of several user testing sessions with a target audience of professional people aged 25-35 were fed
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Mashseek: Hide and seek for the

modern age. One team hides their device. The other team uses their device to nd it. The MASHTUN app automatically suggests the number of teams and the number of players on each team, based on the guests and smartphones or tablets in the room. Launched in April 2013, the free app was into the whole development process to create the nal app: MASHTUN a suite of ve parlour games for the modern host: Mashact: Inspired by Charades, this Mashjam: Players jam by playing made available on the iTunes app store as part of the wider Art of Hosting campaign, and promoted via YouTube, Vimeo and Facebook.

sections of a track in time. Mashtip: Players complete physical

challenges while keeping a tower of blocks balanced. Mashrelay: A head-to-head relay

quick-re acting game encourages wild team acting under pressure, with the words selected by the opposing team.

race powered by your voice!

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"This collaboration with Havas Worldwide London shows why enlightened brands and agencies are instrumental in the future of content. Together we've created a parlour game like never before truly social and sophisticated, challenging peoples perceptions of technology and gaming."

Somethin Else designs and creates content that millions of people watch, listen to and play with every day on their computers, radios, devices and televisions.

Awarded internationally at the highest level they are 2013s BAFTA Production Company of the Year, for example Somethin Else has an interdisciplinary team of media and technology experts who work with brands, broadcasters and content publishers across four areas: digital, radio, talent, and TV and video.

Paul Bennun, Chief Creative O!cer, Somethin Else

Their knowledge of strategy and their obsession with audiences and users help them to achieve di#cult objectives by creating content people love.

Take a look at Somethin Elses showreel.

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OUTCOMES

The MASHTUN app has been nominated for a number of awards (already winning
"Chivas MASHTUN combines

a bronze award in the Kinsale Sharks International Creative Festival 2013 Digital category), and generated signicant interest from other FMCG brands on how games can play a part in their content marketing.

elements that we know modern gentlemen love: games, gadgets and, above all, being a great party host. Chivas has always been about bringing people together, celebrating friendship and generosity. With this new venture, we wanted to change the rules of gaming technology, which can be insular, and make entertaining at home sociable, entertaining and memorable."

James Slack, Global Brand Director, Chivas

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Olivia Arthur/Magnum Photos

CASE STUDY

Campaign : Penetras de Luxo Client : Terra Agency : $ Wanted ASAS da Imaginao

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PLAY VIDEO

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SOLUTIO

CHALLENGE

PENETRAS DE LUXO
Terra is a Brazilian ISP and media network that sponsors Planeta Terra, one of the largest music festivals in Brazil.

Wanted Agency and ASAS da Imaginao decided to create branded content that featured Generation Y and could be viewed digitally, making it possible to generate spreadability. They came up with Penetras de Luxo (VIP Party Crashers), a series of

The brand challenged Wanted Agency and ASAS da Imaginao to

online lms that uses Planeta Terra as a backdrop to tell the story of a group

come up with a marketing campaign that had two objectives:

of friends that gatecrashes the festivals VIP area.

extend the experience of the one-day Planeta Terra festival into

To shoot the series, the festival was turned into a set where the storyline

other territories; and connect with Generation Y to continue the

and characters were ctional but settings and surroundings were real.

conversation about the festival long after the event ends.

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Live incidents that occurred throughout the festival were used to develop the story, grabbing the attention of the public during and after the event. Launched online and on digital TV after the festival, six short episodes and one short lm presented the Penetras de Luxo characters and showed how they gatecrashed the VIP area. Just like every good work of ction, a conict was also added: a mysterious situation occurs and they all end up at the police station. The idea of blending real life with ction was taken a step further with a celebrity twist that started during the festival. One of the characters was played by a famous Brazilian actor and, in a PR stunt, his characters name reected his real

name, Sergio. So when a ctional kiss between him and another character was shown on the big screens at the festival, it generated tweets and impressions on social media instantly.

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S T L U S E R
e During th P

Wanted Agency was founded in Brazil in the age of participation, in

l a v i t s e f rra e T a t e n a l

: weekend to

the midst of a culture of convergence.

end t t a l a v i t fes 0 0 0 , 5 6 . c ries e s e h t f o s t n e ial m c e l o e s 0 0 0 00, 6 d e v i e rec e n e c s s is The k ns o i s s e r p ad h m i o a i i g d r e e m tS a h t e s n inte o f s o e t r m a a p c s e wa s uzz b s i b k e e h h T at t h t e c uzz n b u e o r n o n m a ly en v e g n i t a to public cre , o x u L de s a r t e n e P ies r e s of e e h n t o t u e o am ab c e b y l t n que e s b u s n o o x s u n L o i e t c d s du o r p l a n Penetra o ati n d e h c t TV a y w a t d s n o u S m m, the r o f t a l p l TV a t i g i d s Terra

sed o p x e e r ees we

The Agency believes that fan culture is the new reality in which consumers participate in the production of collective intelligence about brands and products. In order to succeed, the brand story needs to connect with the broader conversation and discussion of what is happening in today's culture.

Wanted Agency specialises in creating or developing brand culture. It uses a proprietary methodology to tell a consistent story throughout the brand experience and initiatives, connecting the brand to contemporary culture and creating tribes who actively participate in the life of the brand.

Take a look at some more work from Wanted Agency.

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OUTCOMES

The Penetras de Luxo series of branded content lms became

"The key to the success of this

such a hit for Terra that it has now evolved into a sitcom with a contract for an entire season on web and cable TV.

branded content marketing campaign was creating intriguing narrative content that seamlessly incorporated the product (the festival) with the audience, as well as blurring the lines between ction and reality. This created an appetite for people to discover more, to put themselves in the shoes of the characters and to talk to each other about the story unfolding before them."

Patrcia Weiss, CSO, Wanted Agency; SVP Strategic Consultant"for Branded Content, Branded Entertainment & Transmedia Storytelling, ASAS da Imaginaa

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PLAY VIDEO

CASE STUDY

Campaign : Real Beauty Sketches Client : Unilever Dove Agency : Ogilvy

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CHALLENGE

Real Beauty Sketches

"Unilever asked us to make women feel better

From 2005, Unilever's Dove brand of personal care products has celebrated women's natural beauty in its 'Real Beauty' marketing campaigns. Market research suggested that only 4% of women describe themselves as beautiful, so the Dove Real Beauty campaign for 2013, created by Ogilvy Brazil, was tasked with raising the selfesteem of the other 96%. No short order!

about themselves. We wanted to move women, to nd an idea that could actually prove to women that they're wrong about their self-image. Hats o! to Unilever they didn't approve a script, they approved a social experiment that could've gone either way."
Anselmo Ramos, Creative Director, Ogilvy Brazil

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SOLUTIO

comparison, with the sketches from the strangers' descriptions being the more accurate and attering. The women

The campaign was presented on YouTube

as a branded, documentary-style lm (in six-minute and three-minute versions) with the tagline 'Women: You Are More Beautiful Than You Think'.

Ogilvy came up with the idea to run a social experiment that turned on its head the tendency of women to be critical of their appearance. It involved women being lmed going through a process of self-discovery, seeing themselves through their own eyes and those of strangers. For the experiment, FBI forensic artist Gil Zamora sketches women he can't see on different days rstly based on their own descriptions of themselves, then based on a stranger's description, without Gil ever knowing when the subject was the same person. The resulting sketches are then revealed to the subjects for

reacted strongly to the sketches, some with tears, as they realised that they were doing themselves an injustice.

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RESULTS
170 million views on YouTube Most-watched online branded content of 2013 3rd most-shared branded video of 2013

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OUTCOMES

The Dove Real Beauty Sketches branded content marketing campaign strongly reinforced Dove's ongoing Real Beauty strategy. It was successful in tapping into women's emotions and making people think again about how they judge their own appearance. The lm went viral very quickly (more than 15 million views within a week of its launch) and inspired conversations, debate and articles in media as diverse as Adweek, The Telegraph, Facebook, Bloomberg, Mashable, New York Times, Forbes, Hufngton Post, and Psychology Today as well as wider adoption of the concept, such as the 'Men: You Are Less Beautiful Than You Think' spoof video.

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PLAY VIDEO

CASE STUDY

Campaign : Your Bank Client : Barclays Agency : Red Bee Media

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CHALLENGE

Your Bank
After a period when high street banks havent been top of the general publics Christmas card list, Barclays wanted to demonstrate a change of approach, one born of a very real desire to regain the publics trust and preference. Barclays asked Red Bee Media to produce branded content for a new marketing initiative called 'Your Bank'. This initiative invites consumers to help inuence changes to everyday banking. Your Bank includes an online platform to gather and share ideas to improve Barclays products, services and overall banking experience. The development of Your Bank presented as much of a challenge as an opportunity."Namely, how do you make people stick around voluntarily to explore a website dedicated to everyday banking issues not normally a high interest category? And how could Barclays show that it was and is acting on the ideas suggested? The branded content on the Your Bank website therefore needed to both enthrall and inform.

SOLUTIO

Video content held the key to answering those particular challenges. Its power to move, amuse and persuade people was used by Red Bee to tell real stories about the changes Barclays had made and is still making now. Working with Barclays, Red Bee identied the stories with the most tangible and demonstrable human impact the ones that would lend themselves best to video. Wherever possible, these stories were told from the customers' perspective, not that of the Bank. This was important for two reasons. Firstly, it placed customers and their needs at the heart of the story, demonstrating
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Barclays' determination to put customers rst in all of its thinking. And secondly, it made the stories more instantly relatable to the audience. Your Bank launched with a series of these stories in the format of online lms, some showcasing initiatives that Barclays had already implemented to make everyday banking better as a result of its customers feedback, others

demonstrating Barclays commitment to listening to and understanding its customers. The rst batch of lms included: Blind stand-up comedian Chris An animated story of how a
PLAY VIDEO

McCausland introducing Barclays new audio cash machines for blind and partially sighted people. Chris gives us some insight of his previous difculties with talking machines.

customer and a Barclays Personal Banker created a new type of high visibility debit card for visually impaired customers. The experiences of Barney, a

Barclays Branch Manager, who spends

PLAY VIDEO

an uncomfortable day in an age suit that simulates the physical restrictions and difculties of being elderly or inrm, to research branch accessibility for older customers. The story of Ken Bellringer, injured

in Afghanistan, now on placement with

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Barclays as part of its AFTER programme for ex-military personnel. John Dennerly, a country park

launch was supported by print, outdoor and digital advertising driving consumers to the Your Bank website.

manager in Scotland who is deaf, introducing Barclays new sign video service. The story of Sam, an older
PLAY VIDEO

customer empowered to get online through a joint initiative between Age UK and Barclays. And a series of lms featuring

Barclays Ideation workshops with customers to generate ideas for making everyday banking better. The online videos were placed within the integrated!Your Bank online platform (customised and managed by Dare) and on the Barclays YouTube channel. The
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"The Your Bank branded video content is playing a key role in persuading the public that their ideas count and that it's worthwhile to submit them. The high level of interaction and idea submission is an indicative measure of audience engagement for Barclays, which can only help them improve customer service for the future."

Within the

rst three

RESULTS
months o f launch:

$% 449,000 interactio ns $% 283,000 video view s $% 26,900 poll votes $% 3,693 id eas subm itted by c onsumers

Michael Reeves, Business Development Director, Red Bee Media

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OUTCOMES

Thanks to Your Bank and its branded video content, Barclays is now able to have an ongoing conversation with
"The 'Your Bank'

customers learning from them, listening to them and demonstrating the changes its making for them.
"O!set saving s account to current accou when going o nt verdrawn" - e llievin89

platform and its content represents a very public commitment to listening to our customers and showing how we are going to act on change, big and small, which can make their lives easier."

of all savings accounts "Show the interest rate onjones12345 in online banking." - sim
ucate schools to ed r fo e m m ra g lay's pro er "Create a Barc ." - Mumsnett rs e tt a m y e n t mo children abou

Sara Bennison, Managing Director, Marketing Communications, Barclays UK Retail Bank

"Be able to withdraw di!erent currencies from an ATM." - Parliament Street, York branch customer
"Enable Skyp e meetings w ith branch ad - Telegraph re visors." ader

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CASE STUDY

Campaign : Dumb Ways to Die Client : Metro Trains Melbourne Agency : McCann

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Images and data Metro Trains Melbourne, Dumb Ways To Die, all rights reserved.

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SOLUTIO
Every year there are needless deaths or accidents around trains in Melbourne, Australia. And while rail accidents are tragic, they are in most cases completely avoidable. This is particularly true for young adults. Metro Trains Melbourne challenged McCann Melbourne with three primary objectives for a new marketing campaign: 1.$ Reduce train-related accidents in key accident areas by 10% over 12 months 2.$ Generate a stated commitment to be safe around trains (40,000 pledges) 3.$ Generate campaign awareness of 25% among the core target audience of young adults

CHALLENGE

Two insights propelled McCanns solution for the campaign: that young people hate being told what to do; and that if you get hit by a train, youve probably done something pretty dumb. So the campaign strategy focussed on turning a message about rail safety that nobody wants to listen to into a piece of entertainment people actively seek out and share, that tells the truth about rail accidents. McCann created Dumb Ways to Die, a branded content marketing campaign consisting of a threeminute song and video featuring 21 cartoon characters dying in really
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52

dumb ways three of them in trainrelated accidents. McCann launched the song in the usual way on iTunes, YouTube, radio and more. The agency used both traditional media (radio, TV, cinema, posters, press) and social media (Soundcloud, Tumblr, Instagram and Facebook) to drive trafc to the music video on YouTube. To extend the reach of the campaign through social media and PR, they also created dedicated forms of shareable content across multiple channels, including a karaoke version of the song, limited-edition posters of the characters, the Little Book of Dumb Ways to Die for schools and the Dumb Ways to Die smartphone game app.
53

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"Weve got a campaign thats relied on content and with the app were starting the move to merchandising. I think the way forward is to steer away from the advertising model and create content and create merchandising We need to keep creating shareable pieces that people can seek out and [that] have a worth beyond just the marketing message."
John Mescall, Executive Creative Director, McCann Melbourne

Worldwid e# Song cha 1 million+

74 million 1 app dow

RESULTS
+ video vi ews on Yo uTube ver 35 mil lion times countries ; sold ove r 100,000 c opies around tra rned med ins on the campaign website ia impress ions
2 p ra 013 to nked A ian A ustral . gency

nloaded o

rted on iT unes in 28 o be safe

pledges t

AU$60 mi

llion of ea

Most awarde

d campaign e

ver in D&AD

history.

Most awarded campaign at the Webby Awards 2013.

wards Clio A
lobal agency

From interview in AdAge 24/6/2103

Most awarded agency in the history of the Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity.
ency ional Awards Ag at rn te In n o nd Lo . of the Year 2013

in the history of the Most awarded agency l of Creativity. Cannes Lions Festiva

at One Show 2013. Selec ted am gency ong T a n 2013. a i l EDs t stra (The o op 10 ed Au nly Au k n A a have r d s Wor d stralia been th Spr Secon n adv 3. so rec e e a rtisem ding st 201 ognis e f d A e ed.) nt eve at r to
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3rd ranked g

54

OUTCOMES

The Dumb Ways To Die campaign became a global phenomenon and quickly demonstrated a real impact on social behaviour. Far exceeding its objectives, its one of Australias most successful public service campaigns. As well as the results listed previously, there were hundreds of cover versions and parodies viewed more than 20 million times themselves, campaign awareness among the core target audience of 46% after only one month, and most importantly a 10% reduction in near misses and accidents at level crossings and station platforms over 12 months.

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CASE STUDY

PLAY VIDEO

Campaign : Summer D'Reem Client : Unilever Media Owner : ITV

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CHALLENGE

Summer DReem
In 2012, Unilevers Surf laundry detergent found itself facing a challenge. Washing detergent is a low-interest category and Surfs competitors were aligning themselves with the biggest event in the calendar the 2012 Olympics. A big idea was needed for Surf to resonate in customers minds.

SOLUTIO

Today, functional differences between detergents are minimal. Personality is the extra dimension that powerfully and intimately connects brands with consumers. This insight led to a tting solution: extending Surf's multi-platform sponsorship of The Only Way is Essex (TOWIE) the show with some of the biggest and most inuential personalities on TV. The entertainment shows reach and the buzz it generates represented an excellent opportunity for Surf to get its key audience listening and buying.

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To deepen and personify the TOWIE/Surf relationship, Unilever extended its TOWIE licence to launch a brand new Surf fragrance called Summer DReem, featuring cast favourite Joey Essex. The launch included: TOWIE branding on Surf packs and

Fresh Out Of Essex was an online miniseries of exclusive content that lived on the ofcial TOWIE website, devised to feed fans constant demand for everything TOWIE. Bumpers on ITV mobile and ITV Player, plus roadblocks on ITV.com consolidated this activity.

Unilever also knew that competitions were key in engaging Surfs target audience, and who would say no to a free, glamorous trip to Marbs in Spain? Certainly not TOWIE fans.!

across in-store design

PLAY VIDEO

Social media-driven discussion

from TOWIEs ercely loyal and active fan base Joey Essex starring in unique viral

video content Fresh Out of Essex Additional Surf digital advertising!to

support the launch

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RESULTS

1 mill ion+ gro Talkab ility 51

ss retail s

ales value non-viewe

Purcha se inte

% (vs. 36% nt 62% (v

across the rs) )

summer

1.3 mi llion Fres h

s. 51% no

tition entr 19.9 m y page (29 illion mon 7% vs. KP t h l y total video I) views onl r e ine during quests an the camp d 18 millio aign n page

61,501 visits t

Out of Es

n-viewers

o the Mar

sex video

bs compe

views acr oss the ye

ar

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OUTCOMES

'Summer DReem' was a very successful branded content marketing campaign with a massive inuence on viewer response. Surfs TOWIE sponsorship awareness grew to 77% (22% above the norm) by the end of the campaign. The campaign was viewed as especially effective in terms of persuasion, with 62% of viewers likely to say it made them think differently about Surf and made them more likely to consider that Surfs image was more positive.
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"Sponsoring TOWIE was a great chance to build brand awareness and demonstrate we are a fun brand with a point of di!erence. The new fragrance launch, aligned with TOWIE, further helped extend the sponsorship into retail, leading to great business results that helped meet our objectives."

Katy Holder, Surf Brand Manager, Unilever

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CASE STUDY

Campaign : Live Test Series: The Epic Split Client : Volvo Trucks Agency : Forsman & Bodenfors

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SOLUTIO

CHALLENGE

Live Test Series: The Epic Split

The trucking industry is a traditional business-to-business environment in which its quite a challenge to introduce a radically new communication approach. In addition, the target group of truck purchasers is scattered and di#cult to reach. There are many inuencers around each buyer, ranging from drivers, family and friends to trade press journalists. Volvo Trucks and their Swedish independent agency partner Forsman & Bodenfors knew that the most obvious way to reach their core target group would be a catch-all broadcast marketing approach. But reaching doesnt equate to connecting, plus there was no allowance for the huge media budget needed to conduct a global advertising campaign to launch their new truck models.

The solution to both the targeting and budgeting challenges was to embrace the new media landscape. Forsman & Bodenfors idea adhered to Volvo Trucks communications strategy in which innovation plays a key role. The agency devised an online marketing campaign using branded video content presented on Volvo Trucks YouTube channel. Called the Live Test Series, the campaign consists of a group of online lms, each showcasing a different new Volvo truck feature being put through its paces in a live test.

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However, this was not going to be any ordinary product review; the live experiments had to test the chosen features in informative, astonishing and entertaining ways, designed to focus on the trucks and catch the attention of the widest possible target audience. The aim of this creative strategy was to generate viral hits and a subsequent wave of (free) media publicity, effectively driving positive word of mouth about the lm content that was relevant to both trucking and non-trucking audiences.
'Pyra

mids

in the

Wild'

PLAY VIDEO

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True to this strategy, the rst ve online lms include one in which two trucks race towards a tunnel while a woman walks across a wire between them and another in which a truck takes part in a bull run. The former lm generated nine million views. The sixth lm in the Live Test Series The Epic Split is an even better example of the power of this strategy, with the added twist of a celebrity participant whose existing fanbase helped drive word of mouth. The starting point for The Epic Split came from talking to Volvos technicians about the lms chosen feature: Volvo Dynamic Steering. This system combines conventional hydraulic powered steering

with an electric motor tted to the trucks steering gear. The electric motor receives 2,000 signals per second from the trucks sensors, allowing for more precise steering and a more relaxed and ergonomically designed experience for truck drivers. To demonstrate this stability and precision, the creative team worked closely with lm director Andreas Nilsson to come up with the idea of a spectacular stunt: actor!Jean-Claude Van Damme slowly performs a split while standing on the side mirrors between two Volvo FM trucks that are driving backwards at 15 miles/25 kms per hour as they move apart!

Filmed in one astounding 76-second take after three days practice at a Spanish aireld, the lm was designed to work on two levels: most viewers are expected to think Wow, Jean-Claude Van Damme, but the core target audience is expected to think Wow, two trucks are able to be driven in reverse like this.

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mo e e r h t t s e r h t n i h t i W ed: v e i h rs) c u a o h t i l 8 p 4 S t rs e h t n i The Epic h t i illion w m 0 1 ( s view + n o i l l i m 70 s e r a h s one + n k o e i l e l i w m n i 8 with d l r o w e h o in t e d i v d e r be u T sha u t o s Y o n M ver o e d a e v i t omo nc. i t ( u a V T d e n h o c wat t and n i r p n i , Most e nlin s) o s e y r l l p a b g o n l i truck ials g r d o t n i a d e e v + i t 0 omo t u a r 20,00 o j a all m d n a s s e r general p from s w a s r e d r t a t tha s i l on+ sh i l a l i , 3 m 1 5 0 nd ng 2 i a d s n e i e r b T a n b ding op Te u T l c s n e i , b s u e T i You gor e t a ent c l l m a e g #6 in s a s g o r n t ac st e n e e h t g i n h o c e h e t b rate e n e g all YouTu o t tend t a h t s o e music vid illion m 6 2 1 ! f lue o a v a i d e dm Earne

S T L U S E R

unch a l s t i f o nths

in

3, 1 0 2 r e b Novem
"The media landscape is changing. We have di!erent media consumption habits today than a couple of years ago. Thats why, starting with the Live Test Series, were investing in this cost-e#cient way of reaching out to millions of people via online branded content marketing."

Anders Vilhelmsson, PR Manager, Volvo Trucks

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OUTCOMES

The Live Test Series has not used any traditional paid media YouTube is its only media channel. The relevance and power of the branded content itself has kickstarted organic distribution, editorial coverage, wider interactions and an upsurge in awareness of the Volvo Trucks brand and product messages, both online and via the Volvo Trucks global dealer network. The Series has already won the Grand Prix award for Branded Content & Entertainment at Eurobest 2013. And, in the ultimate evidence that The Epic Split lm has entered a wider cultural consciousness, it has already inspired a raft of consumer-generated spoof versions, some of which have racked up 50 million views themselves. Volvo Trucks will continue to release more Live Test Series stunt lms, paving the way for future advertising and sales campaigns in local markets.
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CASE STUDY

Campaign : Vs the Northern Lights Client : Sony Agency : DigitasLBi

PLAY VIDEO

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SOLUTIO

CHALLENGE

Xperia Vs The Northern Lights

DigitasLBi developed Xperia Vs, an online branded content programme that aimed to extend the target audiences awareness of the

Sony is a household name when it comes to consumer electronics, however its a challenger brand in the relentlessly competitive smartphone market. In order to be among the top three brands people consider when choosing a phone, its essential to spread the word online. This is where people research ahead of purchase, and where brands earn the right to be viewed as a credible option. Supporting the introduction of the new Sony Xperia Z smartphone, DigitasLBi was tasked with creating an initiative to keep building product awareness post-launch specically online among the curious-minded, technology-loving target audience. The key challenge was to stand out from the existing plethora of online branded content in a way that was true to Sonys philosophy: inspiring wonder and emotional response through technology. And all with minimal paid media support.

new Sony Xperia Z and to encourage them to nd out more about the phone. The initiative consists of a series of online video lms in which ambassadors from the creative industries put features of the new phone to the test in interesting ways. For Xperia Vs the Northern Lights, the rst group of chosen ambassadors members of the bands OK Go and Pyyramids, and the photographer Martien Mulder
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PLAY VIDEO

travelled to northern Sweden to capture the sights and sounds of the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis).
PLAY VIDEO

and th Damian Kulash

e sound of oute

r space'

They used Sony Xperia Z smartphones and tablets to capture their inspiration, and then used the Xperia Z's one-touch connectivity feature to bring their work together, resulting in a four-minute track From Under Other Stars. DigitasLBi also created a series of in-depth, making-of lms demonstrating the process and the technology involved.
PLAY VIDEO

rom 'Making Of (F

Under Other

Stars)'

ar 'Photographer M

tien Mulder on ic

e'

Designed to appeal to the motivations of consumers with an interest in whats new and exciting, along with a love of technology and its possibilities, the full series of lms from the trip was hosted on Sony Mobile's YouTube channel.

'Pyyr

amid

s in t

he W

ild'

PLAY VIDEO

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S T L U S E R
eek o w a n i h t i W #1 m f release: oo e d i v d e r ost sha nd a k o o b e n Fac

"The 'Xperia Vs' series is essentially

t 24 s a l n i r e t Twit UK

K hours - U

a product demonstration on steroids. It's a chance for us to put the device to the test in truly surprising ways,"and see if it survives to tell the story. Tech always forms the backbone to these stories,"and in this instance we put the Xperia in the hands of musicians and photographers and sent them to the Arctic Circle." Their mission? To create a one-ofa-kind audiovisual experience, using only the features of the phone, especially connectivity. A soundtrack to the Northern Lights was born."The result was a stunning, shareable piece of branded content and was supported by an innovation tale that spoke directly to our techcurious audience."
Simon Attwater, Group Creative Director, DigitasLBi
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eo d i v e b u T d You e w e i v - UK t ' s t o n e m m 3 n # i erta t n E ' n i o vide e b u T u o Y ular p o UK p t ' s s o e i m r o 1 g # Cate l l A ' n i o vide e b u T u o Y ular p o p t s o #1 m ths: n o m n e v Within se ws e i v e u q i 00+ un 0 , 0 rs 0 e 5 b i r c s b u nel s n a h c e b ouTu Y y n o S new 1,000

urs o h 4 2 t s in la

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OUTCOMES

With little paid media support, the Sony Xperia Vs Northern Lights online videos spread the message of the new smartphone to a vast new audience. By understanding the audience, creating a strategy that spoke to their interests, and developing branded content that was new and innovative, DigitasLBi produced a campaign that exceeded expectations.

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CASE STUDY

Campaign : Natural Love Client : PepsiCo Lyubimy Agency : Fuse Russia

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SOLUTIO

CHALLENGE

Natural Love
PepsiCos Lyubimy (meaning beloved) is one of the biggest fruit juice brands in Russia. Its marketing activity focuses on the message beloved because its natural, and stories about love lie at the heart of every communication. The most popular content among the brands target market women aged 25-45 with average income are TV shows and series about love. However, these portrayals of love are perceived by the audience to be articial, not real. PepsiCo challenged its agency partner Fuse Russia to nd a way to link Lyubimy juice with unquestionably real, natural love stories.

Fuse Russia decided to bring Natural Love from real life to the TV screen. The agency created a cross-media marketing campaign that used social media to invite people to tell their real-life love stories by writing in to campaign pages on two Russian social networks (vk.com and ok.ru) and on STS TV channels website.

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The 50 stories that received the most likes online were turned into professionally shot video clips. Edited versions then appeared on STS, the biggest family TV channel in Russia, while the full versions were made available to view online. The people who submitted the best three love stories one happy couple and two sad single people won a romantic trip to France.

'Pyra

mids

in the

Wild'

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The ca

mpaign

2,000+

becam

RESULTS

ions 4.6 million active the pre users o vious b n the c iggest ampaig nationa n web l Intern pages 6.5 et cam (twice million p a ign) online views 200 ,000+ likes 3-4 times a bove m online arket a registra verage tion an conver d subs sion in equent dices f actions or

story s

e the ta

ubmiss

lk of Ru

ssia:

Than

l Love an ks to Natura

d STS chan

nel.

Thanks Lyub

imy.

So cute!

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OUTCOMEs

The Natural Love branded content marketing campaign provided cut-through of the Lyubimy brands key message to the target audience, and converted online love into consumer love: the number of people who stated that their most often bought juice brand is Lyubimy rose by 20% during the campaign period.

"We were challenged by PepsiCo to nd a new way to cut through to the Lyubimy core market on TV. We used branded co-created content to give millions of people the ultimate real-life, natural love stories they already craved."

Anton Emov, Managing Director, Fuse Russia

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PLAY VIDEO

CASE STUDY

Campaign : The Beauty Inside Client : Intel & Toshiba Agency : Pereira & O'Dell

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SOLUTIO
Following the success of the 2011 thriller 'The Inside Experience', award-winning agency Pereira & O'Dell was asked to create a second branded content lm for Intel and Toshiba. This lm needed to feature the Toshiba Ultrabook laptop and refresh the 'Intel Inside' branding, introducing both Intel and Toshiba as innovative technology brands to a new generation of 18- to 34-year-old millennial consumers.

CHALLENGE

Pereira & O'Dell realised that all young people go through a journey of self-discovery and use technology as a key tool for this exploration and expression. The agency came up with the idea of co-creating a lm about the universal search for self-knowledge and acceptance, using contemporary Hollywood stars (Topher Grace, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Matthew Gray Gubler) and social media to involve as many people in the target audience as possible. They devised a love story with the intriguing premise that the main character, Alex, wakes up every day
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as a different person on the outside but the same person on the inside and s/he has fallen in love with someone who can never see him/her as the same person. Alex makes a daily video diary of this

Philippines, Canada and Spain. An additional 50+ Alexes were featured on the Facebook timeline.

The nal lm was divided into six weekly episodes and presented on Facebook and YouTube running over an eight-week period.

PLAY VIDEO

experience on a Toshiba Ultrabook that goes everywhere with the character as a vital and natural accessory. The 45-minute lm included gaps for consumer-generated content. Facebook was then used to invite people to audition to be an Alex by submitting their own video diary, putting themselves in Alex's shoes to share the experience. From over 4,000 auditions on Facebook, 26 Alexes were cast in the lm. They included fans from all over the world, including Japan, France, German, Italy,
PLAY VIDEO

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70 million
"Branded content is becoming an increasingly important part of Intel and Toshiba's strategy to reach out to a younger audience. They can see that people enjoy making branded content part of their lives it draws people in naturally with a deeper message they can identify with on an emotional level"
PJ Pereira, Chief Creative O!cer, Pereira & O'Dell

RESULTS
views in e 26 million ight week s social inte ractions val rating

66% and

40% bran d percept ion lift for Toshiba re Intel and spectively among Fa cebook u sers 300% sale s increase
werful...."

97% YouT ube appro

ic and po "This is beautiful, poet - Pamela V

"We are all A lex in one wa y or another, he is all of us and " - Larissa B

r next Thurs "I cant wait fo

day!" - Leah

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OUTCOMES

'The Beauty Inside' was the most-shared branded video during the campaign
period. It won an Emmy for Outstanding New Approach to A Daytime Series, and three Grand Prix awards including one for Branded Content at Cannes Lions 2013. The campaign inspired hundreds of thousands of fans to give and request love advice and discuss their own sense of identity, while celebrating the principle that - with humans and computers alike - it's what's inside that matters most. The campaign also started to create a relationship between the client brands and the audience that will grow over time. In fact, Pereira & O'Dell has already created the next social lm instalment for Intel and Toshiba, a horror story called 'The Power Inside'.

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PLAY VIDEO

CLASSIC CASE STUDY

Campaign : In Search of Real Food Client : Hellmanns Agency : OgilvyEntertainment

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SOLUTIO
Hellmanns Real Mayonnaise was rst made for a mass market in 1913 and is now Americas favourite mayonnaise. Hellmanns asked their agency partner Ogilvy to develop a summer marketing initiative that would explain the products ingredients and range of uses in an attention-grabbing way, and reinforce Hellmanns positioning as the epitome of simple, honest, real food.

CHALLENGE

With the insight that people wanted to say no to over-processed food yet had time, cost and taste considerations when it came to making meals, Ogilvy devised a pioneering marketing initiative called In Search of Real Food. Part of the project involved traditional print and TV advertising that used real people to deliver Hellmanns point of view on food made from natural, simple ingredients that are good for you. In tandem with this strand of the campaign, Ogilvy created a Hellmanns-sponsored In Search of Real Food microsite hosted by media
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partner Yahoo! Food. This creative platform was designed to drive consumer conversations about real food, using interactive branded content, co-created content and a variety of fun community features. In order to draw people in to join the conversation and keep them coming back to the site, Ogilvy created a 12episode branded content web series

presenting celebrity chef Dave Lieberman on a weekly road trip through America in search of real people making real food from the proprietors of a Mexican food cart in SoHo, New York creating a pulled pork taco, to a bighearted ladys regular fundraising Friday Fish Fry in New Orleans. Each episode was split into four three- to four-minute chapters for easy web consumption.
"The challenge with branded content is to maintain the authenticity of the production while maximising the potential for the brand. This show o!ered incredibly rich content, allowing multiple channels for consumer engagement. By teaming with Rock Shrimp Productions and Dave Lieberman as our host, we had

PLAY VIDEO

a ready-made fan base that was looking for the 'real food' point-of-view that Hellmann's as sponsor is all about."

Doug Scott, President, OgilvyEntertainment

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Beyond watching the weekly video content, In Search of Real Food website
"In Search of Real Food was a programming concept that captured the fast changes taking place within the food industry the emphasis on local-grown and real foods as well as the changes within the entertainment industry. Finding new ways to reach consumers using interactivity, this show set a new standard for consumer engagement."

To promote the web series to consumers, Ogilvy used web banners in which excerpts of the show were embedded, TV and print ads, and creative on Hellmanns jar tops. There was also coverage on US TV news channels, inviting people to star in the show by making their own real

visitors could: continue the real food conversation

by reading Daves blog (including his recipes) and posting comments. share their own ideas and recipes

food cookery videos.

on the Real Food group page. ask and/or answer questions using

a Yahoo! widget embedded in the site. look for real food restaurants in

their neighbourhood using a local dining guide widget pre-programmed with real

Bobby Flay, Celebrity chef; Executive Producer, Rock Shrimp Productions

food locations.

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"We've always been about what's simple and real. Whether it's the quality ingredients in our jar or the real experiences people have with others when they share food made with our Mayonnaise. This e!ort leveraged the technology available to have a conversation about that with consumers, o!ering recipe ideas and a point-of-view about food that kept the brand relevant to moms and built a#nity to new and younger users"

Brian Orlando, Senior Brand Manager, Hellmann's

The In Se arch of Re al Food initiative t apped int o c ultural conversat ion and d elivered: $% 1 millio n unique visitors to the camp aign web site $% 5,000 R eal Food communi ty membe rs

RESULTS

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OUTCOMES

This groundbreaking project teamed branded content with traditional advertising, forged an innovative media partnership with Yahoo!, and capitalised on celebrity connections for Hellmanns. Consumers shared and commented on the branded content via YouTube and social media networks, and even created their own real food videos. This activity resulted in the spread of the conversation about real food (and Hellmanns association with it) far beyond the original campaign site. Ultimately, the integrated mix of traditional advertising and branded content enabled Ogilvy to convey positive brand messages about Hellmanns Real Mayonnaise, while provoking a dialogue with consumers about real food.

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By David Waterhouse Global Head of Content and PR at marketing technology platform Unruly

RESEARCH

Stop trying to make your ads go viral

Top tips for social video success
How do I make my ad go viral? Of all the questions, this is the one were asked most often from brands and agencies wanting to promote online video content via social media aka social video marketing. They care about going viral with good reason (aside from ticking the viral video campaign box on their CVs). The number of video shares of branded content has rocketed over the last eight years. In

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2013, the top three ads attracted 11.6 million shares combined almost 50 times more than the top three ads in 2006 (244,395 shares combined). There are now more than 500,000 shares of branded videos online every 24 hours. But what makes people share video content? And what steps can a brand take to improve its chances of attracting more shares? For starters, theres a lot more than to it than featuring cute babies, talking dogs and cats that looks like Shakespeare. We worked extensively with Dr. Karen Nelson-Field, Senior Research Associate at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science, on her latest project. It consists of original research from more than two years of work, ve different data sets including Unrulys own data, around 1000

videos and nine individual studies. The research ndings are presented in the 2013 book Viral Marketing: The Science of Sharing, and they support the development of simple formulae for advertisers to follow when they want to increase their social video marketing success. Here are Unrulys top tips: 1. Stop Chasing Viral Success Focus on Social Video Success It became possible in the early 2000s to track views of online video clips accurately using the video technology itself. These were the days before social media when the only distribution channels were email and a handful of specialist humour websites. Very early brand-created viral video hits include John Wests Grizzly Bear, Budweisers Whassup and XBOXs Champagne an ad that was banned on TV in the UK and

went on to win a Gold Lion at Cannes in 2002. Slowly more advertisers started releasing branded video content online in the elusive search for consumer-driven, exponentially increasing views. Further boosted by the advent of social media such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, this practice is now rmly part of mainstream marketing.

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However, uploading a branded video that you think is funny, without any paid distribution, in the hope of it attracting cartloads of earned (free) media, is the strategic equivalent of shoving your hand in a haystack and expecting to pull out a needle. Just as technology and social media have evolved, so too has online video. These days, the word viral is simply unhelpful. It suggests something that is random, untargeted and out of control. Videos that go viral are the exception, not the rule, and thats why seeking viral success is a terrible tactic to focus on for your brand. Instead, advertisers should focus on a marketing strategy thats predictable, repeatable and measurable: social video. Open your company wish list and replace make a viral video with create and distribute highly shareable content, repeatedly and at scale.

What exactly is social video? According to the Internet Advertising Bureau, its a non-interruptive, userinitiated video format sold on a cost-perengagement basis. In other words, its the perfect union of online video and social media content plus conversation. Theres no need to force people to sit through a badly edited TV commercial for toilet cleaner before they watch the thing they really want to watch. As weve seen with recent campaigns by Dove and Volvo Trucks, the social video ad is the star! People choose to watch it. Viewers have total control of the viewing experience, including the ability to comment, share, re-post, pause and replay. After all, everyone likes to be the one holding the remote. Social video is fundamentally changing the rules of advertising. Long gone are the Mad Men days when all an advertiser needed to do was buy the airtime, create

the spot, blast it out to a captive audience, and raise a glass of Scotch for a job well done. Today consumers pick and choose what they watch with a ckle ick of their DVR remote. So rather than releasing a video and keeping your ngers crossed that it will go viral, try focusing on optimising the 'shareability' of your video content and distribution strategy. 2. Make it emotional Marketers hoping to attract signicant earned media should think less about creative appeal and more about emotional appeal. Videos that elicit strong emotions positive or negative from an audience are twice as likely to be shared as those that elicit a weak emotional response. Viral Marketing: The Science of Sharing explains that professional video creators may be aiming to create hilarious, exhilarating and inspiring material,
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however the vast majority are falling short. In fact, 70% of all commercial videos provoke only low-arousal emotional reactions. 3. Be positive Video content that draws a strong, positive emotional response is 30% more likely to be shared than content that elicits strong negative emotions. Strong negative emotions, such as anger or shock, can prompt viewers to share your content, but you risk alienating your consumers. Focussing on positive emotions!is a much safer bet.! 4. Feature personal triumphs Its a myth that featuring a cute cat will make your video go viral. Such creative devices are ineffective, unless your content also elicits strong emotions from its audience.

However, there are some underused creative devices that are more likely to attract large amounts of sharing. One is personal triumph, as used for example in P&Gs 'Best Job' from the 2012 Olympics. 5. Big up your brand Using poorly branded advertising is like throwing away your marketing budget.! According to Dr. Nelson-Fields research, theres no relationship between how much sharing across social media a video achieves and the level of branding it uses. Nor does overt branding reduce a videos emotional impact. So when you consider that the average social video has one third of the branding of the average TV commercial, theres a huge opportunity for marketers to promote their brands via social video marketing.

6. Exhilaration can make a lasting impression Eliciting a strong, positive emotional reaction!will not only boost your contents shareability, but also help your audience to remember you often for years to come. Which positive emotion is most likely to cut through the clutter and help viewers recall your message? At the individual emotion level, exhilaration is the most successful, followed by hilarity.!However, exhilaration is an emotion that has been largely ignored as a creative hook by brands over the years, as bemoaned by Dr. Nelson-Field. In 2013, that started to change. We saw more examples of brands, such as GoPro, Ford, Red Bull and Volvo Trucks, embracing exhilaration and using it as the main focus of their video campaigns.

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This highlights the importance of brands making shareable content for a reason. Its not just about racking up a huge number of views among potential customers. Its about being remembered, favoured and bought in the process. Throughout 2014, the trend of eliciting top-performing emotional reactions in social video content will only get stronger as the worlds gaze falls upon Brazil for the FIFA World Cup. When we trained Unrulys algorithmic tool to predict viral success in the Brazilian market, we discovered that exhilaration was the most effective emotional trigger in the Latin American country more effective than humour which is the most popular emotional sharing trigger in the US and UK. 7. Dont under-invest"in distribution"and over-invest"in creativity Its all very well being the best violinist in the world, but if youre playing in your bathroom, no one will hear you.

The same goes with creating video content. Even if you have the most shareable video in the world, if you start with a small viewer base, the total shares and views will typically be small.! Investing in seeding your campaign across a variety of platforms will make it easier to deliver good sharing metrics over a shorter period of time. 8. Quality reach is key Reach is important, but it needs to be quality reach in order to maintain and increase your video views and shares.! Theres no point in simply placing your videos on!your companys Facebook or Twitter proles youre already preaching to the converted. Besides, Facebook and Twitter brand proles are inefcient at providing vast reach to consumers. To build the market share of your brand, reach out to light and medium buyers outside of your own social media channels.

Find out all about Unruly and their global social video testing, distribution, sharing and analytics services. Watch this video of Dr. Karen NelsonField discussing key ndings from Viral Marketing: The Science of Sharing.

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RESEARCH

By Bjoern Asmussen, Andrew Canter, Andrew Butler and Dr. Nicolette Michels

Towards the future of branded content

Dening Branded Content for the Digital Age, Findings of the Research Project, Phase One
Overview Little research has been conducted to date in the area of branded content, in spite of the rising use of this key marketing concept, and the estimated US $4bn value of the branded content market. As part of the Branded Content Marketing Associations (BCMAs) strategy to establish academic understanding as well as champion best practice and share learning, it has commissioned a study entitled Dening Branded Content for the Digital Age. Conducted by Oxford Brookes University and the BCMAs global research partner Ipsos MORI, this study has two main purposes: 1. Identify and understand the

different conceptualisations people use when talking about branded content 2. Develop a denition that helps to

clarify the concept for a broad range of stakeholders and therefore supports the progress of branded content marketing practice

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The rst phase of the study a literature

Bjoern Asmussen, Senior Lecturer in Marketing, Oxford Brookes University Business School Bjoern leads the Branded Content Research Team at Oxford Brookes University, which includes Andrew Butler and Dr. Nicolette Michels.

choice when it comes to what they want to read, watch, or listen to. The best way for an organisation to get through to its target audience and receive positive attention in this challenging environment is therefore by creating great content. How? The study revealed four key strategies that organisations use to produce successful branded content: the content is either entertaining, informative, educational, or something that serves a function (e.g. the branded content could be an app that the target audience can

review of practitioner and academic publications has resulted in the development of a new denition of branded content and the uncovering of emerging themes that will help organisations to harness the power of branded content. These initial ndings are presented in this chapter.

RESEARCH TEAM

Sarah Gale, Senior Director, Ipsos MORI, Media, Content and Technology Division

Why does branded content matter?

Organisations creating branded content is nothing new, however the advancement of technology, particularly the evolution of social media, has made the process of content creation and dissemination much easier even for end-consumers. Likewise, the consumption of branded content has changed dramatically and

Were delighted with the rst phase of the results. One of the other elements of the study is that weve developed a new methodology for brands to plan e!ectively for branded content, using it as a core part of their marketing strategy.
Andrew Canter, CEO, BCMA

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continues to do so. Today, consumers have an unprecedented freedom of

Content, in all its shapes and forms, is core to everything we do as marketers.

Econsultancy, 2013
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The future of the marketing department is half marketing and half publishing.
Joe Palazzo, Founder, Content Marketing Institute, 2012

download to make their life easier). The research also showed that these content strategies can be combined. The initial ndings of the study indicate so far that organisations are using branded content mainly to meet two objectives: to create a positive brand meaning or image, and to engage with certain stakeholders. So its not predominantly about a quick win with a campaign or promotion its more about

developing deeper engagement and long-term relationships. The BCMA and Ipsos MORI have noticed an increasing emphasis on the use of branded content among marketers, with many major organisations integrating it now as a core element in their marketing strategies. This observation is supported by a survey conducted by Econsultancy in which 39% of digital marketing professionals nominated content

marketing as one of their top priorities in 2013. We now live in a world in which virtually every digitally literate individual can become a branded content creator and distributor on an unprecedented scale, and this is a considerable paradigm shift, not only for marketers and their organisations but also for media companies.

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How are people talking about and using branded content?

The term content seems a bit of a broad stroke owing to its multi-dimensional nature.
Amar Trivedi, Social Media Strategist, 2012

The concept of branded content is fundamentally awed.

David Martin, Forbes, 2011

There is a signicant amount of confusion and controversy out there around what content is, what it does and how to use it.
Robin Thornton, Shaman Marketing, 2013

Content is such a broad and fuzzy term that it tends to make any discussion of it broad and fuzzy as well.
Cindy Gallop, If We Ran The World, 2013
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Branded content comes in numerous different forms, such as native advertising, branded entertainment, advertiser funded programming, viral videos, and many more. It is therefore no surprise that the term branded content means different things to different people, leading to misunderstandings and confusion. The rst phase of the study has concluded so far that people talk about branded content in ve different ways. These are categorised as: 1) The Traditional Trademark Owner (TMO) Perspective This perspective was originally developed in the pre-digital age when branded content was usually controlled by the trademark owner of the brand, who nanced the production of the content. Since it was the pre-digital age, the content was most likely to be

communicated via traditional media channels, such as TV, radio and print. For example, in the 1950s and 1960s, companies such as Procter & Gamble not only sponsored soap operas, but also paid for the entire production of TV shows, aiming to create some positive brand associations in the target audiences mind. This perspective, where the trademark owner of the brand is in control of the created content, is still used nowadays. Some organisations produce and distribute branded content without the help of sophisticated digital media technologies. For example, in 2013 McDonalds produced millions of books in the UK to replace the toys that accompanied its Happy Meals for children. In terms of volume, McDonalds has subsequently become one of the UKs leading book publishers and distributors, while the branded content activity aims to add educational values to its brand image.

2) The Digital TMO Perspective This second perspective refers to branded content initiated by the trademark owner of the brand and distributed on digital channels. The trademark owning organisation behind the brand is initially in control of the digital channel and the content they choose to publish or broadcast, however it is not in control of what happens to the content after release for example, the amount of views online, or viewer comments that are made about a branded content video and published on the YouTube website.

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One business-to-business example of this kind of digital branded content is from Corning, a US industrial glass manufacturer. The company produced a corporate communications video that has red the imaginations of people from all walks of life, well outside their core target audience, generating over 23 million views of the original version alone. This is just one example that shows that branded content can be useful not only for business-to-consumer lifestyle marketing, but also in bringing seemingly dull information to life. 3) The Integrated TMO Perspective According to the rst stage of the study ndings, the most popular perspective when it comes to branded content among practitioners in the marketing industry appears to be the integrative use of traditional, non-digital channels with digital channels for the dissemination of branded content.

This content is usually initiated (and funded) by the brands trademark owner, however the owners level of control over the content varies. If you pay for the production of a TV show, for example, you can assume that you will basically be in control of everything within it. But if you send a tweet, you have hardly any control over how people will retweet that content they can put a new spin on it, place it in a different context and even sabotage your message completely. 4) The Stakeholder Perspective This new branded content perspective that has emerged in the digital age is one that many marketers and organisations have ignored so far. It describes branded content that is initiated (and in some cases even funded) by someone who doesnt work for or with the trademark owner of the brand it doesnt have to be a consumer, it could be a competitor, a pressure group, or any other external stakeholder. An example of this kind of branded content is the memorial video A BMW Motorcycle Story by Bill Costello. It tells the story of Bill painstakingly restoring his dead fathers classic motorcycle. Bill posted his video onto YouTube and it has generated over half a million views. BMW had no control over and nothing to do with this content, but it still created positive brand associations and has become a cult video among many motorcycle fans. Of course, any stakeholder can also create content that generates negative perceptions of a brand. Greenpeace, for example, is renowned for creating
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content that doesnt portray brands in a positive light. Another example of consumer-generated, negative branded content is the 2009 music video and song by Dave Carroll in protest at United Airlines customer service. United breaks guitars generated about 3 million views on YouTube within one week, United Airlines share value dipped reportedly about 10% (equating to US$180million) and there was substantial reputational damage to the brand after the story was reported across US news channels. Even experienced crisis communications professionals can do little to control negative branded content in the digital age, as BP found out. After the explosion and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, somebody created a fake BP PR Twitter account that attracted three times as many followers as the ofcial BP America account.

This loss of control over branded content is an aspect of social media that organisations have to learn to live with. It supports the need for organisations to instil good practices, good customer service and communications across their entire business. 5) The All-Encompassing Perspective The studys literature review points to the idea that concentrating on what an organisation can control in terms of branded content is not good enough any more in the digital and social media age. The ndings therefore expound a fth perspective on branded content that aims to enable people to understand it in its entirety: the all-encompassing viewpoint that combines both the TMOcontrolled traditional and TMO-initiated digital aspects, as well as external stakeholders contributing to the creation and dissemination of branded content.

Forming a single, comprehensive denition of branded content

Phase One of the study has encapsulated the initial ndings about how people talk about branded content, resulting in the development of a preliminary, allencompassing denition of branded content: Branded content is any content that can be associated with a brand in the eye of the beholder. Note the intentionally subjective element of this denition. You might see a video on YouTube and think, This has nothing to do with my brand. But if, for instance, a few thousand people associate it, for whatever reason, with your company then you have some stakeholder content affecting your organisations brand, positively or negatively, whether or not you realise it. Hence branded content is any content that can be associated with a brand in the eye of the beholder.
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During the next phase of the study, which involves expert interviews, this holistic denition will be further examined and, depending on the outcome, changed or rened with the aim to determine how branded content should be conceptualised in the digital age.

for a longer-term effect, not just for a short-term campaign. If you have, for example, some product innovation advantage, your competitors can often copy it very quickly. However, if you create powerful content and meanings that are very close to your brand, you have the opportunity to drive sustainable brand differentiation. 2. There are many more controllers of branded content in the digital age New technologies and media have opened up widely the creation and dissemination of branded content to allcomers consumers, competitors, pressure groups, and many others not just to the trademark owner of the brand. 3. Consumer power over branded content is growing Interruptive marketing with no perceived value is increasingly ignored or avoided by consumers.

4. Organisations need to transform the way they communicate There is an art to creating a sustainable brand narrative and connecting it with the right audience(s) in the right place at the right time. 5. Organisations need to be better organised and coordinated To be able to implement your branded content strategy successfully, you need resources, processes, structures and coherence across all channels, which is particularly challenging in an international or even global context. These insights can be used to develop branded content strategies as part of a methodology to harness the power of branded content. Phase Two of the study is under way and its ndings will be published in late 2014.
Further details of the study as it progresses can be found here.

Additional insight into emerging branded content trends

Besides the studys ndings of how people talk about branded content and the proposal of a new denition of branded content, ve key insights about emerging trends in branded content have been revealed: 1. Branded content can build sustainable brand di#erentiation The creation of great branded content can be difcult and challenging, but its worthwhile because it enables organisations to differentiate themselves

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By Anton Emov Head of BCMA Russia and Managing Director of Fuse Russia

FUSE RUSSIA

mARKET REPORT

Russia
When looking at emerging trends and insights into branded content marketing in Russia, we need to remember that advertising in Russia is relatively young. The very rst TV ads, from multi-national FMCG giants, were aired in 1989. Nevertheless, during the past 25 years the Russian advertising market has became relatively mature, very fragmented (there are hundreds of media owners) and one of the most cluttered in Europe. This maturity and saturation helps explain why the number of people who like and trust traditional advertising has started to decline year on year, according to TNS MIndex annual study.
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Meanwhile, Russia is fertile ground for new communication technologies: 93% of Russians own a mobile

phone (30% smartphone) 85% (52 million) have a social

network account, the 5th highest gure in the world. The top Russian social network is VKontakte, the European leader by average monthly time-spend more than 7 hours per user 35% of Russians are exposed to a Humour generally has a special place in the life and culture of Russians. 81% of the population considers a sense of humour as one of the most important character traits. Not surprisingly then, the most popular TV content format (with a 62% rating) is humour. Domestic comedy shows dominate, the most popular being KVN now more than 50 years old and the de facto proving ground for budding comedians before they move on to the increasingly popular new stand-up shows. The second most popular (53%) content format, talent, is led by a locally adapted version of The Voice. Then comes DIY (47%), including programmes about cooking, house repairs and beauty/ grooming that are mostly adapted from international franchises. Finally, we have TV games content (40%) among which

second screen i.e. actively use PC and/ or smartphone while watching TV 51% of Russians prefer spending

leisure time on a PC, rather than watching TV Whereas Russians are open to new technologies, their preferred content formats are well established. These consist of both local and international material.

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the most popular shows are local quiz What?Where?When? and international franchises Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and Wheel of Fortune. Notably, the Russian hosts of all these shows are strong opinion leaders and are heavily featured by advertisers in marketing initiatives. While humorous content is perennially popular, its experiencing a boom nowadays thanks to the rise of stand-up comedy programmes and the new pseudo-reality shows series featuring the ordinary daily lives of extraordinary people, which are shot on amateur cameras.

There has also been considerable public interest in sport-related content recently. In particular, feature movies and series about sports people (both up-andcoming and legendary) have generated great interest among Russian audiences. This could be explained by a general national sports boom, thanks to numerous world-class sporting events being hosted in Russia Universiada 2013, Sochi 2014 Olympic Games, FIFA World Cup 2018 and others. Another notable factor inuencing Russias branded content marketing activity is the very close association between leading TV channels and production houses, something thats seldom found in other countries. For example, the majority of content on the biggest Russian TV channel, Pervy, is shot by Red Square production house; TNT channel (the major entertainment network for young adults) by Comedy

Club Production; STS (the leading family entertainment channel) by Yellow, Black and White production house. This partnership between TV channels and production houses provides a very wide scope of opportunities for integrated branded content marketing initiatives, created by content professionals in a seamless and engaging way for audiences. TV programme sponsors, predominantly FMCG and mobile communications companies, are most active in exploiting these branded content marketing opportunities. For example, Syoss hair care brand provided professional stylists on The Voice and presented extra content features, such as contestants experiencing the brands products, to achieve deep brand integration in a recent branded content marketing campaign.

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In another instance, Russias leading telecommunications group MTS has previously aligned itself with the What? Where?When? quiz show and KVN comedy programme, as well as broadcasting its own programme, The Game, which was closely tied in with live MTS marketing activity as it aired. A more multifaceted example of a recent successful Russian branded content marketing campaign is that of Baltika #3 beer. The brand wanted to be strongly associated with football, gain mass coverage, yet stay within new advertising regulations under which beer is not allowed to be integrated into sports competitions, nor advertised on TV before 11pm. With the insight that beer consumption related to football also takes place away from matches, when discussing them with friends, the Baltika #3 campaign featured several strands of activation:

A Baltika #3 branded 3 news about

The top three news items were

football scoring tool within the Football night programme on major TV channel NTV, where experts discuss the main football news. Similar rubrics on top football

selected by audience votes then became discussion topics on TV and fed into the content creation for Baltika #3 ads online and on TV. This legally compliant, cross-media, integrated branded content marketing campaign rmly associated Baltika #3 with football and resulted in a 10% increase in sales, a 20% increase in loyal customers and a 4 point increase in market share.

websites, where fans discuss the main football news with each other and with experts in chat forums.

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3.

Industry partnerships through which

both content producers and media agencies can enrich their expertise in integrated branded content marketing campaigns, and provide advertisers and TV audiences with engaging new solutions including cross-media ones that may comprise content on TV, Internet, radio, in-store and other communication channels. 4. Finally, the rst robust research

studies analysing the efciency of In summation, the use of branded content marketing in Russia is growing and there are several major factors contributing to this growth: 1. A negative attitude to traditional branded content marketing communication channels have recently been completed. Please contact Fuse Russia to request a copy of their latest branded content marketing information for the Russian market.

interruptive advertising thats worsening year on year. 2. A fertile market for personal

communication technologies and social media.

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By Patrcia Weiss Chairman & Founder BCMA South America; CSO, Wanted Agency; SVP Strategic Consultant!for Branded Content, Branded Entertainment & Transmedia Storytelling Asas da Imaginao

mARKET REPORT

Brazil
At this point in time, Brazil is in hypermediatic mode, driven by an overabundance of information, images, platforms, excessive brand offerings, a huge variety of products, screens, restaurants, music, movies and facts that can be found anywhere in the world at any time. Never before have consumers had so much on tap, combined with the will to choose and consume whatever interests them, as often as they like, anywhere they want. And of course, sharing this content and letting the world know about it.
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A transformation in content creation and distribution

"Both are rare gems in Brazil: great quality content and companies that have mastered branding. And usually, when both of them meet, there isn't enough money on the table to get this e"ort in front of a massive audience."%

"50 years ago, South American households had access to only two TV channels, with only one TV programme produced by a major player, so advertisers promoted their products without any problem.

Fast forward to the '80s and there were 65 TV channels, AM radio gave way to FM, the production of content remained in the hands of the major players, but there was so much content to produce that independent producers such as Endemol and Fremantle started to emerge.

Nowadays, this story is being written all over again. Since the arrival of the digital era, entertainment content has multiplied a thousandfold on the web, tablets, phones and smart TV. The big question is: where will the money come from to produce so much content? Advertisers."%
Domnico Massareto, Chief Creative Ofcer, Agency ID/TBWA Brazil Rodrigo Figueroa Reyes, Founder & CEO, FiRe Advertainment, Argentina
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Brazilian consumers are profoundly changing the way they relate to media and content. They are now co-authors and can produce their own content singlehandedly within a model of participatory culture. They are in a hurry and want to know about everything on the spot, live, interacting, and in real time. The audience in Brazil is directly involved in the circulation of content, at the same time as the reality of the broadcast system and the centralised media (distribution of content) still reigns in the country. This means that the stickiness logic still dominates, facing the powerful rise of a spreadability logic model. The largest share of media spending in Brazil is dedicated to traditional advertising media based on impact, especially for TV and the Internet. But on the other hand, we are living intensely in the Social Conversation Era where the circulation of media content is also a big reality.

Brazil in the social era

%$ %$ %$ $ %$ $ %$ %$ $ %$ $ $ %$ $ $ %$ $ $ Population: 190.7 million Internet users: 105 million Internet coverage: c.20 million more domestic users were connected in the past two years, reaching a total of 76.62 million in 2013 a 32% rise. Mobile connection: 56% use Internet via smartphones and tablets; 52 million people access the web via mobile phones. Brazil has 142.7million mobile phone users c.71% of the total population. Second screen: almost 7 in 10 Brazilians use TV and smartphones at the same time (Ipsos research for Google Brazil, August 2013). 63 million Brazilians use at least two screens daily (TV + computer); 30 million use three screens (TV + computer + smartphone). For 75% of users, the main smartphone feature used is to access social media. Social media: Facebook Brazil has 76 million users. Brazilians use Facebook more often than Indians, making Brazil the second country in the world in daily access, only behind the USA. Brazil has the second largest teenage population on Facebook: 12.2 million $ users aged 13-17 years old. But they are seeking agility and private $ $ conversations, so migrating to apps such as Whatsapp and Snapchat.

Sources: IBGE, Ibope.

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New media coexist with traditional media in Brazil. In such a dispersive environment, the audience is looking for ideas and content thats entertaining and effective in engaging their minds. If the content is not relevant, shareable and appealing enough, it isnt spread in nonlinear conversation. Worldwide, we are experiencing a fundamental transformation from an intrusion-based marketing model economy into an invitation-based model.

not necessarily also mean engagement. This profound change is evident and challenging to marketers. The most viewed online ad campaign in the world in 2013, Dove Real Beauty Sketches, was created by Ogilvy Brazil. Its fundamentally a powerful creative idea that united consumer insight with the brand truth. A story was created to connect with people and to be shared. So, a fact is more likely to be remembered if its anchored in a story. And stories should be greater than products. Anywhere. Brazilian audiences are denitely hungry for more stories. More ction and less reality. More entertainment and less interruption. And more reality shows and live programmes that enable their full participation and interactivity. (Yes, Event TV is a trend, too). A country with a tradition and passion for soap operas has enough space in its

heart to become a fan of both international and Brazilian series. The number of productions is increasing by the minute. Shows are being produced by independent national production companies that already work in advertising, on feature and short lms, reality shows, documentaries, web series, etc. for example, O2 Films, BossaNovaFilms, Zeppelin, Mixer, Conspirao, Sentimental, Hungry Man and more. These production companies are well placed to meet the demand for content coming from major advertising agencies, including digital content agency LiveAD (for example Nike SP-Rio awarded in the Branded Content category at Cannes 2012 and Mil Casmurros for Globo TV), as well as specialist branded content agencies such as New Content (Battle of the DJs Skyy vodka), Mutato/JWT and others.

The importance of brand storytelling

While the narratives of the contemporary world are collapsing, storytelling is becoming increasingly essential. The traditional business model of advertising in Brazil, and TV commercials that still present the brand as the protagonist or hero to push products to the consumer (except the ones that do entertain), will suffer a collapse, because impact does

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The development of Brazils branded content market

"Only a few companies in Brazil understand how much content can be positive for their brands in order to make their relationships stronger with the consumer. Providing information like recipes or tips for mums is not enough. It does not build a di"erentiated conversation with the consumer. Companies need to nd other ways to talk with their clients, maybe through documentaries, video games, etc. Thus, there is a lot of work to do."%
Andr Pedroso, Creative Director, Publicis Red Lion

"Latin America has a huge potential for branded content. First and foremost it has to do with vocation. Latinos are social and have always loved to share with others. In the last few decades, there has been signicant economic development that is still in progress. This has enabled people to have computers and mobile phones, which has driven lots of content development, sharing and co-creation. Latinos are early adopters in technology they are always mirroring the United States as their model. It is not by chance that the most developed country in

"Branded content will only become a protagonist in Brazil when the market realises that TV, web and mobile devices talk to and complement each other, and that the di"erence between them comes down to the screen size. Strengthening the value of a brand through content produced by it not about it is one of the most e#cient strategies for e"ective communication with consumers."%
Daniel Bacchieri, Head of Content Development, Zeppelin Films

terms of social media is Brazil. People in the region are very active in creating stories and talking to each other. Brands that best understand this behavior will prot more from the conversations that are already happening in various channels. The biggest challenge in LatAm in general is developing the infrastructure to enable people to connect and share. Once this issue is xed, there will be an exponential growth in stories and as a result a lot of great content."%
Claudia Colaferro, President, Latin America, Dentsu Aegis Network

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Brazil has arrived at an intersection of its marketing, entertainment and advertising industries, and is currently experiencing something exciting: a revolution thats breaking the traditional mindset and heading towards the inevitable convergence of the advertising and entertainment industries, regardless of formats and platforms. Increasingly, organisations are recognising the predominance of branded content and storytelling, and placing it at the heart of their brand strategies. In tandem with this migration, the production of content is growing in Brazil. In some cases, its growing intuitively, but mostly, its growing because of the demand for videos aiming to reach consumers in social networks and on YouTube. This represents the antiquated expectations of marketers who still focus on higher rates of likes, views and volume, showing that we are still in a transitional stage where the mindset of

buying traditional media remains focused on impact, rather than on creating conversations and relationships with consumers based around brand stories. However, branded content is slowly breaking the barriers of TV and taking over the Internet, which naturally enables its distribution. The strong trend to embrace visual conversation caused by Vine, Instagram and then Facebook and Twitter triggered a greater focus of the advertising market on developing social strategies that include images and mainly video production to involve and engage consumers, provoking the sharing of content. The production of entertainment content for cable TV has also grown considerably in Brazil since Audiovisual Law 12.485 came into force in 2011. This law requires more hours of independent and national content to be exhibited in the TV channels prime time periods, which will

contribute to the development of the culture of the Brazilian entertainment industry. And nally, marketers in Brazil are demanding more metrics, results measurement tools and engagement. They express a greater concern about bringing together content strategy and content marketing, resulting in the development of better capabilities and experience for planning holistic branded content marketing initiatives. For example, the publishing group Abril has created a platform dedicated to content marketing for two magazines, Exame and Info, and its already producing, with successful results, native advertising projects for brands such as Dell, GE and IBM.

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Challenge
Exame was asked to associate HSBC Commercial Banking with relevant content about international trade aimed at a select audience of executives. HSBC asked for a special ad format within the magazine index (very unusual for a Brazilian magazine).

Results
This 2013 project generated a 2014 renewal with a larger investment. Many other advertisers are now interested in using the index footer space. Advertorial recall research among readers achieved: - 80% stimulated recall rate - 69% of readers consider the HSBC advertising easy to understand - The information is interesting for 64% of them - 82% agree "content matches the magazine - 77% agree "It is an advertisement that provides useful information - 60% agree it "generates more sympathy for the brand that is advertising"

Solution
A bespoke advertorial page with premium content about the global economy and international business was created and

CASE STUDY

Exame + HSBC Commercial Banking

appeared fortnightly in the printed magazine. An exclusive space for HSBC was also created in the index footer.

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Challenge
Info was asked to show consumers how the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor is important for mobile device performance.

Results
- 1.3 million page views of Mundo Mobile from March to August 2013 Research among magazine readers who saw the infographics revealed: - 73% will pay more attention to the brand of the processor when buying a new smartphone - The infographic ad format contributed to the positive perception of this branded content (85% found it to be more attractive than an ordinary report)

Solution
A custom channel called Mundo Mobile was created and placed on the INFO website. Its content consisted of editorial news about smartphones and technology, as well as infographics and advertorials highlighting the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor quality. The

CASE STUDY

Info + Qualcomm Snapdragon

infographics were also published inside INFOs printed magazine in July 2013 to explain how the processor works in a simple, graphic way.

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The future of branded content marketing in Brazil

I believe that 2014 will be the turning point year for the Brazilian market, driving forward the evolution of the use of branded content by organisations as an essential strategic tool, instead of simply a campaign tactic to captivate, involve and engage consumers that, as humans, are eager for stories. Anything and everything can happen in the year of the FIFA World Cup in Brazil. Brands will increase their investments, primarily in media and social initiatives, maximising the capitalisation of this moment and their sponsorships. And the outlook is also quite optimistic in leveraging business for the second screen to meet the potential of the market. We will experience the increase of social campaigns involving many kinds of public participation via social media and with a strong engagement angle. The discussion about a less intrusive, more consumer-relevant marketing approach is growing in Brazil. This will result in marketing communications with less impact but greater audience involvement and conversation, where the brands message ows within, not just around, the content, and brands aim to become accomplished storytellers.

"What I have been predicting for years in the eld of branded content is happening today: brands have started investing in producing their own content and are already part of the entertainment industry. This activity goes far beyond being in the plot of a story; it's about a million-dollar business that will open the door to a brand's assets: proprietary products, licenses, property rights to make money with its own advertising. In short, the paradigm shift in this business is that advertising is no longer an expenditure, but an investment."%

Rodrigo Figueroa Reyes, Founder & CEO, FiRe Advertainment, Argentina

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The Future of Branded Content Marketing

by Justin Kirby VP, Strategic Content Marketing

Expert Predictions Report

Plus a Change, Plus C'est La Mme Chose

The more things change, the more they remain the same

Tenthwave

Last year, I asked a number of experts to help me with some crystal ball gazing that resulted in the Expert Predictions chapter of the rst edition of the Best of Branded Content Marketing ebook. This year I asked a far broader group of marketing practitioners from around the world what they expect to see change in the next ve years, and what they expect will remain the same. The question was prompted by comments made by the

analyst, author and founder of Altimeter Group, Charlene Li, whod pointed out that despite the many different sites, technologies and business models we have today, the fundamentals of marketing have remained the same as have the challenges. The question brought a seven-fold increase in response with a mixture of description, prescription and prediction. Because the term content straddles so
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many marketing and other disciplines, the responses highlighted the need for a shared lexicon which we hope the industry can move towards. The!recently BCMA commissioned research undertaken by Oxford Brookes University, in partnership with Ipsos MORI, which has resulting in the following overarching denition of branded content:

Whom, Where and When. Theres also the important question of How any success might be measured. We hope what follows, and the case studies, will start to address some of these issues. No-one has all of the

answers yet, but we also hope the responses and points raised will also provide a frame of reference for marketers to better navigate a path through the many challenges ahead.

"Branded content is any content associated with a brand in the eye of the beholder
This is helpful rst step by describing what branded content is generically, but it doesnt explain the Why (in what is the marketing problem it attempts to solve?), nor What the branded content specics might be for the different variations of
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REPORT INDEX AND SUMMARY

THE YIN YANG OF BRANDED CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGIC CONSIDERATIONS

WHAT WILL CHANGE

Branded Content At The Heart Of Every Marketing Strategy New (Open And Collaborative) Agency Models Will Emerge But New Skill Sets Will Be Required The Rise And Rise Of Storytelling More Platforms, Devices And Personalisation Measurement, Analytics And The Rise Of Empathetic/Emotional Marketing

WHAT WONT CHANGE ABOUT THE REPORT

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PLAY AUDIO

SECTION 1
Talking about branded content and content marketing, I think its all about one word that connects both, and thats the word content.

The Yin Yang of Branded Content Marketing

Jan Godsk of ideatakeway and Chairman, BCMA Scandinavia, believes that branded content and content marketing may be two different categories. He uses the term branded content marketing as we have done with the title of this ebook to point out that it has brand on one side, marketing on the other, and content in the middle.

Jan Godsk! Chairman ! BCMA Scandinavia

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Content Marketing
On the marketing side, Jan proposes we think about this as being based around the product/service USP, with the content being more rational and informative. Content marketing campaigns are often conducted downstream in what McKinsey & Company call the customer decision journey, with ROI more focused on lead-generation and sales. Looking at content marketing in this way helps explain why some prefer the term brand publishing, why it is often used within a B2B context, its close connection to Search Engine Optimisation, and the formats most commonly used: Blogs E-newsletters Case studies Press releases ebooks White papers Infographics Webinars Podcasts
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Branded Content
On the brand side, Jan suggests we think of this as being more irrational and focused around our impressions, such as whether we like a brand or share their values. Branded content campaigns are more likely to be conducted upstream as part of an engagement approach rather than to just drive awareness in the traditional AIDA funnel. The term is often

associated with longer-form video-based output from more creative advertising disciplines where audiences are engaged with entertainment-type content that resonates emotionally. This helps shift brand preferences and consumer behaviours. In theory, the less USPfocused you become, the more your branded content will emotionally involve people.

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And Branded Entertainment?

The term branded entertainment is used by some to describe branded content marketing campaigns where the product is more integrated into the content. Thats why the term is often used in connection with formats such as advertiser funded programming (AFP) that use more traditional media like TV, radio and even lm and often overlap with product placement and sponsorship. This type of approach is evolving as we have showcased with the!Summer DReem case study!where Unilevers Surf brand borrowed the attributes from ITVs The only way is Essex (TOWIE) TV show to extend their association with it by

creating exclusive, engaging and entertaining content.

Branded Content And Content Marketing: Two Sides Of The Same Content Coin
The Yin Yang image is a simple way of illustrating that the two approaches are two sides of the same coin, but seemingly based on different intent that shapes the output, engagement and distribution approaches. As Mark Welland explains, it also shows how other disciplines can be accommodated as part of the mix.
In the future, Im sure, as within most disciplines, branded content marketing will begin to fracture and divide into more specialist areas. New platforms and ways of engaging will drive the process on the back of services that users wish to be a part of. This will need new language to describe the areas and will hopefully lead to better ways of describing the broader discipline.
Mark Welland! Founder! New Media Works

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SECTION 2
I often hear the cry We need a social media strategy when what is really needed rst is a customer engagement strategy based on content.
Dave Cha#ey CEO

Strategic Considerations
Some of the response from experts focused less on the future, and more on the strategic considerations that brands need to be thinking about with regard to branded content marketing. Weve grouped these in themes to provide a context for the predictions in the following sections.

Smart Insights

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The 3 Circles of Branded Content Marketing diagram on the right is a helpful prompt to start thinking about practice more holistically. The diagram was inspired by the Three Pillars of Connected Marketing model developed by Idil Cakim, the analyst and author of Implementing Word of Mouth Marketing. As Dave Chaffey at Smart Insights explains, content and social media marketing have become the de facto way of explaining customer engagement approaches and so its unfortunate that these are too often considered separately. He says what is needed is a customer engagement strategy based on content. Idils model shows how these can be unied. Ive adapted Idils model to provide a prompt for thinking through the following questions as part of developing a branded content marketing strategy: How is engagement managed? How is content distributed? (i.e. Where in the converged landscape of earned, owned and paid media, What kind of branded content is created (or co-created) by Who and for Whom? and When in the customer decision journey?) How is the success of the different parts and their sum measured? These are also useful questions for analysing the predictions in the following sections, as are these strategic considerations raised by contributors:
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DISTRIBUTION MEASUREMENT

CONTENT (CO)CREATION

ENGAGEMENT MANAGEMENT

THREE CIRCLES OF BRANDED CONTENT MARKETING

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We are media
Chris Gorell Barnes at Adjust Your Set suggests that were also moving from a world where mass media ruled to one where the masses themselves are the media: People not only decide what, when and where they want to consume media, but also whether or not the message is passed on.

so get yourself invited, dont just buy your way in

Blended Republics Chris Sice thinks that right now, too many brands follow an outdated push content model. They create content and look to buy audiences. Chris Gorell Barnes adds that if a brand wants to be a part of this world they must be invited in you cant buy your way in.

and ensure that your branded content marketing strategies are truly consumer-centric
Chris Gorell Barnes predicts that the brands that will thrive in this new world will be those that put the needs of the consumer at the heart of what they do. Max Garner at Aegis Media adds that authentic and constant consumercentric behaviour from a brand will always be the best way to aid success in our rapidly changing convergent media world. For Patricia Weiss of the BCMAs South American Chapter this means creating branded content in all formats and platforms that are personally relevant for consumers, so that brands move from a media-centric approach to one based on human context where the consumer is the protagonist and hero of every story.

Your brand is a social construct that you no longer control

Thats why Bjoern Asmussen at Oxford Brooks University thinks that marketers will increasingly realise that brands are best understood as socially constructed organisms. They will consist of all kinds of brand meanings, brand manifestations and brand stakeholders, such as consumers, employees, competitors, suppliers, pressure groups and the media.

or just try and catch the next ! big wave

Branded content is also no longer about client strategies or wanting to be in on the next big wave according to Vodafones Melissa Hopkins. She says it is now simply a news provider, a conversation piece, a portal for stimulation, with a brand discreetly behind it. Melissa believes only the brave brands understand this.

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and that your branding is aligned with your branded content marketing strategy
Veteran advertiser turned brand consultant Robert Bean explained that what were once walls that companies could control have now become windows as a result of the digital explosion, and anyone can see into an organisation from any number of vantage points. As such it behoves brands or companies generally to sharpen up their act and decide who they are and what theyre about and be true to themselves in a way that theyve never really had to before. This means branding needs to start from the inside out, so that the people within the business are aligned around what they are trying to do and create a culture that produces a commensurate product that when managed properly results in a commensurate reputation.

PERSONAL RELEVANCE

WHERE SOCIAL SHOULD LIVE

DRIVING PURPOSE

CULTURAL CONTEXT

THREE TENETS OF NARRATIVE BRANDS

or youll get found out!

Put another way, Robert thinks digital is a great way of exposing organisations that are disorganisations for want of a better term. Brands can no longer get away with trying to project an image that attempts to engineer a reputation. In summary, brands cannot fake another ve years, believes Jan Godsk.

Welcome to the rise of the narrative brands

Robert Beans inside-out branding approach is based on the alignment of a brands culture, product or service, and reputation around what he calls the Single Organising Principle. This provides a clear sense of purpose of what a brand does.
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Purposeful content and alignment are themes that are raised in the following section, as is the importance of storytelling. My colleagues at Tenthwave produced the diagram above that is helpful for thinking about how branding can be aligned with a branded content marketing strategy. Its based around the idea that the strongest social brands are described as narrative brands, i.e. brand storytelling that combines the following:

Cultural Context
A cultural context ensures that the brand is culturally relevant. Gretchen believes that in practice this means capturing macro and micro cultural trends. A branded content marketing strategy must be developed with these cultural factors in mind. Another way of looking at cultural context was highlighted in a comment made by the dotcom pioneer Joe Kraus of Excite fame in a BBC interview last year: If the 20th century was about dozens of markets of millions of consumers, then the 21st century is about millions of markets of dozens of consumers. Unrulys Barney WorfolkSmith talks about interacting with people through fractured passion centres. The Duck Tape Race of Gentlemen campaign is a good example of how a brand got itself invited to a very culturally relevant fractured passion centre.

Personal Relevance
As Patricia Weiss explains, if your branded content is interesting for your audience, they will be interested in it. Being personally relevant is behind the passion in the fractured passion centres that Barney talks about. Gretchen Ramsey believes personal relevance is at a nascent stage but a feed customised for the individual user could include helpful personal visualised data (think loyalty programming and smart CRM), geo-context as well as social graph integration. (see more on this theme in the More Platforms, Devices & Personalisation section.) We hope that you nd this introduction to the following predictions both interesting and useful. The ideas presented here provide a backdrop to our contributors thoughts on what they expect to see change in the next ve years and what they expect will remain the same.

Driving Purpose
As Tenthwaves Gretchen Ramsey explains, a purpose is simply a tangible reason for being a brand (why the brand exists): It's that ag in the ground, that rally cry that everything ladders to and that is visible and visceral throughout the entire consumer experience. For example, Red Bull's purpose in simple terms is adventure.

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image BBP Media / Giuseppe

PLAY AUDIO

SECTION 3

We denitely feel the future of branded content is very exciting. And if 2013 was anything to go by were going to see a rapid increase in the number of brands using branded content as the core of their marketing.

What Will Change

Branded content at the heart of every marketing strategy
As the CIPRs Stephen Waddington explains, Content is the drum beat of engagement between a brand and its publics. But the ability of content to draw people in naturally through entertaining, emotionally engaging messaging is why Pereira & ODells creative chief PJ Pereira believes that branded content will continue to feature in more and more client strategies helping to develop deeper relationships with audiences. Publicis Slovenijas Uro" Gori#an also thinks we can expect brands to put more emphasis on branded content in their marketing strategy.

Andrew Canter! CEO! BCMA

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Driven by digital and social

The BCMAs Andrew Canter predicts that, by 2019, branded content will be at the heart of every campaign, driven by the growth of digital technologies and social media.

will always be those stand-out du jour examples, but its more standardised procedures that will encourage the adoption of entertaining branded content marketing approaches. "

more traditional marketing has been set. However, he thinks brands will learn to plan branded content alongside other disciplines in order to get the maximum effect, so that it can lead to or become the central articulation of a brand or communication idea.

and stand-out examples

Romelle Swires Chris Smith predicts that the stand-out branded content campaigns weve seen during 2013 will both increase industry awareness for the approach and drive more examples. Chris specically mentioned work by Amazon, Chipotle and Heineken, but other examples cited by experts include Red Bull Stratos Mission to the Edge of Space, Coca-Colas Small World Machines, and Banco Popular de Puerto Ricos The Most Popular Song (also see Jan Godsk and John McDermott).

Moving across the spectrum, to become less isolated and more integrated
MECs Chantal Rickards sees the next ve years as an exciting time with content moving across the spectrum. Sky MEDIAs Jason Hughes thinks well see a greater joining of the dots over the next ve years between the linear and non-linear world to a point where branded content campaigns transcend TV, online, social, POS with the overall activation far greater than the sum of its parts.

Becoming the communication norm across the organisation

Stephen Waddington believes the shift will go further so that what he describes as content development will move beyond marketing communications to become the communication norm for all operational areas of an organisation.

but more risks still need to be taken

Jason Hughes expects a tipping point where the penny will drop around the real value and power branded content delivers way beyond traditional media valuation, so that it becomes the norm centrepiece of every campaign.
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and not just an afterthought

Red Bee Medias Michael Reeves thinks were still at the point where branded content is being commissioned in isolation as an afterthought once the

and more standardised procedures

Branded Entertainment Onlines (BEO) Sandra Freisinger-Heinl thinks that there

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NEW (OPEN AND COLLABORATIVE) AGENCY MODELS WILL EMERGE

The social media strategist Jadis Tillery predicts that collaboration will be the name of the game in the brave new world of branded content. Compelling stories can be created that evolve dynamically thanks to the consumer shaping the story itself. Somethin Elses Steve Ackerman thinks well also see content strategists and content creators coming together to form new agencies. Here are some other predictions along similar lines:

paid media operations, brand strategy units and digital production services.

Agency-facilitated brand alliances with publishers

Forresters Ryan Skinner sees brands regularly building quasi-ofcial alliances with each other and publishers, usually facilitated by an agency, to collectively produce a compelling digital experience.
Native Advertising will become the starlet in the blurred lines between ads and content, by reinventing the business of publishing and snatching the emerging markets. A growing number of publishers will create their own branded content divisions, paid media operations, brand strategy units and digital production services, in-house. More often, they will be hiring publishers to create content on their behalf.

More and di"erent kinds of celebrity partnerships

Sean Diddy Coombes recent JV with Diageo suggests that celebrity talent partnerships will continue to play a key role in branded content. For Jadis Tillery this is not just about the loyal and sizeable fan base they can mobilise for a brand, but as dynamic content creators and media owners in their own right. That said, United Agents Joanna Scarratt thinks that a social media following is becoming an increasingly important factor, and as a result well start seeing new highly paid social superstars.

Publishers as agencies
Patricia Weiss who heads up the BCMAs South American Chapter thinks native advertising looks set to become the starlet in the blurred lines between ads and content. She sees publishers becoming more agency-like, working directly with brands through the creation of in-house branded content divisions,

Patricia Weiss! Chairman and Founder! BCMA South America

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New (open source) business models

Crispin Reed at UK Fusion Learning thinks well see more and more
A platform (YouTube, for example) could host brands that were prepared to open their assets to the general public and see what people did with them. This would give creators license to rethink the brand's meaning and create a whole new presence for the brand itself.

human connections will increasingly use the multiplying and diverse channels in more and more interesting ways - blurring the lines until there are no lines anymore.

interesting collaborations between brands when it comes to content marketing. He cites Googles acquisition of smart thermostat brand Nest as a way they can enter the home through a different door. The convergent home is not a new idea, but for Crispin its an indication of a more imaginative coming together of brands to deliver branded content. BCMAs Chairman Morgan Holt thinks that the combining of micropayments and user content channel technology platforms would be interesting.

BUT NEW SKILLSETS WILL BE REQUIRED

As the online revolution outstrips marketing knowledge, Joanna Scarratt at United Agents thinks that no-one quite yet knows how to exploit branded content properly. She thinks that this is because the speed of the online revolution, and development of platforms, has outstripped marketing knowledge.

Morgan Holt! Chairman! BCMA

new skill sets required

Mike Arauz at Undercurrent recently wrote about The New Digital Strategists Skill Set thats moved from the T-shape of having to know a little about a lot and a lot about a little to the square-shape of now having to know a lot about a lot.

so that lines will continue to be blurred until there are none left
The strategist Sarah Farrugia predicts that those who really understand social media and the importance of truth and

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to understand culture better

Gretchen Ramsey

having a wide breadth of skills and knowledge across various marketing disciplines, but crucially possessing both left-brain and right-brain abilities. As Ashley goes on to explain, its about being analytical and data-driven on one hand, but also understanding brands, storytelling and experiential marketing.

at Tenthwave mentions

how dramatically and quickly specialised areas shift in digital, which is why she thinks we have a duty to understand
Agencies need to hire behavioural economists and creative technologists as well as individuals that truly understand social interaction. This goes well beyond the "social media specialist" who claims to understand how to evoke more tweets out of a post.

culture on a new level, as its intimately tied with our ability to plan relevance.

and social behaviour

OgilvyEntertainments Doug Scott thinks that agencies need to hire behavioural economists and creative technologists as well as individuals that truly understand social interaction. For him this goes well beyond the social media specialist.

REAL TIME AND AGILE

Unrulys COO Sarah Wood sees new tools emerging that will help support the macro-trend of real-time content marketing and allow marketers to become more agile. This is where brands become newsrooms for their niche and invest to support content discovery, content curation and content creation to compete for consumers mind share on social platforms.

The dawn of the pi-shaped data

Doug Scott! President! OgilvyEntertianment

storytellers?
In a recent interview by Renegades CEO Drew Neisser with Econsultancy's CEO Ashley Friedlein on PSFK, the pi-shaped data storytelling marketer was discussed. For Ashley the pi-shaped skillset isnt about expecting people to know about everything (square) its more about

or something more additive?

Digidays John McDermott hopes that brands will move away from their realtime marketing obsession and create
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something more substantive and lasting. He cites the mesmerising Volvo Trucks Epic Split campaign with Jean-Claude Van Damme as well as the legitimately helpful Lowes Fix in Six Vines.
I hope that brands will move away from their real-time marketing obsession and create something more substantive and lasting. The Volvo Trucks/Jean Claude Van Damme video is mesmerising and the Lowes Fix in Six Vines are legitimately helpful. Seems a lot more additive than tweeting nonsense during the Super Bowl.

honcho Chris Clarke, what is more important than anything else is creative excellence, a uid relationship with talent and a willingness to experiment. He adds that brands can become part of culture rather than in the (ad) breaks between culture.

Evolving beyond real-time opportunism

Tenthwaves Gretchen Ramsey points to an evolution from real-time opportunism to the storytelling model, but asks how many digital agencies are set up to manage a meaningful narrative duty? She suggests whats needed is a new model of strategic creative where teams of (visual) storytellers lead brand tales, not just ideas with legs.

THE RISE AND RISE OF STORYTELLING

It's not really a prediction, but the importance of storytelling was the most consistent theme to emerge from expert responses. As Mumbrellas Sean McKeown points out, brands are already seeing the value gained from this format and will continue to invest more of their marketing budgets in its development.

and being more creative, experimental and iterative

Being more agile doesnt necessitate

More authentic, entertaining and engaging

Advertisers must nd better ways to build trust, as raised by Paul Bay at Citizenbay in last years ebook. Paul pointed out that the gap between promise and delivery is
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John McDermott Staff Writer Digiday

working in real-time, or the setting-up of newsrooms with staff and enabling technology, it can simply mean being iterative. For DigitasLBis creative head

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still wide, and thats why advertisers are still less trusted than politicians. ISBAs Mario Yiannacou thinks that one way of building trust is to ensure that messages are completely clear whatever format theyre in. Stan Joseph of Ochre Moving Pictures suggests the creation of more authentic and entertaining story-based content will continue to be the hallmark of great branded content.

real-time, it's also about emotions. She predicted that the brands that succeed in the future will be the ones creating content that elicits a powerful emotional response from their audience.

world, and that this is becoming more visual and involving, and less intrusive and interruptive.

original content funded and distributed by brands

Stan Joseph sees brands becoming signicant funders and distributors of original content over the next ve years, taking their place at the table alongside broadcasters, distributors and IP owners. Joanna Scarratt also thinks the landscape will change dramatically. She sees brands becoming both broadcasters and content makers. She cites other platforms like Netixs funding of House of Cards, as well as lm competition initiatives like Grolsch's Film Works, or Bombay Sapphire's Imagination Series.

In longer and more digital formats!

MECs Chantal Rickards sees more traditional formats like advertiser funded programing (AFP) being on the wane, at least in the UK. But she thinks digital continues to offer myriad opportunities, especially where the content can travel across many platforms and engage viewers in clever, dynamic and engaging ways. She also thinks well see more brands becoming more adventurous and funding longer-form content like movies and feature documentaries.

and purposeful content

For Tony Chow at What's your Story Inc in Singapore its all about the creation of purposeful content, and he sees more and more brands using story-based branded content as a key engagement tool.

that resonates emotionally

In last years ebook, Sarah Wood explained that testing what works and optimising the performance of branded content isn't just about using data to make decisions and rene campaigns in

and more involving, less interruptive

Patricia Weiss believes that audiences will become even more intelligent and sophisticated as their lives become increasingly social in a hypermediatic

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Making good stories more important than ever to cut through the content clutter
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even the ports in our heads for faster upload/download that Doug Kessler predicts. Uro" Gori#an thinks that these will enable brands to connect with customers via content in an even more exciting and creative way.

Doug Scott thinks, Great stories are becoming critical. Right now I would say that from an economic standpoint there is an oversupply of content.

Brands are going to have to change their processes and do something marketers dont like to do and dont do easily. They have to change the skill sets of the

It will become more personalised

Leo Burnetts James Kirkham predicts that in ve years the content people engage with will become more relevant and tailored. He thinks that it wont be recognised as traditional advertising, but more as opt-in personalised content.

But storytelling changes everything about how brands go to market

In my recent interview with UMs Chief

people they hire. They have to change the time frames they work on. They have to change the way they allocate and think about budgets. They have to change their denition of creativity.
Scott Donaton! Chief Content Ofcer! UM

Content ofcer Scott Donaton, he explains how he thinks that brand storytelling is a strategic, disciplined approach to marketing that actually changes everything about how brands go to market.

Pulled not pushed, and more contextual

Doug Scott sees content being pulled by consumers based on their unique preferences and habits. ISBAs Mario Yiannacou also thinks targeting will make a step change that will benet brand owners but also consumers by giving them messages they want to receive.

MORE PLATFORMS, DEVICES AND PERSONALISATION

Experts discussed a whole host of new platforms and devices that are either already being used, or on the horizon, including Google Glass with augmented reality, other wearable tech, or perhaps

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Doug suggests that the tailored content will be contextually related to a brand's key product and/or core message. For Max Garner at Aegis, context is also key, and the linking of the right content for the right device juxtaposed with the right type of brand to consumer interaction at the right time. But as DigitasLBIs Chris Clarke points out, more than anything, just as it is now, brands will need to recognise that a set of marketing messages plays very poorly alongside the latest box set.

Patricia Weiss believes the endless willingness of audiences to participate live in networked culture will expand the non-linear conversation around the content, and drive SocialTV, second screen and real-time marketing initiatives. This will in turn increase the production of event TV programmes, especially reality shows where the audience fully participates and feels like the true winner. Samantha Glynne at Publicis Entertainment also thinks TV will have a resurgence and new forms of live and social events will become popular.
become the most powerful adult who is going to quickly ve years is going to come with the maturation of the millennial important changes in the next
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I think one of the most

Content shifts triggered by mobile, shared by the second screen, and expanded through smart displays
For Doug Scott these shifts will be triggered by mobile (which he believes is now the rst screen), and then shared on the living room screen, as well as being expanded through public out-of-home advertising (OOH) smart displays.

Eventually moving o" screen to become part of our branded life

James Kirkham sees branded content moving off screen to become things like making a branded gesture mnemonic to access the brand, e.g. tracing out the Heineken star when you walk into a bar to access content or order a beer. For James this is about thinking of the future less in terms of branded content and

consumer, literally ever.

Eric Schwamberger Partner Tenthwave

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more about your branded life. This may be more relevant to some generations than others, particularly with the maturation of the millennial adult, according to Tenthwaves Eric Schwamberger.

thinking will be at the heart of their strategy. He adds that brands need to learn to act like media owners to attain the desired ROI. Samantha Glynne at Publicis Entertainment adds that as condence grows in the qualitative role of branded entertainment, brands will be braver in trying all platforms and media.

what he calls fractured passion centres that is discussed in the Strategic Considerations section. Barneys idea provides the basis for more opportunities of co-creation between brands and their fans. It will also potentially blur the lines between earned and owned media if brands start to curate their fan content in the way that Unrulys Sarah Wood mentions. This very much tallies with the content ideas around cultural brands that Daniel B at QualiQuanti discusses, and informs the thinking behind Tenthwaves Race of Gentlemen campaign.

Optimisation will become the norm

Katy Howell at immediate future explains that social will increase the volume, but also reduce the size: as audiences (and mobile) demands bite-sized, digestible and continuous content. As such, optimisation of content will be the norm, as brands look to justify content investment.

and developing their own media

Mumbrellas Sean McKeown thinks that although social media will continue as an important distribution platform, brands will need to invest in platforms of their own that provide greater connection with audiences. Jadis Tillery agrees well see brands fully embrace the multimodal nature of the social web while also becoming owners in their own right.

Putting distribution at the heart of any strategy

Blended Republics Chris Sice thinks brands place too much emphasis on creating content, but are often ignorant of distribution and the boundary-less nature of platforms like Facebook and YouTube. He thinks this presents huge opportunities and so in future distribution

With customer stories becoming more important than brand ones

In last years ebook, Citzenbays Paul Bay discussed how the democratisation of content would change the media content model. Paul predicted that branded content marketing would become less about pushing content and more about listening to your customers stories and
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Blurring the lines between earned and owned media with the rise of fractured passion centres and content curation
Barney Worfolk-Smith of Unruly sees brands interacting with people through

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amplifying these. He pointed out that storytelling implies that brands or their agencies are still the authors of the narrative. He thought this downplayed the increasingly important role that the customer narrative plays.

Welcome to the world of the Internet of things, and the possibility of hyper-geolocated targeting. For example, Sarah predicts sausage ads as you open your fridge, replaced by porridge oats ads if your cholesterol reading is high, or an ad for sunscreen displayed on your smartwatch if the UV rays are high when you open your front door. Relevance and utility will be key to success.
Adapted, evolved content tailored and personal to you just like we are recognised through cookies - will instead be you the user recognised through talent talking to you, directly to you as part of a pre-orchestrated pre-determined image.
James Kirkham Global Head: ! Social & Mobile Leo Burnett

and the need for earned media planning

MRYs David Berkowitz highlights how earned media planning might need to consider the most cost-effective and value-added alternatives to investing in fully technology-enabled newsrooms.

via mobile to an increasingly screen-less world

As Mumbrellas Sean McKeown points out, mobile will play an integral part in the transition to location-based marketing and content distribution. But Leo Burnetts James Kirkham predicts an increasingly screen-less world, less about desktop computers and more about an Internet of things. James thinks we need to be thinking more about how content will be engaged with or interacted with wherever we are whenever we want to.

Learn to make the most of wearable tech

When it comes to next-gen advertising, Unrulys COO Sarah Wood thinks brands will need to navigate the opportunities and challenges presented by not only wearable technology, but also smartappliances.

and navigate through the Internet of things and hyper geo-location

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to interact with a brand construct

James Kirkham predicts a future where the personalisation and tailoring of content includes live conversation with a brand construct.

and requiring a whole lot more computational power

Charlene Li points out that in ve years time we'll have the computational power of IBM's Watson in a form factor that will t in our pocket - and we'll need it given the explosion of data.
9 out of 10 people listen, engage and interact with radio, and do so across an evergrowing selection of digital platforms. So branded audio content of the future needs to engage with audiences across a wide variety of di!erent platforms, including DAB, mobile, tablets, podcasts and online platforms.
Karen Pearson CEO and Founder Folded Wing

Becoming more programmatic and marketing as service orientated

Doug Scott sees the evolving approach to programmatic (and more algorithmic) marketing will engage consumers in an ongoing dialogue with brands, providing richer stories and greater insights ultimately leading to smarter data and fuelling big emotional experiences. Drew Neisser at Renegade thinks these are the best of times for CMOs who approach marketing as a service opportunity rather than a messaging one. This customer-centric approach only gets better with the advent of big data and programmatic media, since it is so much easier to provide personalised and relevant content in real-time.!

to get back to where we started from

Meanwhile, older media such as radio and book publishing have been going through their own digital revolutions. Folded Wings Karen Pearson highlights nine out of 10 people listen, engage and interact with radio, and do so across an ever-growing selection of digital platforms. This provides a whole host of opportunities, especially as now listeners want to 'see' radio as much as hear it, which Karen points out offers additional exclusive visual content that people can share with their friends.

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Brands have been slow to embrace the ebooks publishing revolution, and leverage distribution channels like Amazon, iBookstore, or aggregators like Smashwords, and social reading sites. Enhanced media ebooks, like this one, provide great opportunities to tailor relevant branded content for platforms like tablets in a format that can engage people for longer periods.

develop industry standards for social media measurement. We have also seen the emergence of innovative new ways to measure branded content, with the BCMA's proprietary measurement tool, contentmonitor!run by Ipsos!MORI, which demonstrates the effectiveness of branded content.!

your investment is to measure outcomes, Everything else is a proxy at best, but there are organisations, such as AMEC with its Social Media Valid Framework and Google with its Zero Moment of Truth, that are doing some good work in this area and helping us to grow up.

MEASUREMENT, ANALYTICS AND THE RISE OF EMPATHETIC/ EMOTIONAL MARKETING Theres no shortage of industry measurement standard initiatives
The changing media landscape doesnt just have an impact on the way that brands need to rethink the way they conduct their marketing, but also how they measure it, not least because of the growing number of datapoints that are now available and being used. !The challenges this poses are highlighted by the growing number of initiatives trying to

bringing rigour, but often driven by measurement tools

Kami Watson Huyse thinks these initiatives, while bringing more rigour to social media measurement, will most likely be driven instead (in the near term) by the tools developed to do the measurement. This might put the cart before the horse.

rather than look at how the whole is greater than the sum of the parts
As Ian Wright at Tapestry Research points out, the fragmented media landscape means that were faced with this dual challenge of really understanding at a micro-level how individual channels or touchpoints are working, but also at a holistic level, how they all t together. This is a tough challenge, but Ian believes were getting smarter at meeting it through a combination of small-scale qualitative insight, big data observation and surveybased interpretation.

and so theres a danger of measuring data for the sake of it

The CIPRs Stephen Waddington thinks it is easy to fall into the trap of measuring things for the sake of it. For Stephen the only real way of determining the value of

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More accountability and analysis required

Former Ipsos MORI Research Director Stewart Thomson and others see a growing demand for rigorous measurement of the impact of branded content campaign elements on the goals of the overall campaign. Essentially, brand owners will demand to know if the branded content pulled its weight and justied their investment. Katy Howell also thinks we will see a signicant increase in the level of analysis that will be expected, particularly analysis often in real-time that identies the content that travels on trend, attracts attention and gets shared.

right set of tools to measure efcacy. And here are some examples:

Improved semantic analysis

Minter Dial sees both listening tools and skills getting more sophisticated, particularly with regard to semantic analysis.
get into more predictive elds
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One of the biggest di!erences that were going to see is as we

Predictive modeling for a better sense of who wants what %

David Berkowitz sees brands employing more sophisticated predictive models to determine what people want when they want it.

right. Brands and agencies trying to predict what content people are going to respond to and how theyre going to respond. And even predict which ways that theyre going to want to respond in turn.
David Berkowitz CMO MRY

and understanding the value of what they share

But more importantly, David thinks brands will have a much better understanding of the kinds of value of what they share as well as better sense of what their audience wants and likes.

with new tools and skills getting more sophisticated

According to Uro" Gori#an, were likely to see more effort put into developing the

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and the better targeting of material

Minter Dial predicts better targeting of the material as marketers come to understand better their audience and the real inuencers, and on which platforms and devices they are congregating.

and devices, and mapped not just to a particular demographic on a network, but also to the available psychographic and ultimately behavioural data.

and tracking through to purchase

Max Garner thinks convergence means that content and the point of transaction are also moving closer than ever, so not only do brands have to still inform, entertain and delight with their content but they also have to ensure that where relevant a journey to purchase is easy, smooth and importantly unforced should the consumer so desire it.

The more that media can be delivered on an individual basis and therefore become disaggregated, then that whole way of thinking is going to be challenged. It will become much more about what people do than what audience group they are in. This changes everything in terms of how media works and who should be on the team to deliver and evaluate it. Tim Foley
MD pointlogic

and more creative scope for crafting messages

Mario Yiannacou thinks that deeper data will also make it easier to dial in to consumers frequencies, allowing more creative scope for crafting messages.

with emotional data becoming ubiquitous

As Sander Saar at AOL explains, emotional data has already started to be measured through facial recognition software to understand emotions, reactions, heart rate, gestures, etc, but we have a long way to go. As technologies advance, response could be tracked live across different platforms

without requiring the capture of lead data

Ryan Skinner predicts that businesses will abandon the practice of capturing lead data as enough non-personal identifying data can be captured without it.

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and valuing individuals based on purchase probabilities

Tim Foley at pointlogic thinks that market research will get turned on its head by the explosion of more data. He predicts we wont be aggregating audiences around their demographics, but will instead be valuing individuals based on purchase probabilities; and as he points out this changes everything in terms of how media works and who should be on the team to deliver and evaluate it.

In the meantime, longer-term view may be required

The BCMAs Andrew Canter accepts that measuring the ROI for branded content can be a challenge right now, but argues that brands should take a longer-term view and rethink what is being measured and why. He sees branded content marketing as an investment, that will often pay back in the mid-long term rather than having an immediate impact.
Marketers can show the value of branded content by keeping tabs on how brand perceptions shift among those exposed to such content. A simple tracker survey can provide this insight. The key is to be disciplined about asking consumer feedback and be ready to shift gears depending on how such content resonates with audiences.
Idil Cakim Analyst + author Implementing Word of Mouth Marketing

Brands will demand more bespoke metrics

More brands will want and be able to develop bespoke metrics that are linked to their specic brand challenges. This will lead the industry into more meaningful discussion than those surrounding working and non-working dollars, and possibly away from the preoccupation with reach-type metrics that were designed for traditional mass communications.

but you can start with a simple tracker survey

The analyst and author Idil Cakim explains that marketers can show the value of branded content by keeping tabs on how brand perceptions shift among those exposed to such content. She points out that a simple tracker survey can provide this insight. The key she says is to be disciplined about asking consumer feedback and be ready to shift gears depending on how such content resonates with audiences.

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SECTION 4
We cant be blinded by the light of bright shiny objects to ever, ever forget that relationships are paramount.

What Won't Change

Somewhat tellingly, experts have signicantly less to say about what they think will remain the same in ve years than what they think will change. Heres the round-up of the responses: customers and clients will be built one person at a time. !We shouldnt get blinded by the light of bright shiny objects to ever, ever forget that relationships are paramount.

Charlene Li! Founder! Altimeter Group

Itll still be all about relationships

Despite the brave new world of branded content marketing that weve already seen predicted, Altimeter Groups Charlene Li still thinks marketing fundamentals will remain the same, namely that the relationship with

Strategy starts with the data

The BCMAs Andrew Canter thinks that what will still be of the utmost importance is that the strategy for any branded content campaign is based on deep and meaningful consumer insight strategies, and that means starting with the data.

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But go beyond the desk to nd real insight and opportunities

The advances in analytics and listening platforms that have been predicted suggest that it will still be the few that go
Being customer-obsessed and digging deeper allows brands to out-innovate their competitors by o!ering more authentic, relevant and personal experiences.

Oxford Brookes University, it also has to resonate with the targeted stakeholders needs, interests and/or passions. As Kemplewoods Mark Wood points out, for any form of branded content to work it has to be relevant, useful or entertaining. Preferably all of those things.

beyond desktop and dashboard. This remains a missed opportunity for those that dont, because analytics might tell you the What and Where, but they dont tell you the Why. As Gretchen Ramsey, VP, Strategy at Tenthwave, points out, marketers must also give people what they dont know they need and no amount of big data can deduce that. What is needed is more ethnographic-based, face-to-face research to help foster empathy and which leads to a deeper understand of the customer.

Brands will still be struggling to join all the dots

Uro" Gori#an at Publicis Slovenija mentions the continuing problem of developing strategies that are truly aligned with the essence of the brand and maintain a common thread that runs across all media. Perhaps, as Somethin Elses Steve Ackerman predicts, the brands wholl succeed will be those that are best able to dene their personalities as opposed to their marketing objectives.

Drew Rayman! Managing Partner! Tenthwave

and to help create content that resonates

Cutting through will always require content to be distinctive, but as mentioned by Bjoern Asmussen at

People will still be sharing content, and caring more about themselves than brands
MRYs David Berkowitz thinks the sharing of content will continue, with branded
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content being a relatively small but a relatively important part of the mix because people care more about themselves than they do brands.

This is a driver for the prediction from Patricia Weiss of the BCMAs South American Chapter that branded video content will continue as the main form of branded content to reach audiences on social media.

to bore/titillate people in ever more inane ways.

and were about to be deluged by more crap

In the digital domain, Forresters Ryan Skinner still sees marketers obsessing over Google and that the vast majority of content marketing wont be very good. Thats more delicate than his former boss Doug Kessler at Velocity Partners who warns that as every B2B brand turns to content marketing, we're about to be hit by a deluge of... crap.

Where consumers go, brands will continue to follow

One thing that isnt going to change is the need for brands to connect with people who buy their products and services. At the same time, David Berkowitz points out that people wont stop shifting to new media properties and platforms, as we have seen with the take up of Snapchat and Whatsapp.

But old media habits will continue to die hard

Patricia Weiss also thinks traditional advertising will still get the biggest share of marketing budgets. She does, however, think that advertising is likely to become more entertaining and storybased, even if it will still be used for the most part to push products in the more traditional way. Pereira & O'Dell's chief creative ofcer PJ Pereira reminds us that what also won't change is consumers' rejection of irrelevant interruptive advertising. But as the strategist Sarah Farrugia points out, this sadly wont stop those who continue to blast branded content into the world

particularly with video-based branded content

Leo Liang at Youku Tudou Inc in China thinks that people will still enjoy more user-generated content (UGC) and semiUGC content, but there will be more possibilities for them to watch, share and even shoot videos at any time and any place.

Experts will continue to disagree about what the future holds

Interestingly, the BCMAs Chairman Morgan Holt doesnt imagine any dramatic reinvention of the branded content business model. He thinks the players know who they are, the value they get from it, and how to work together. He also sees the model as being an extension of advertising.
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particularly whether well gure out the secret of branded content success
Sandra Freisinger-Heinl from Branded Entertainment Online (BEO) thinks were currently living in a world of branded entertainment cocktails with a dash of content, a splash of social media, a shot of digital, laced with a pinch of music. However, Sandra predicts that on the horizon is a basic formula available to the tastes of every single target group. This is similar to Joanna Scarratts prediction about how the art of branded content will be as rigorously understood in terms of effective consumer engagement as TV commercials are now. That seems unlikely if, as Doug Scott at OgilvyEntertainment predicts,!everything we know today about branded content will change; the only thing that will remain constant is the desire for good stories. Its a view supported by Michael Reeves at Red Bee Media, who says there will be an

essential need for branded content to tell a gripping story, irrespective of the gadgets and devices used to tell the tale. Tony Chow at Whats Your Story Inc in Singapore, adds that what will also remain constant is the customer will always be the hero of the story.
Within the next ve years the world of content marketing will be turned upside down, even if businesses are still practicing it (and to a greater degree than today). Only 10-15% will regularly practice content marketing really well. And people still wont be really satised with the word content or the expression content marketing.
Ryan Skinner! Senior Analyst ! Content Marketing, ! Forrester Research

So it looks like well still have a lot of guring out to do

In this books introduction, Doug Scott talks about the branded content industry being in an adolescent phase. But it might be worth thinking about the prediction by Frank PRs Graham Goodkind about a time not too far in the future where consumers get so savvy, aware and cute, that the only way to interact is via more and more discontinuous thinking and disruptive techniques. Whatever the future holds, I predict that theres still going to be a lot of guring out to do.

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SECTION 5

ABOUT THE REPORT

About The Report

This report into the future of branded content marketing will also be published as a standalone paper.!It is part of an ongoing project that Justin Kirby started in 2002 when he set up an international discussion forum where hundreds of marketing practitioners and academics shared their knowledge, opinions and experiences of contemporary and emerging marketing and media trends over several years. The forum activity led to the creation of the 2005 book 'Connected Marketing: The Viral, Buzz and Word of Mouth Marketing Revolution, and it informed Justins ongoing investigation into the future of branded content marketing in collaboration with industry experts, which he curates annually in partnership with the BCMA. The rst annual report was published in 2013 in the pilot edition of the Best of Branded Content Marketing with the full contributions curated at Auxstate.com. Over 60 industry experts around the globe participated in the outreach from which this years report was compiled. You can read their full contributions and keep up with the ongoing report series at Auxstate.com. To participate in this series or send us your feedback about the predictions, please email Justin.

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Eurostar feels that branded content will increasingly be at the heart of communication " as the world digitalises.
by Nick Mercer! Commercial Director! Eurostar

The role of branded content is to build much stronger customer engagement and to do this it has to be built on two key platforms. The rst is that it has to be useful, i.e. it is based on the right insights about things that really matter to customers. The second is that it has to be entertaining, as in a world of so many communication messages we need to grab attention in a way that is fun and stimulating.

CLIENT VIEW

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We have really taken this approach to heart. Our current brand campaign is based on the insight that stories begin here, which started on TV, cinema and YouTube with commercials based on bringing the power of our destinations alive through telling stories about them. This moved into its second phase where customers are sharing their stories in pictures and videos so that we have added to the richness of the content. The third phase which we are now embarking on involves us creating a new set of advertisements and videos that use content provided to us by our customers, so we are communicating their stories for the benet of new users. A service businesss content also needs to involve staff and their interactions with customers, as this is how true engagement occurs. We take events such as Christmas, Valentines Day and Chinese New Year to have real fun events in our terminals where customers and

staff can interact together. We then facilitate our customers sharing the outputs through social media channels with their friends and family. As an example, at Christmas we used a professional artist to create a piece of art at St Pancras International that he drew by asking customers who had checked-in for their personal desires for Christmas.

We now have a visual record in one piece of art of the collective stories and desires of hundreds of customers. Each individual story in the bigger picture has the customers name. The piece has been photographed and shared on Instagram and Facebook thousands of times and is a record of a fun journey and experience with Eurostar.

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Customer photo from Eurostar's 'Stories begin here campaign (London)

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Were very grateful to the following people for their contributions to this ebooks content:

Benjamin Zeidler, Director, Research & Analytics, Tenthwave

Barclays Your Bank:

Sara Bennison, Managing Director, Marketing Communications, Barclays UK Retail Bank

Alison Knight, Founder, BCMA

Carphone Warehouse Smarter World:

Chris Gorell Barnes, CEO, Adjust Your Set Claire Hunter, PR & Marketing Manager, Adjust Your Set

Michael Reeves, Business Development Director, Red Bee Media

INTRODUCTION
Scott Donaton, Global Chief Content O#cer, UM Anton Emov, Managing Director, Fuse Russia Eric Schwamberger, Partner, Tenthwave Doug Scott, President, OgilvyEntertainment Patrcia Weiss, SVP Strategic Consultant$for Branded Content, Branded Entertainment and Transmedia Storytelling$at ASAS da Imaginao

Unilever Dove Real Beauty Sketches:

Suellen Barreto, Comunicao Corporativa, Ogilvy Brasil Kimberly Bernhardt, Senior Vice President, Edelman" Ricardo Honegger, Account Director, Ogilvy Brasil Stephane Orhan, Global Managing Partner,

Gareth Jones, Head of Online Marketing, Carphone Warehouse Christopher Lockwood, Editorial & Publishing Director, Adjust Your Set Ianthe McLeod, Executive Assistant to CEO, Adjust Your Set

Chivas Regal MASHTUN:

CONTRIBUTORS

CASE STUDIES
Duck Tape Race of Gentlemen:
Kate Daggett, Executive Creative Director, Tenthwave Jaime Hoerbelt, Social Media Director, Tenthwave Oilers Car Club members Drew Rayman, Managing Partner, Tenthwave David Rodgers, Senior Digital Marketing Manager, ShurTech Brands Mel Stultz, Oilers Car Club and founder of the Race of Gentlemen

Ogilvy & Mather Anselmo Ramos, Creative Director, Ogilvy Brasil Leo Ryan, Group Head of Social@Ogilvy, London

Steve Ackerman, Managing Director, Somethin Else Paul Bennun, Chief Creative O#cer, Somethin Else Jez Nelson, CEO, Somethin Else James Slack, Global Brand Director, Chivas

Intel+Toshiba The Beauty Inside:

Molly Parsley, Director of Marketing and Communications, Pereira & O'Dell PJ Pereira, Chief Creative O#cer, Pereira &

Terra Penetras de Luxo:

Patrcia Weiss, Chief Strategy O#cer, Wanted Agency and SVP Strategic Consultant$for Branded Content, Branded Entertainment and Transmedia Storytelling$at ASAS da Imaginaa

O'Dell

Metro Trains Melbourne Dumb Ways to Die:

Lucy Holdsworth, Executive Assistant, McCann Melbourne
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John Mescall, Executive Creative Director, McCann Melbourne Adrian Mills, Group Account Director, Clemenger BBDO Melbourne Lachlan Wittick, Account Executive, McCann Melbourne

PepsiCo Lyubimy Natural Love:

Anton Emov, Managing Director, Fuse Russia Ilya Rozhkov, Client Service Director, Fuse Russia

Louise Tullin, Marketing and Communications Director, EMEA, Unruly David Waterhouse, Global Head of Content and PR, Unruly

Unilever Hellmanns In Search of Real Food:

Bobby Flay, celebrity chef; Executive Producer, Rock Shrimp Productions Sarah Kostecki, OgilvyEntertainment Brian Orlando, Senior Brand Manager, Hellmann's Lauren Rubinfeld, Manager, Group Marketing and Communications, OgilvyEntertainment Lindsay Stransman, Communication Designer, OgilvyEntertainment Doug Scott, President, OgilvyEntertainment

Dening Branded Content for the Digital Age: Phase One Findings:
Bjoern Asmussen, Senior Lecturer in Marketing, Oxford Brookes University Business School Andrew Butler, Oxford Brookes University Sarah Gale, Senior Director, Ipsos MORI, Media, Content and Technology Division Dr Nicolette Michels, Oxford Brookes University

Unilever Surf TOWIE Summer DReem:

Claire Heys, Director, Commercial Brand Partnerships, Brand Extension Team, ITV plc Adam Mitchell, Senior Sponsorship Activation Manager, Commercial and Online, ITV plc Katy Holder, Surf Brand Manager, Unilever

Sony Xperia Vs The Northern Lights:

Simon Attwater, Group Creative Director, DigitasLBi Mike Clear, Head of Branded Content, DigitasLBi Julia Conroy, PR & Marketing Director, UK, DigitasLBi

MARKET REPORTS
Russia:
Anton Emov, Head of BCMA Russia; Managing Director, Fuse Russia Ilya Rozhkov, Client Service Director, Fuse Russia

RESEARCH
Stop Trying to Make Your Ads Go Viral: Top Tips for Video Success:
Dr. Karen Nelson-Field, Senior Research Associate, Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science Cat Jones, Director of Product and Innovation, Unruly

Volvo Trucks The Epic Split:

Britta Malmberg, Account Manager, Forsman & Bodenfors Cilla Pegelow, Account Manager, Forsman & Bodenfors Anders Vilhelmsson, PR Manager, Volvo Trucks

Brazil:
Daniel Bacchieri, Head of Content Development, Zeppelin Films Claudia Colaferro, President, Latin America, Dentsu Aegis Network Viviane Palladino Donnamaria, Abril
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Domnico Massareto, Chief Creative O#cer, Agency ID/TBWA Brazil Andr Pedroso, Creative Director, Publicis Red Lion Rodrigo Figueroa Reyes, Founder & CEO, FiRe Advertainment Patrcia Weiss, Chairman & Founder, BCMA South America; Chief Strategy O#cer, Wanted Agency; and SVP Strategic Consultant$for Branded Content, Branded Entertainment and Transmedia Storytelling$at ASAS da Imaginaa

Idil Cakim, analyst and author of Implementing Word of Mouth (USA) Andrew Canter, CEO, BCMA (UK) Dave Cha"ey, CEO, Smart Insights (UK) Tony Chow, Media Consultant and Chief Storyteller at Whats your Story Inc (Singapore) Chris Clarke, Chief Creative O#cer, at DigitasLBi (UK) Minter Dial, Professional Speaker, Consultant & Coach and Brand & Digital Marketing Strategist (France/UK) Scott Donaton, Chief Content O#cer, UM (USA)

Morgan Holt, Chairman at the BCMA (UK) Melissa Hopkins, Global Head of Brand MarComms at Vodafone (UK) Katy Howell, CEO, immediate future (UK) Jason Hughes, Head of Branded Content & Product Placement, Sky MEDIA (UK) Stan Joseph, CEO, Ochre Moving Pictures (South Africa) Doug Kessler, Founder, Velocity Partners (UK) James Kirkham, Global Head: Social & Mobile at Leo Burnett (UK) Charlene Li, co-author of the bestseller Groundswell, author of the New York Times bestseller Open Leadership, and Founder of Altimeter Group (USA) Leo Liang, Senior Director of National Business Development, Youku Tudou Inc (China) John McDermott, Author, Digiday (USA) Sean McKeown, Commercial Director, Mumbrella Asia (Singapore) Doug Neisser, Founder & CEO at Renegade (USA) Karen Pearson, CEO and Founder of Folded Wing (UK) PJ Pereira, Chief Creative O#cer, Pereira & O'Dell (USA) Gretchen Ramsey, VP, Strategy at Tenthwave (USA)

EXPERT PREDICTIONS REPORT

The Future of Branded Content Marketing
Steve Ackerman, Managing Director, Somethin' Else (UK) Bjoern Asmussen, Senior Lecturer in Marketing, Oxford Brookes University (UK) Paul Bay, Founder, Citizenbay Robert Bean, Founder, Robert Bean Branding (UK) David Berkowitz, Chief Marketing O#cer, MRY (USA) Daniel B, CEO and founder of QualiQuanti, and author of Brand Content, and Brand Culture (France)

Sarah Farrugia, Thinker, Strategist, Progressive at Sarah Farrugia & Company (UK) Tim Foley, MD, pointlogic (UK) Sandra Freisinger-Heinl, Journalist at Branded Entertainment Online (BEO) and Managing Director at MA Media Agency (Germany) Max Garner, Managing Partner at Aegis Media (UK) Samantha Glynne, Managing Partner at Publicis Entertainment (UK) Jan Godsk, Founder Ideatakeaway and Chairman, BCMA Scandinavia (Denmark) Graham Goodkind, Founder, Frank PR (UK) Chris Gorell Barnes, CEO, Adjust Your Set (UK) Uro& Gori'an, Creative director at Publicis Slovenija (Slovenia)

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Drew Rayman, Managing Parter, Tenthwave (USA) Crispin Reed, Managing Director, Fusion Learning ((UK)) Michael Reeves, Business Development Director, Red Bee Media (UK) Chantel Rickards, Head of Programming/ Branded Content EMEA at MEC (UK) Sander Saar, Product Manager, AOL (UK) Joanna Scarratt, Head of Brand Partnership at United Agents (UK) Eric Schwamberger, Strategy Partner, Tenthwave (USA) Doug Scott, President, OgilvyEntertainment (USA) Chris Sice, Managing Director at Blended Republic (UK) Ryan Skinner, Senior Analyst - Content Marketing, Forrester Research (UK) Chris Smith, Business development director at Romelle Swire (UK) Stewart Thomson, ex-Research Director at Ipsos MORI, Media CT Division (UK) Jadis Tillery, Social Media Strategist and Speaker (UK) Stephen Waddington, CIPR President Elect, Director of Ketchum Europe and author of Brand Anarchy and #BrandVandals (UK) Kami Watson Huyse, CEO, Zoetica (USA)

Patricia Weiss, CSO, Wanted Agency; SVP Strategic Consultant$for Branded Content, Branded Entertainment and Transmedia Storytelling$at ASAS da Imaginaa (BRAZIL) Mark Welland, Founder at New Media Works (UK) Mark Wood, Partner at Krempelwood (UK) Sarah Wood, COO, Unruly $(UK) Barney Worfolk-Smith, Head of Creative Solutions, Unruly (UK) Ian Wright, Managing Director at Tapestry Research (UK) Mario Yiannacou, Media & Advertising Manager at ISBA (UK)

Client View
Nick Mercer, Commercial Director at Eurostar (UK)

All images and data are the property of their respective copyright owners. The publishers are not responsible for the content of third-party websites.
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The BCMA Launched in 2003, the Branded Content Marketing Association (BCMA) is the global trade body for branded content, with members throughout Europe, Australia, Asia/Pacic, Scandinavia, South America, Russia and North America. It brings together and benets a broad spectrum of content creators and owners, including organisations from the advertising, brand development, sponsorship, media, broadcasting, digital, social media, programming and entertainment industries. The BCMA strives to promote best practice, shared learning and grow the branded content market to a wider audience.

Digital Media Communications Ltd (DMC) Founded in 1994, when the Internet was just emerging into the mainstream, DMC is a highly experienced digital marketing communications consultancy that specialises in using collaborative and social marketing approaches. Cofounders Justin Kirby and Greta MacFarlane are responsible for the strategic planning, project management, editing, publishing and promotion of this series of ebooks.

New Media Works Former AKQA creative head and cofounder Mark Welland established New Media Works in 1998. He has over 20 years of interactive design experience, including the creation of ebooks and apps for local and global brands and elearning organisations. Mark is responsible for the creative development, design and production of this series of ebooks.

PRODUCERS

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FEEDBACK

Send Us Your Feedback

Were keen to learn what you think about the ideas and projects presented in this book, in particular your views about the future of branded content marketing: Where did the Expert Predictions Report hit the mark? What goes against your own experience? Have you spotted any other trends?

Please let us know what you think by emailing justin@auxtstate.com. Your feedback will help inform our thinking and shape the next edition of the Best of Branded Content Marketing. If you'd like to submit your own case study to the BCMA for possible use in future editions of this ebook series, please email the BCMA's CEO, Andrew Canter.

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