In the year 2002, six reservoir dogs tried to loot the Service American Bank. While they hatched their plans on the rooftop of a presumably deserted building, a can of Thums Up sat patiently on the blue print of the bank?s architecture. Film Kaante which was a roaring success of its time also depicted hacker Andy (played by Bollywood actor Kumar Gaurav) sporting a black tote bag with a Thums Up logo inscribed on its. Sanjay Bhutiani, partner with Red Carpet Entertainment, who had engineered the deal between the film producer and the brand says, ?We made a real effort to ensure that the product did not jump out of the screen. This was not an advert and we made effort to ensure that it wasn’t treated like one,? says Bhutiani. The times were different then, he added. Branded entertainment was largely restricted to product placements and the emphasis was always on creative excellence.
Today, product placements have morphed into various forms and they aren?t restricted to films alone. Marriage between brands and content is more common on TV today than in films even though the latter continue to attract a lot more investment than they did a decade ago. These days, brands not only sponsor, co-sponsor, co-brand but even fund programmes or content that they think can get them easy access to their consumers. The industry has multiple stakeholders from product placement firms, broadcast arms, creative units, media agency units, producers, to studios and even celebrity management wings. There are dedicated professionals who excel in making matches between brands and content.
Product placement was a highly specialized area once, but there is almost no specialization required today, says Bhutiani. ?Everyone?s running behind the same thing. With media agencies coming in, the spotlight has shifted from creative excellence to cost effective deals. But the good part is that branded entertainment as a discipline has earned more acceptability.?
Very Filmy
Bollywood actor Kareena Kapoor smolders on screen in the ‘Mere Photo ko Seene Se Yaar, Chipka Le Saiyan Fevicol Se? number. Her seductive moves add oomph to an otherwise sterile category and set the charts topping for both the film and the brand. Film Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani features actor Ranbir Kapoor (Bunny) as the videographer for Fox Traveller. In the same film, Deepika Padukone books her tickets on makemytrip.com and sips an Appy while in transit. Ashish Patel, vice president and the creative and business head at the production house Yash Raj Films (YRF) says the business of brand placements has evolved like real estate business. ?There?s a real hustle of brokers,? he says.
In another upcoming film Besharam, actor Ranbir Kapoor is named Pepsi. And for the record, the actor is the ambassador for the brand. When contacted, the Pepsi India spokesperson said the company had not engineered the association but they were pleased with their association with the film Zindagi Na Milegi Doobara where they had released a co-branded commercial.
Ruchira Jaitly, category director?Flavours, PepsiCo India says, ?Very rarely you find a perfect fit between what a film is trying to say and the brand philosophy. Mountain Dew has always stood for the philosophy that one has to face down one’s fear to conquer it. The idea of three friends daring each other to overcome their fears synced with the brand thought.?
While some brands may be integrated surreptitiously in the script, there is nothing subtle about Maruti Suzuki?s branded film ?Mere Dad Ki Maruti.? Patil of YRF says that Maruti had seen a significant increase in enquiries after the film released. ?We had a script which we knew will do very nicely for a car. There were quite a few contenders for this association but Maruti was quick in its decision making. This film?along with the marketing promotions, etc, cost us roughly R10 crore. A great part of this amount was underwritten by Maruti. We have managed to spin R25 crore out of this movie project, from box office sales, digital, satellite rights etc,? says Patil.
Mayank Pareek, COO, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, says that the lead character in the movie was the car. ?Visibility came even before the movie was released. It reached the audiences through promotions, public relations, advertisements across mediums. The total reach through You-Tube itself has been over 20 million views.? He added that in line with the film doing well in NCR, Delhi and Punjab, there?s been a good traction in sales, and enhancement of image in these markets. Pareek is on the lookout for more movie integrations and claims to be working on some already. ?To sum it up, we do feel that content integration is effective. It helps in getting a captive audience,? he says.
That said films still remain a shaky ground when it comes return on investment. ?At the end of the day, the fate of the brand depends on the fate of the film. If the films does well, the brand gets a huge mileage. If the film bombs, the brand?s investment goes down the drain,? say an executive from an advertising agency. For instance, three senior executives in the branded entertainment space said that one of the country?s largest consumer goods companies Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) has been toying with the idea of making a branded film. These executives said the company has already explored a few scripts but it is fighting shy of taking the final plunge because it remain very focussed on return on investment whereas with films one essentially takes a punt,? says an executive. He added that HUL associated itself with nearly 40 films last year, and hopes to touch as many as 75-80 films this year and a lot of these will be regional films. HUL expressed inability to participate in the story.
Small wonders
Meanwhile, the small screen, too, has gotten on to the branded content bandwagon. Most TV channels, in fact, have set up dedicated divisions to explore tie ups with brands. They have dedicated teams that come up with content/programme ideas that could be suited to a brand?s interest. While in some cases, brands invest as sponsors, in many they simply pay for the entire production cost. Now, there is an increasing trend of brands employing production houses, producing the content on their own and using a TV platform only to air it. Of course, they pay the channels for carrying the show, too. Times Television Network (TTN), for instance, has set up a new division to handle branded entertainment work. The initiative is built around the philosophy of co-creating contextual conversations for brands and a lot of the work is the news space. Examples of work done by TTN include ?Mahindra Rise presents Amazing Indians?; ?Kent Mineral RO presents The Foodie Awards?; ?Lufthansa Pioneering Spirits?; ?Vodafone Drive Into The Big League?; ?IndiaMart Leaders of Tomorrow and others. The names of the brands sponsoring or funding the shows are out there and there is no effort to distance them from content.
?We have created a few intellectual property shows that are in branded content space like ?A Cut Above? which is a reality show to find India?s best hairstylist. The brand partner for the show is TRESemm? . The concept is a talent hunt but we?ve had a brand supporting the exercise and all the elements of a regular reality show were present in the show. We also created a show ?Fashion Drill? with Pepe Jeans as the lead sponsor. The show was essentially a hunt for a model,? says Avinash Kaul, CEO of ET Now, Times Now and Zoom. Kaul, however, asserts that branded entertainment is still an emerging area and a lot of best practices are still to be adopted in India. ?We see a lot of potential for growth in this segment. It enables the brand to engage with a consumer in a very contextual manner rather than hard selling via a 30 sec commercial. The content is managed by the editorial teams to make sure the viewer interest is protected,? he says.
Rival Viacom18 also set up a unit called Integrated Network Solutions (INS) that explores ways of letting brands appear outside of regular commercial time. It, for instances, works on formats such as events, product placements, co branded ads etc. Jaideep Singh, senior vice president and business head, INS, says that Viacom has in the past made advertiser-funded programmes (AFPs) like ?Vodafone Race to Fame? which was around the Formula One Race event. Brand integration, he says is easier to do. ?We have high impact formats like Bigg Boss and Jhalak Dikhlaja through which we can do integration. For instance, KBC Marathi had Idea Cellular showcased in a big way.? Singh says he?s also exploring opportunities for brands on global formats, so that they can be incorporated in shows internationally.
General entertainment channel Colors, also from Viacom stable, has experimented with many AFPs as well. ?We have partnered on various AFP projects with our clients,? says Simran Hoon, national sales head at Colors, ?With Idea, we did ?Idea Rocks India;?a series of musical events and with LG; we did three seasons of ?Mallika ?E-Kitchen?, a cooking show aimed at housewives.
AFPs, in fact, have become a big phenomenon on TV. ?Brands are now investing in telling their own story with larger budgets and quality production. They are also looking at the right partnerships to ensure maximum outreach for their content. It?s not merely a slot sale, this business is also rating driven,? says Hoon. She says that with the new guidelines on advertising from the telecom regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, the inventories were already reducing and spot rates will increase. As a result there could be an increase in branded entertainment work.
Television network NGC-Fox says that over the last two decades, brand managers and agencies have been forced to think beyond 30 second formats. Debarpita Banerjee, vice president marketing, NGC and FOX International Channels says that with the advent of new age media like smart phones, tablets and digital outdoor, there are many opportunities to engage with consumers and brand integration is an excellent way of funding content creation. ?For a quality interaction, consumers need to spend time with the communication and for this; branded content comes in handy. It gives you an opportunity to showcase your product while entertaining the consumer.?
Banerjee, however, adds a disclaimer: the process of integrating a brand with the script has to have strong viewership filters on both sides. An example of work done by NGC-Fox includes XTreme trail, a reality show aired in 2011-12 which was developed in partnership with automaker Nissan. It brought together adventure enthusiasts from all over India and gave them an opportunity to drive the car through some of the roughest and the most extreme paths. Similarly a new show My Endeavour Alterrain will be aired this year in partnership with the Ford Endeavour. It catalogues the journey of celebs such as Gul Panag and Chetan Bhagat through rough terrains.
A brand that experimented with AFP on television and found it worthwhile is Tanishq. Knowing that Carnatic music is popular in the south, it brought in Tanishq Swan Sangeetham, a carnatic classical music reality show in 2012. This show was conceptualized by GroupM company Maxus and their Tamil Nadu cultural consultant Ashok Ramani and the channel chosen was Raj TV. Deepika Sabharwal Tewari, general manager and head marketing at Tanishq says that the show, now in its second year, not only discovered amazing talent but also brought Tanishq culturally closer to consumers in the south. ?Tamil Nadu is an important jewelry market with a strong cultural lineage and this association served both the consumers and the brand well,? she says. Tewari says that advertisers were increasingly turning to branded content in order to beat the clutter.
The Promised Land
With advertising being the sole source of sustenance for media companies and brands being keen to step out of the cluttered commercial space, the future of branded content as a practice looks more than secure. Then, the stakeholders are making efforts to make it more attractive as well as effective for the audiences. For instance, viewers could soon order apparels worn by the protagonist in a television show, or a product being used by her in real time using new technology. ?Such technology already exists in other markets,? says Ray Velez, chief technology officer of Razorfish, a company owned by French marketing communications group Publicis. As digitization takes off supplemented by 4G and other technologies, this sort of e-commerce or rather TV-commerce is inevitable, say experts. ?I can take a video and identify a hot spot in the video. If there?s a baseball game on, we can do a pop up that says ?Buy This Jersey Now,? says Velez. He adds that there is no choice but to introduce commerce in video, because technologies such as digital video recording (DVR) have made it possible for people to skip commercials. People don?t want to watch diaper ads, but would perhaps watch it if it was part of a show, he says.
Navin Shah, managing director at Entertainment Media Communications (EMC) Solutions Worldwide, says that associations between brands and content need to be crafted cautiously. ?Do half hearted stuff and it can impact your ratings,? he says. EMC Worldwide is doing a promotion around upcoming film Krish 3 where one multinational consumer goods company will release a Krish doll along with its packs. ?This business calls for innovation,? says Shah. ? There will also be an interesting placement of a brand in the film 2 States, which is being produced by Dharma Productions. The brand is almost a character in the film,? he reveals.
Anita Karnik, principal partner at Mindshare, GroupM India points that beyond films and TV, there is an emerging and a promising platform and that is digital. ?There are more than 150 million internet users and 73% of them watch online videos. There are around 165 million mobile internet users. This is a space calling out for experiments in the branded content genre,? she says. Mindshare has just devised a unique onlin AFP for its client Ford. The website ecosportsdiscoveries.co.in is about teams discovering the hottest destinations in their cities. They are curating content for 31 teams (of three people each) and across 12 cities. She asserts that there will be scores of videos coming out that will forge connections with Ford?s target group.