Wakefit.co recently launched its first original web series titled Ghar Set Hai on its YouTube channel to build a digital-first community and cultivate more engaging relationships with its audience. It has already garnered more than two million organic views in the last eight weeks. In the past, Unacademy partnered with The Viral Fever (TVF) for Kota Factory, which depicts the lives of IIT aspirants slogging it out in the Rajasthan city, and Maxus Content and TVF launched Tripling for Tata Motors’ Tiago.
Both these logged over a million views per episode. Wavemaker, the agency that helped launch Tata Tiago with the Tripling integration, found the purchase intent scores among people who had seen the show was higher than those who didn’t. This isn’t surprising given nearly 49% of young people in India spend at least three hours a day binge-watching content, according to a dentsu report.
Propelled by this shift in viewing habits, a handful are gravitating towards branded web series, which, if done well, can capture attention and build positive brand image, particularly among younger consumers. Karthik Nagarajan, chief content officer, Wavemaker India, and head, branded content, GroupM India, notes that branded content works best at the consideration layer of the funnel and goes a long way in driving preference among customers. As mass media advertising’s impact continues to wane beyond awareness, analysts believe the role of branded content can only expand.
Tricks of the trade
Today, the audience has way too many options to choose from when deciding to invest three/four hours of their viewing time. Brand integration is seldom the reason “why” they choose to watch a show. The best-case scenario is that they will watch the show “despite” knowing there is a brand pulling the strings. So clearly, the content needs to be appealing by itself, notes Nagarajan.
Prateek Malpani, head of brand, Wakefit.co, says a brand should only invest in a web series when it has reached a decent scale in business. “Every brand has its own journey and a marketer might want to build his brand by telling a beautiful story. He might not want to not talk about features, specifications and functionalities alone. So the key is to understand when the brand is ready for that sort of a conversation,” he says. Wakefit.co invests around 10% of its overall ad spends in content marketing.
The costs of telling a story through long-format content are lower than doing the same through mass media advertisement. By design, mass media advertising leads to wastage. That said, the risk in content marketing is higher than in time-tested advertising because one cannot calculate RoI in terms of customer conversion, adds Aashka Goradia Goble, co-founder, Renee Cosmetics. The brand recently unveiled a web series, The Beauty Start-up, which aims to answer all the questions related to building a new-age business. “The general flavour of the series was a blend of light comedy and drama that goes on at workplaces. We wanted to be relatable and connect with our target audience,” she adds.
Sourodeep Banerjee, associate creative director, The Rabbit Hole, says the RoI on brand integration totally depends on how organically the brand fits into the storyline. 90% of the job is done if a brand is able to strike a chord with its target consumers, says Goble of Renee Cosmetics.
POINTERS
Getting it right
Three things to avoid while designing an integration project
Getting into a deal after the scripting process as there will be little room for seamless integration
Limiting yourself to one platform
Looking at integration as a tactical exercise
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