First and foremost, we don't really know everyone in the audience yet.
So we want to talk a little bit about what is branded entertainment.
What does that mean?
Steve, you want to take a crack at what that might mean?
Sure.
Well, I guess, I'm sure in a simple sense, we all are very familiar with branded entertainment
and that is important to TV commercials.
Okay, so TV commercials in the sense are 32nd pieces of branded entertainment, but I think
when we now, when we talk about branded entertainment, we're talking about pieces of content that
are usually distributed separately from mass media that are created by brands that have
interested in value in short films, an immersive experience, an alternate reality game that
spreads across different platforms.
I was looking to that, I was looking back at some examples of branded entertainment and
I was reading back about BMW Films, which was 2001, and it's kind of generally regarded
as one of the first key moments of branded entertainment, so there's a short film.
So we're familiar with the BMW commercials back in the day.
You want to talk to us, but just elaborate on them a little bit if you're right.
Well, it was interesting because I thought back to BMW Films, I remember it coming out
at the time, and it's very difficult to imagine back to a time when it was very difficult to
even embed video within a web browser, and I remember BMW Films, I had to actually download
an app onto my computer and download the films and then show the films, so I had quite a
lot of stages to invite that into my world, but it definitely changed the game in terms
of content.
There's not so much I think in terms of content, although obviously we've not seen that time
long for longish foreign content as opposed to commercials before, but in the way that
BMW used the emerging internet and piped into our home as a new distribution, I think.
For the first time BMW kind of skirted the TV, the TV companies and DVD distribution
were going in those ways and kind of went direct to consumer with editing and bypassing
the mass media content.
So I think that was kind of the turning point, not so much the content as a method of distribution.
And even today when we will continue to look at branded entertainment and what makes branded
content, I think the contents up goes hand in hand with how that's being distributed,
how we're consuming it, how it's getting to us, whether it's going through a mass media
channel or it's kind of directly into our homes.
So you talked a little bit about movie making and cinema in this, so kind of a natural segue
over to Tom Farrow.
So what about cinema is sort of, so BMW started with kind of a movie making part of this with
branded entertainment standpoint.
Where has that gone from the cinematic standpoint?
Because in cinematic in terms of long form, I think it hasn't gone very far for cinema.
We're talking about cinematic, because I think that BMW series was really the first two,
because they were series of short films.
And that was kind of very, probably part of their success was that it was short, you know,
like 15 minutes and came to something like that.
And it was unique that it was together, it was different directors.
And so it was really breaking apart the entertainment, the cinematic part.
But I know our company name is Brand Cinema.
We actually do short content, digital formats, mostly only.
But I guess speaking to the cinematic, we do, our specialty is high quality content.
So there's content that's first and foremost, high quality entertainment first,
which seems to be a brand message.
But I think it has to have a wow factor.
It's not just talent, but it's actually looking good.
Like that series, that first series looked really good.
It wasn't just that made Clyburn's career as well.
When he was younger, you know, fast cars and the Donna was in it.
I mean it had all the ingredients, but it was shot by really good directors.
And I think that's the star of it too, is working with top-notch talent,
making it look like entertainment first.
How does social media play into all of this in terms of brand entertainment
and long-form, short-form, all that kind of stuff?
Yeah, for answer, I wanted to go after a regional question of what is brand entertainment.
To me, it's a really cool way to sell soap.
And I hate to break it down to that simple of an idea, but it really is.
And TV, to go way back, way back, that's how it started.
We all know that, right? It was to sell soap.
And it wasn't branded entertainment from its beginning,
and it sort of evolved into having commercial breaks,
and then now it's sort of thought as an online medium,
but I have to say that TV in itself, at its core, it could be branded entertainment.
And social media now, thanks to the interwebs and all the advancements,
I think it just enhances people's ability to connect with that entertainment
and to get involved with it.
And what we do, we really start to integrate people and have them feedback.
And so now, for the first time, the dialogue is two ways.
The question you asked about whether attractivity is important
to branded entertainment is important to all of us, David.
We're turning into a participatory culture.
We're turning into a culture that doesn't just want to sit and be told stories.
You want to be part of that story, whether you are storytelling yourself,
or whether you want to interact with it,
or whether you want to commentate on it by sharing and adding the commentary to that.
So I think interactivity in participation is increasingly a part of all entertainment.
Why?
Because we can.
Because if you look back...
If you go back a hundred years...
Still back with us on time, folks.
If you go back a hundred years, entertainment was always participatory.
You'd sit around a campfire, you'd go watch the Shakespeare plays,
and you'd shout something.
And it's two-way communication.
So entertainment has always been participatory until the advent of the Muslim media.
And the movers came, or the TV came,
and they said, you know, now you must sit and be quiet,
and sit in the dark studio, don't talk to each other,
and we will tell you our story.
And that was kind of the blip on the landscape.
And now technology is allowing us as an audience to participate once again,
to have our voice heard.
So it's not just...
Don't just go in the story, you've got to tell.
I want to put this thing in that story.
So I think it's not something new that's changing.
I think actually we're moving back to the days when we sat around a campfire
and we shared stories and we printed those stories.
And that's what makes storytelling so interesting and so exciting.
It was a comment about content.
And I think, you know, content is a bit of a code word, I think,
that we use in our industries.
It's particularly in the brand world, right?
And it sometimes means social media.
It sometimes means storytelling.
It means a variety of things.
Sometimes it means the currency, I think,
by which we measure the brand worth that we do.
You know, how much content was delivered,
how much content was accepted, how much content was made organically,
or whatever, right?
What is good and bad content?
Is there such a thing?
I mean, how do we qualify?
I mean, if this were...
We were one team kind of putting together a brand entertainment project.
How would we tell what's good and what's bad?
Should we skip it?
I don't even skip that.
I mean, it's the audience.
I mean, really, that's the tester, isn't it?
Do people want to talk about it?
Do they want to share it and, you know,
share their experience with other people?
And I think there's been a lot of discussions recently about content,
and what does that mean?
It's kind of losing its value content.
So what does it mean to your audience?
Content is anything, really.
It could be something on Twitter that is a story on Twitter.
That's content.
You know, for us, we specifically would say video is content, yeah.
So is it different in California?
Totally not.
Okay.
Surfing is content.
Actually, I love to disagree.
So I'm going to disagree and say that the stuff that we do,
there's another swear dart to the trans media,
that we do, we consider content.
We consider content not just video, but there's audio,
there's stills, there's audience interaction,
there's all the different things that amount to the thing that we're doing.
And I think that the key for me, the differentiator,
is the second word in branded entertainment, is entertainment.
So if it's entertaining and you guys like it,
like you were saying, I think it's great.
And if you don't, then it's not good.
So you're talking about brand stories.
Is it easier to tell a story about in a brand,
which is more associated with a thing, like a car,
or is it easier to tell a story about a brand which might be a movie
or a TV show or something like that,
which has kind of an generic story line?
What did you say?
Sorry.
That's part of that question.
So I'm just making a comparison between marketing an object like a car
or a toothbrush or something like that
versus a movie or a TV show or something that has the characters,
has the story line kind of built into where a car might be just a car.
Yeah, I mean, for us, the latter is where we definitely play in for storytelling.
It's integrating the brand in the story
and even actually the content with the brand is not even in the story at all.
It's more of a sponsorship message,
but the brand's messaging is in the story.
If it's something about a type piece, for instance,
it doesn't have to be in the story,
but the messaging keeps taking something down generation to generation,
where that brand messaging, their campaign,
that they're running simultaneously can pick up that messaging
and you'll get the brands of subtle branding,
but the actual messaging comes from the campaign of brand.
It doesn't have to be in the content.
When I looked at each one of your companies,
again, this is not a comparison.
I'm just researching these guys.
I'm trying to be revealing to all of you and myself.
What I noticed was that when one of your companies was working on, say,
an HBO show or something like that,
or you're working on a car or a watch or a product,
that there was almost a yin and yang kind of situation going on.
In other words, if you were working on a TV show,
some of the really cool ideas were making objects or pulling objects from that TV show
and introducing them to fans in a way to kind of make real something
that is only a story to them on television.
And vice versa was, if it was a car or something,
that by making it more of a movie with more emotion was the other direction that you went.
And it was interesting to me to see that kind of play back and forth
fulfilling that other side of that coin or the other color in the wheel or whatever.
Does that make sense or am I oversimplifying?
Totally. That's a fascinating observation.
Yeah, it's totally true.
It really is.
One wants to be the other.
And that's how we get it from the middle and make it all story.
I think so.
Yeah.
Do you agree or are you oversimplifying?
Yeah, I think you're right.
There are elements of each type of client that wants to be like the other.
And I think we have, you know, our agency acts as a mediator to try to connect
those brands with their objective of whether it be through objects,
and that's the same company that creates kind of ephemeral objects,
you have to watch them on TV or create something physical that you can touch,
connect to it.
And with a car company that's creating something that is physical,
you can go and drive, but creating a little moment of that,
of the story, most of it on that ground that they can participate in.
Absolutely.
