Brand in the story

If you have been watching Bigg Boss-3 on Viacom 18?s Hindi general entertainment channel Colors lately, you wouldn?t have missed the in-your-face presence of a host of brands across the one-hour show?Vodafone pug holding up a placard in the store room, Max Life Insurance billboard staring down at a contestant in the gym, Lux hoarding near the women?s closet, or Garnier hoarding in the men?s attic. Besides this passive presence, many of these trends have been made part of the show by organising contests or events involving an active use or discussion of the attributes of the brands.

Small wonder, Colors is raking in 60-70% of its advertising revenue from these ?brand integrations? into its currently top rated show. Regular advertising makes only just 30-40% of the total ad revenues, says the channel?s spokesperson.

Although Bigg Boss is an unscripted show, where it?s a lot easier for the channel to use brands as props so they don?t stick out like eyesores, the trend is evident on other soaps and serials too, where brands are often force-fitted into storylines, and are presented as inherent to the show format.

The result? A total blurring of traditional distinction between entertainment, infotainment and advertising. And this is not just unique to the electronic medium. These days, content across all media platforms including films, television, mobile games and print is up for grabs. Advertorials or advertiser funded content or branded content, thus, is a common practice across the board.

And here?s the industry?s own definition of what defines branded content. ?Branded content is when a brand or its values are introduced indirectly into the editorial content in a manner that does not disturb the consumer,? explains Ashish Bhasin, chairman, India and CEO, South East Asia for Aegis Media, a UK-based market communication group that claims to have pioneered the trend in India. Aegis counts Philips, Adidas, Reebok, Mattel as its top clients for brand integrations.

For recession-weary advertisers, this mode of advertising is not just less obtrusive but also less expensive than long form commercials in the form of Advertiser Funded Programmes (AFP).

Innovation is the name of the game. Take for instance broadcaster NDTV?s reported Rs 100-crore co-branding deal with the UB Group for its lifestyle channel NDTV Good Times. The channel not only uses the company?s tagline ?Good Times? as part of its title, its logo also comprises, and prominently so, the Kingfisher bird, which is one of the brand symbols of the UB Group. The channel has also tied-up with several other brands for its various shows such as Zip Pouch for Chake le India!; Apollo Tyres for HOMP; Pedigree for Heavy Petting; Bertoli for Italian Khana; Geetanjali for Limited Edition; Reebok for Sweat; and Reid and Taylor for Cracking the Code.

?If a company is interested in working on a show that communicates its brand characteristics, we are always ready to help,? says Deepak Dhar, managing director of Endemol India, a television content production company that has produced several big ticket reality shows such as Big Brother, Fear Factor, Indian Laughter Challenge and Jo Jita Woh Sikandar. Branding content is, indeed, an additional source of revenue for content producers, be it films or television shows, and deal sizes vary from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 1 crore, according to various industry estimates.

Some recent clever examples of brand embedment include use of Worldspace radio station brand in the popular Hindi film Lage Raho Munna Bhai, Channel V?s Launchpad in Rock on! and Curex in Cheeni Kum. ?When a brand becomes an inseparable part of a movie, it?s a lottery for a brand. It gives them life beyond a 30-second ad. It will be watched several times over,? says Rajesh Iyer, the business director of The Bridge, a specialist arm of Starcom MediaVest Group that deals with this kind of brand placements.

Although, branded content accounts for only 1-2% of a brand?s annual advertising spend at the moment, the market is expanding, prompting ad agencies to open new offices to handle just these requests. Starcom?s The Bridge opened a new office in Delhi, recently, and already finds its plate full. ?At times, there is scope to weave in 10 different properties in a script,? says Iyer.

While content providers for TV specialise in in-TV placements, media buying houses such as WPP owned Group M, Madison Mates, The Bridge, Lowe Production, Showdiff and ZenithOptimedia specialise in in-film placements, while there is new media entrepreneur Alok Kejriwal?s Contests2win and Reliance Entertainment?s Jump Games that embed brands in mobile content and games.

Remember the Thumbs Up Everest Challenge: Hai Dum? a mobile game developed by Jump Games that went on to win the best integrated marketing campaign award in 2005?

Although figures are hard to obtain for such a fragmented industry, ?the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for in-TV branding would be 15%, which is higher than the industry growth,? says Dhar.

Navin Shah, CEO of P 9 Integrated, a Percept Group company that does in- film placement of brands, pegs the market at Rs 200 crore, growing at a CAGR of 25%. Of this, in-film market would be worth Rs 40 crore and other tie-ups and co-promotions worth Rs 160 crore. ?In-film would be growing at 10%, while brand tie-ups are growing at 30% per year,? says Shah.

Tarun Chauhan, executive director of Lowe Lintas, the agency that has just beefed up its branded content division, Lowe Production (earlier Lintertainment) in Delhi and Bangalore says: ?The industry is young.

Most filmwallahs don?t understand why a brand is keen to partner with them. Whereas, for the brand, there could be a very strategic reason. For film producers, it?s anyways not a big source of revenue.?

Chauhan, however, is optimistic that when Bollywood starts using brand filters to develop these branded properties, the relationship between content producers and marketers, may become more exciting, going beyond the money traction.?

As of now, the biggest threat is force-fitting of brands, in places where they are not required. ?The creative challenge is to come up with an idea that seamlessly links brand attributes, without interfering with the editorial integrity,? says Aegis Media?s Bhasin, who believes that most branded content on television doesn?t work, simply because it intrudes into the consumer space.

?Anyone who knows one film producer claims to know all about branded content,? rues Sai Nagesh, chief growth officer with Dentsu Media. ?Branded content is not about putting up a banner or a hoarding in the background. It is about weaving the story and the premise of the brand, in a manner that adds and does not detract from the content. The consumer is not paying to see your ads. He is paying to watch the content,? he explains.

?Producers need to understand that long form of advertising is very different form short form and that if an advertiser was only interested in in-your-face product placements, he would just do that,? agrees Endemol?s Dhar.

?Managing expectations is the biggest challenge in the film industry,? says Shah. ?Because brands invest in a movie they come to assume they own the movie; while producers believe that simply by parting with the real estate of the film they are doing a big favour to the brands. It doesn?t work that way.?

Another challenge is to do with the cultural ethos of the Bollywood industry. ?At times there is very little or no sanity in the kind of contracts drawn with the parties involved; especially when it comes to seeking commitment from stars to appear at a show or attend an event associated with the brand,? rues Shah.

The third and by far, the biggest challenge pertains to pricing. ?Unlike more evolved mediums such as television, print and radio, pricing of branded content is very subjective and perception-driven. So far, there are no established performance metrics for such initiatives.

?We have made sporadic attempts in the past. TAM (TAM Media Research, a Mumbai based television audience measurement agency) has also attempted to measure the value and exposure of branded content but with little success,? says Dentsu Media?s Nagesh, who is now developing the agency?s own evaluation toolkit for branded content.

P 9 Integrated is also developing its internal metrics, which will present some kind of a report card that shows effective scores of branded content. All said and done, the business of branded entertainment is based on the ?right fit.? You either have it, or you don?t, say the experts.

?With a good fit, you can have a 360 degree integration that does not restrict the brand to just one integration. It could simultaneously be hooked to other brands and media tie-ups. We could then bring the entire film experience closer to the consumer through merchandising,? says Navin Shah.

Eventually, the idea is not to dilute the entertainment value of a film, show, or a gaming product. It?s not about saliency but about strategic, seamless integration. Branded entertainment can be strategic only if it?s entertaining.