Brand Entertainment

Our SVP, Branded Entertainment, Kaaren Whitney-Vernon,  is an active Forbes Agency Council member. She is often asked, and quoted, for her expertise in their Forbes Expert Panels.   Reposted from Forbes.

As an agency, one of the most common things that will happen is that a new, innovative company pitches you to advertise their product. When their item or service is familiar and usable by everyone, it’s easy to come up with advertising material. However, if the product they offer is highly specific and geared to a particular niche of users, it becomes a bit more complicated.

If no one within the agency has any experience with the product or the field, developing advertising for it might seem like an impossible task. There is hope, however. These 15 experts from Forbes Agency Council look at the ways an agency can market a product that it knows little about.

1. Do Your Research

For the placement of a successful advertising message, the target group must still be addressed exactly where it spends most of its time. Due to the digital change, the advertising budget has not only increased in recent years, this change will also continue to assert itself with regard to technologies such as augmented reality and artificial intelligence. Agencies that focus on online advertising will be among the winners! – Markus Hetzenegger,NYBA Media GmbH

2. Use The Product

The only way to really understand a product is to use it in your daily life. Get a copy of the actual product, software, device or whatever it is, and use it. You will see its advantages and disadvantages. Even better, use the competing products and find out why they are different. – Peter Boyd, PaperStreet Web Design

3. Work Closely With The Client

You can’t be an expert in everything, and it’s OK. I think there’s no better way to learn about an unfamiliar product or service than by working closely with its founders. Ask your client for input. It’s going to be much more efficient if you establish the most convenient cooperation process from the start. – Solomon Thimothy, OneIMS

4. Start With The Basics

Start with the fundamentals. What is the company’s mission? Who are its customers? What problem(s) is the product solving? Why is it a better solution than others? This can be accomplished through interviews with company employees and customers, researching competitors, and getting hands-on with the product. Use all of this research to help position campaigns that address consumer pain points. – Preethy Vaidyanathan,Slice

5. Always Put The Consumer First

Think of the customer journey. Who are they? What pain point do they have that this product fixes? Where would they begin looking for a solution to their pain point? How would they search for a solution? Is it an FAQ article? A direct search? A forum post? Then, how would they connect with your product? Email, text, call? Then promote your product using your responses to the questions above. – David Kley, Web Design and Company

6. Build A Campaign Around Results And Value

Everyone that buys a product or service does it because of the value that it adds to their life or business. The key to any marketing campaign is to highlight that value and show how it is so much bigger that the associated cost. So even if you’re marketing a product or service that is hard to understand, make it so that the result is as obvious as possible, and you’ll have a winner. – Rafael Romis, Weberous Web Design

7. Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

In my opinion, preparing a campaign for a product or service I don’t understand is the most fun one can have in marketing! Why? Because it’s fun to learn new things, of course. But also because these are often the most successful. Not knowing means we have no preconceived notions of the client or brand and that allows us to be inherently objective in defining the target customer and value proposition. – Keri Witman, Clever Lucy

8. Embed Yourself

There is no substitute for understanding. If you are unfamiliar with a product or service, embed yourself in it. That means going beyond internet research. Shadow a salesperson. Visit the manufacturing plant. Go mystery shopping and talk to real customers. Put yourself in their lead funnel. You’re almost guaranteed to have an “ah-ha” moment. – Tripp Donnelly, REQ

9. Get The Marketer Back To The Drawing Board

If the agency and the consumer don’t completely understand the benefit of your product or service, the marketer shouldn’t be planning a campaign just yet, or they will be setting up for a failure. Instead, go back to the strategy and positioning stage — research the market, understand consumer trends and needs, and design a value offering and messaging that is clear to the consumers. – Hamutal Schieber

10. Meet With Different Stakeholders

We spend some time learning about the business first. Then we do a competitor analysis after having a meeting with several stakeholders. It is important to do user journey analysis and understand pain points in each stage. We identify questions asked by their customers in various stages of user journey. The meeting with stakeholders (different departments) is a good way to uncover facts. – Sanil Subhash Chandra Bose, Ayruz Data Marketing

11. Stop Using Industry Lingo

During the launch of a new financial service, our client made us remove any of our industry lingo from our presentation and our discussion. Often, we rely heavily on using these words as fillers but they have little meaning to consumers. We were left with a distilled idea that we felt was more easily understood. – Kaaren Whitney-Vernon, Shaftesbury

12. Find The Right Words

It’s very common for companies to talk internally about their products using terms that the general population doesn’t associate with the product category. As an outsider looking in, the first step is to identify the product niche and do a deep dive on the terms/lexicon that consumers use to describe competitive products. Only then can you start crafting a message that will resonate. – Toren Ajk, TAC Marketing Group

13. Use Discovery Sessions And Focus Groups

If you find yourself marketing a product you don’t fully understand, please stop. If you’ve launched a product or campaign without a go-to-market strategy, you should make it your No. 1 goal to get it done right away. Leading in-depth discovery sessions and focus groups around the product or service will allow you to better understand the product, its benefits and the objections potential customers may have. – Alex Quin, UADV

14. Have A Repeatable Onboarding Process

We execute PR exclusively for business-to-business software-as-a-service brands, many who operate in complex industries (think AI for IT operations, medical device QM software, etc.). To level up the understanding of any new client’s business, we developed a robust 30-day onboarding process. It is not optional for our clients — a repeatable, proven process allowing us to get the information we need before any work begins. – Lindsey Groepper, BLASTmedia

15. Apply Design Thinking

Spend a significant part with the budget on empathizing with the problem. Invest in taking a deeper dive. The industry is highly underserved in client intimacy. Templates don’t work. Capitalize on that fact and find success with a scrappier solution. It’s OK to take that chance because most campaigns are already set up to fail due to lack of empathy and a rushed problem definition phase. – Kashif Zaman

Our SVP, Branded Entertainment, Kaaren Whitney-Vernon,  is an active Forbes Agency Council member. She is often asked, and quoted, for her expertise in their Forbes Expert Panels.   Reposted from Forbes.

Over the last decade, the number of channels for marketing products has more than doubled. As expected, the amount of spending has matched the increased number of channels, with businesses in any industry striving to make the most of their advertising budgets so as to take advantage of as many marketing channels as possible.

With the rise of online shopping and e-commerce, businesses are today — more than ever — dependent on the positive management of their company website. However, there’s no rule book about the right way to develop and manage a business website. There are distinct differences between one industry and another that make it impossible to generalize website management.

1. Have A Strategy And Know Your Visitor

The homepage of a website is the most important place on the site. In less time than it takes to hit the back button on a browser, visitors will ask and notice several things. Your website needs to match up with your organization’s strategic goals. Which leads directly to who the people visiting you are, why they are visiting, how they interact with the site and what we want them to know and do. – Patrick Nycz,NewPoint Marketing

2. Remember That Less Is More (Sometimes)

A website can allow businesses to share almost unlimited information, but that doesn’t mean they should throw everything under the sun at their users. Too many choices in a menu, for example, can create confusion or take focus away from high priority topics or offerings. Use text and visual elements thoughtfully to highlight what matters most to your customers. – Hannah Trivette,NUVEW Web Solutions

3. Keep Your Customers In Mind At All Times

Businesses make a fatal error when they design and program their websites for themselves instead of their customers. While there are a million ways to implement this mindset, one granular example is knowing which browsers your users prefer. Make sure your site can accommodate older versions of those browsers, as well as the latest ones. – Mary Ann O’Brien, OBI Creative

4. Make It A Knowledge Center

Talk to the news. To show authority in your sector, you need to be able to provide insight in what is going on and why it matters for your clients. Providing well-researched and well-written commentary is a great way to mark out your website as a knowledge center. – Paul Blanchard, Right Angles

5. Be Specific, Valuable And Keep It Simple

According to Hick’s law, the more choices you present to visitors, the longer they will take to make the decision. So the first rule is to be specific. Second, add the value to the visitors by adding the call-to-action buttons (e.g., ROI calculator or free SEO audit). Finally, use the programs that build the heat map and click reports for a better understanding of UX (user experience). – Oganes Vagramovich Barsegyan, Digital Beverly Marketing Solutions

6. Focus, Focus, Focus

Sometimes people want to add every detail of what they do. My best practice is to focus, from the get-go. Decide what your goals are for the site — is it to build relationships (maybe add a live chat feature) or to sell products or simply to give out info? Decide on your main purpose and then change and pivot from there, depending on what is working. – Kaaren Whitney-Vernon, Shaftesbury

7. Feed Your Blog, Or Kill It

If your firm lacks the resources or motivation to produce relevant content on a consistent basis, then shut down your blog. Content that’s more than two months old suggests that either your company is no longer in business, or that ideas and enthusiasm are in short supply. Your website should be a brand asset, not a liability. – Gordon Andrew, Highlander Consulting Inc.

8. Set The Tone

Utilize your website to convey the “tone” of your business — through the text, visuals, presentation of your products and services, leadership, culture and even job openings. However you best describe yourself — conservative, buttoned-up, progressive, to irreverent — let that spirit come through as a differentiator. – Jim Heininger,Dixon|James – Rebranding Experts

9. Address Customers’ Most Important Needs

Anticipate the customer’s main need and make sure that the story your website tells explains how your product or service addresses that need. The website design and functionality should support it, yet the story should come first. – Inna Semenyuk, InnavationLabs

10. Update It Constantly

Gone are days of spending a bunch of time and resources on building a website only to never update it again. To maximize the potential of a web page or online community you must remember to update and upkeep the content on that platform on a regular basis. Not only will you favor search engine algorithms, but you will also give your returning visitors a fresh experience each time they visit your page. –Alex Quin, UADV

11. Use Human Imagery

Human imagery on the home page makes a big difference in creating a good first impression. Of course, a clean look and feel, aesthetic design, soothing colors and good navigation are important for a good home page. But one thing that can make a difference is human imagery. As humans, we like to talk to people, and having a good visual with people in it creates an instant connection with the website visitor. – Hareesh Tibrewala, Mirum India

12. Remember That Looks Matter

A professionally-designed, easy-to-use website will convey to potential customers that you are a reputable organization that they want to do business with. And don’t forget about your mobile site. People won’t recommend a business with a poorly designed mobile site. – Laura Cole, Vivial

13. Add Video Content

Video is your No. 1 marketing tool in 2020 because that’s the way people consume content at the moment. Just to illustrate, adding a video to the website increases organic search traffic by 157% and boosts conversion rate by up to 80%. Take the time to film an informative and valuable video and embed it on your home page. It will definitely create a positive first impression. – Solomon Thimothy,OneIMS

14. Don’t Forget Your Social Front Door

Websites are often a top search result for a company, but likely in the top three results is probably also a company’s social page. Ensuring that any “front door” that a consumer decides to enter is curated, updated and on-brand is equally critical. Not only should you ensure that your website has functioning social links, but you should also ensure your social pages link easily to your website. – Matthew Brown, ThumbStopper®

Our SVP, Branded Entertainment, Kaaren Whitney-Vernon,  is an active Forbes Agency Council member. She is often asked, and quoted, for her expertise in their Forbes Expert Panels.   Reposted from Forbes.

Over the last decade, the number of channels for marketing products has more than doubled. As expected, the amount of spending has matched the increased number of channels, with businesses in any industry striving to make the most of their advertising budgets so as to take advantage of as many marketing channels as possible.

With so many options available, it’s essential that organizations only invest in channels that actually prove their worth. Figuring out what those channels are early and getting in on the ground floor can put a company miles ahead in the game. To help out those businesses looking for the scoop, 15 members of Forbes Agency Council offer their insight into where an organization should put its advertising money this year for optimal results.

1. Focus On Digital And Win 

For the placement of a successful advertising message, the target group must still be addressed exactly where it spends most of its time. Due to the digital change, the advertising budget has not only increased in recent years, this change will also continue to assert itself with regard to technologies such as augmented reality and artificial intelligence. Agencies that focus on online advertising will be among the winners! – Markus Hetzenegger,NYBA Media GmbH

2. Invest In What Consumers Want To Watch 

More and more video content is being consumed on our mobile phones. This content ranges from watching a long-form series on OTT platforms to short-form vertical videos on TikTok, Snapchat and Quibi. Instead of interrupting consumers viewing this content with banner ads and pre-roll, brands should start creating branded entertainment that viewers will want to seek out and engage in. – Kaaren Whitney-Vernon, Shaftesbury

3. Diversify To Multiply Your Advertising Effectiveness 

Time and again, research has proven the multiplier effect on awareness and consideration that advertising across multiple channels can have. The essential growth strategy for 2020 is to diversify. Try adding another channel into the mix. It’s also important that your advertising is optimized to each channel’s best practices — don’t just copy your ads and messaging from one channel to the next. – John Keehler, RUNNER Agency

4. Allocate More Funds To Personalization 

We’re going to see more ad dollars devoted to personalization. Consumer targeting will reach all new targeted peaks as brands build out robust multichannel marketing strategies yet manage to deliver personalized messages to each individual customer. Consumers want brands to make them feel special. Agencies that want to get ahead use data to deliver messages tailored for each individual customer. – Danica Kombol, Everywhere Agency

5. Spend It On The Customer Experience 

As everything commoditizes and advertisers continue to struggle to be noticed, it seems the best thing to do in 2020 is spend your money on the customer experience. Many of the typical media channels are so saturated that every dollar spent on the stakeholder experience may yield higher returns. With so many advertisers “screaming” at the consumer, actions might be the best advertising. – Bo Bothe, BrandExtract, LLC

6. Invest In Paid Social Media Targeting 

The media landscape continues to evolve with new digital players such as TikTok disrupting the game. However, the key to maximizing ad budget and ROI will continue to come down to your ability to effectively target your audience. With TV, print and billboards you are guessing. That’s not the case with paid social on Facebook and Instagram, which will remain the best place to spend money in 2020. – Kristopher Jones, LSEO

7. Leverage LinkedIn Promotional Media 

In business-to-business, this year’s trend will be to utilize and leverage various aspects of LinkedIn in a single campaign. Sponsored ads will lead to original posts which will lead to landing pages and calls to action. The concept is to begin by targeting a specific audience with something attention-getting, then transition to a thought leadership article or educational information, and eventually to a company’s website. – Francine Carb, Markitects, Inc.

8. Don’t Underestimate Facebook 

Facebook ads have been saturated for quite some time and the cost of “real estate,” so to speak, has been high. As many companies are shifting ad spend to other platforms, it will open up spaces on Facebook to gain cheaper traction within the platform, given the right model. – Michael Smith, MDS Media Inc.

9. Focus On Mobile Video Advertising 

Two massive audience trends are set to converge in 2020 — the migration to mobile and increased interest in video. Mobile’s share of the U.S. digital advertising market has grown to almost two-thirds, and more than half the population watches video content on mobile devices regularly. Agencies that produce compelling mobile video ads will be ahead of the game in the coming year. – Scott Baradell, Idea Grove

10. Prioritize Influencer Marketing 

With digital ad spend slated to overtake traditional ad spend, we’re going to see more companies prioritizing influencer marketing in their increasingly digital budgets. With all the ways to measure influencer performance, ROI-based campaigns are going to replace the initial wave of experimentation. Brands are turning away from fads and vanity metrics in favor of real KPIs. – Danielle Wiley, Sway Group

11. Go Native 

Native advertising has gone through several reputation iterations, from seedy clickbait to social media staple. In the open web, it’s savvy programmatic buyers’ best-kept secret: When done right, native ads are content previews and lead to the highest post-click engagement. About $2.98 billion will go toward native ads outside social networks in 2020 — the fastest growth of any channel, according to eMarketer. – Lon Otremba,Bidtellect

12. Personalize Customer Touch Points 

“Best spent” means ROI to me, and advertising dollars that go toward direct, personalized customer touch points will deliver the most ROI. This includes email and mobile, but could encompass creative remarketing across digital and social channels, including in-home touch points like product packaging and direct mail. Marketers should think less about channels and more about omnichannel and experiential. – Tripp Donnelly, REQ

13. Put Your Money On CTV 

Connected TV will have one of the largest rates of expansion over the coming year. People still want content, but they continue to want it delivered on more diverse mediums, and Connected TV can reach them wherever they are. – Jessica Hawthorne-Castro, Hawthorne LLC

14. Place The Media Around Consumption Habits 

There are so many options when it comes to buying and placing media. Agencies and businesses can get ahead by only placing media around the target audience’s consumption habits. People who are 18 to 24 years old consume media differently than 35-to-44-year-olds. The social platforms they use, TV shows, magazines — all different. To avoid large amounts of wasted impressions, the execution needs to be hyper-targeted. – Sean Allen, Twelve Three Media

15. Spend Your Ad Dollars On Content Instead 

When you buy traffic, you only get one ROI. When you spend it on content, you make that ROI over and over again from earned organic traffic. The investment is longer term, but sticking to the inbound methodology will eventually lower your cost per acquisition below paid media. If you want to get ahead in the game, invest in content — you’ll still be generating traffic when your budget is gone. – David Ward, Meticulosity

Branded Entertainment is still a relatively new practice, and as such, it can be difficult to find and deploy branded entertainment best practices. While many organizations have founded success with branded content, it’s not always immediately clear how their success can translate to other brands and other industries.

Currently, when Branded Entertainment is discussed as a new opportunity—depending on who is having the conversation—one of three common scenarios usually follows. In each case, these scenarios often look more like a way out of trouble than an approach to doing business in a different way. But if we look at these scenarios from slightly different angle, some Branded Entertainment best practices do emerge

COMMON BRANDED ENTERTAINMENT SCENARIOS

Some quick-fix Branded Entertainment scenarios that are presently missing the bigger picture (as seen from their respective perspectives) include:

• Brand Manager: Our brand has found a way into desirable content. Perhaps, but is this situation creating a real shift for the brand? Consider this frequent scenario. A serial show becomes a hit, and brands want to be a part of that success no matter what. For instance, when talent-search shows were hitting big numbers and capturing instant success, powerful consumer product brands had to get a piece of the action, even if it only meant having a glass with their logo on the table of the show’s celebrity judges. Achieving the presence of the brand on the show was accomplished, but did it really create a significant shift?
• Content Producer: How are we going to get the series off the ground? We need a brand! The content has a chance to be produced only because of a brand’s investment; but, is there real creativity put toward the inclusion of the brand into the creative? This scenario is the traditional method of raising funds for production through standard product placement. Think of hugely successful prime-time competition shows like America’s Got Talent, seen by millions. Slap a logo on the cup the judges are drinking from, front and center to the viewer. There’s not a great deal of creativity to this approach. The goal to reach a particular number of consumers may be reached, but is this goal good enough to create a personality for the brand?
• Agency: Branded Entertainment definitely sounds innovative enough to keep our agency’s billing growing. Has the creative work been done to really think through the brand fit? In the case of an online series, created solely by the brand’s agency, the brand is well positioned in each webisode, but is the content authentic enough to create a viral following and true consumer engagement? Health and beauty brands have often taken this approach in search of in-content participation, but in doing so did the approach create a real shift for the brand? Most importantly, have the webisodes really been watched by a wide enough audience to make an impact?

In each of these examples, Branded Entertainment is viewed most often as a solution to a problem, not as a new approach to doing business. Branded Entertainment is looked at as an immediate problem solver. Now, you might be wondering what’s wrong with that? Well, immediate solutions have a tendency to die young. When Branded Entertainment emerges as a simple solution to common media problems, the engagement process gets shortened, creative corners are cut and, as a result, partner goals tend to be ignored and there is little reach into spreading a brand’s audience. This is where problems begin. Now you have a new set of obstacles to overcome rather than a truly new approach.

Moving Past a “Quick Fix” Mentality

The “quick-fix” misconception misses the mark because it fails to fully appreciate the concept being put in motion as a complete business methodology. That said, as we look at the various ways Branded Entertainment is understood, or partially understood, in the industry, a three-dimensional image is beginning to emerge from the many observed sides. In addition to having the potential to solve problems, Branded Entertainment is also:

• A cool trend
• An alternate approach to the 30-Second Spot
• The 2.0 version of product placement

Each of these trends can help us develop a branded entertainment best practices approach:

• Cool. Industry insiders who view Branded Entertainment as “cool” are latching onto it because they see Branded Entertainment as both new and innovative. Branded Entertainment reflects modern thinking for the brands and an unexplored way to get consumers.
• An Alternative Approach: Recognizing Branded Entertainment as an alternative approach implies an acceptance of the concept that brands have options to choose from. Brands can create content beyond traditional 30-second spots. A brand can opt in on ideas for entertaining content and play an integral role in the development of the content.
• Product Placement Version 2.0: Ultimately, embracing Branded Entertainment as “Product Placement 2.0” reveals an understanding that content and brands can now live side by side – the brand is no longer relegated to the background. The 2.0 upgrade specifically refers to the potential of Branded Entertainment to create a more even relationship between the content and the brand.

To stay up-to-date with the latest Branded Entertainment news, sign up for updates from Shaftesbury. And if you’re ready to start putting some Branded Entertainment best practices in to play, reach out to us at any time.

Branded Entertainment marketing is growing, and growing fast. Since the recent explosion in content consumption, brands have found new avenues to deliver their brand messages by creating content relevant to their audience. eMarketer projects $8.8 billion in Branded Entertainment spending by 2018, nearly 12 percent of what television spend is projected to be three years from now. That’s a large number, considering television’s 60+ years of advertising dominance.

DEFINING SUCCESS WITH BRANDED ENTERTAINMENT

Today’s brands are recognizing the importance of Branded Entertainment. However, clear and defined ways to measure their effectiveness have yet to be determined. Additionally, brands are struggling to figure out exactly what kinds of content will resonate best with their intended audience, and the issue of scaling these Branded Entertainment pieces has yet to be fully understood.

People have different expectations for online content than they do for TV or print. In more traditional forms of media, there seems to be an aversion toward advertorial-type executions due to audience expectations regarding the content relative to the medium. In terms of digital Branded Entertainment campaigns, research found that 61 percent of consumers agree: as long as the content the brand is producing is good quality and provides what that they want from their content consumption, they do not care if the content is sponsored.

USING AUDIENCE INSIGHTS TO GUIDE CREATIVE DEVELOPMENT

Much like how television concepts are pre-tested before production, the development of a Branded Entertainment can benefit from using similar practices. To zero-in on the type of content that would appeal most to the audience, Shaftesbury developed a technique to gauge audience interest in potential pieces of a branded entertainment program.

After setting content parameters for a specific brand and its objectives, we run a long list of content ideas (headlines and short copy blurbs) through a MaxDif conjoint technique. In layman’s terms, a MaxDif is a type of trade-off analysis. It efficiently allows for identifying which concepts have the most potential appeal to the audience — before incurring any production costs. The resulting analytics then rank the concepts in order of most appealing.

The industry has spent years amassing an enormous amount of data on other forms of advertising to determine best practices. Branded Entertainment has not been afforded that luxury, leaving marketers understandably wary. Shaftesbury’s experience definitively proves that content marketing is a reliable and consistent mode of brand messaging that works. However, to reap its full benefits, it’s important that brands truly understand what their respective consumers want from content. Additionally, brands should continue to experiment with the format and be open to the idea of including more of their brand messaging with the content they produce. Branded Entertainment is a powerful tool that brands should employ, as its efficacy in terms of brand equity is clear and can be proven. Identifying core content needs and nuances are key to success. Armed with these insights, brands can fully invest and embrace the challenges and benefits that come with deploying a successful Branded Entertainment campaign.

DEPLOYING BRANDED ENTERTAINMENT BEST PRACTICES

As Branded Entertainment grows and brands consider shifting their marketing and advertising budgets, many will struggle with how to get started. Keep the following best practices in mind as you develop a Branded Entertainment strategy:

1. Although the digital and analog worlds of content are colliding, what works (or doesn’t work) on television and other offline channels does not necessarily translate online. Be mindful of the medium when creating content and adapt.
2. Test to understand what content (topic and format) will resonate best with your audience to yield greater returns in brand equity and campaign performance.
3. Don’t be afraid to experiment with the amount of brand messaging and presence injected into your content. Test and see what works best for your brand and consumers.
4. Orchestrate consumer research with digital analytics to provide a more complete view of how the program is working.

To stay up-to-date with the latest Branded Entertainment news, sign up for updates from Shaftesbury. And if you’re ready to start working a Branded Entertainment plan of your own, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at any time.