Influential Marketing Blog

Can Coke Start A Trend To Make Inspiration A Form Of Co-Creation?

What if you could join your favourite band in studio to record their next single? For many, this is just a moment to dream of - but last month Coca-Cola partnered with the rock band Maroon 5 to do exactly that in a social experiment to create a new song in 24 hours. Fans could watch a live stream of the band working on a new song in the studio and contribute to the brainstorming process in real time via a Twitter screen that was broadcast live to the band. Check out the recap video below:



The end result was a single called "Is There Anybody Out There?" that is available for a free download from Coke. Aside from being an amazingly creative campaign idea, this could spark more brands to consider a new form of co-creation where consumers are invited not to create content themselves, but to be the spark for professionals to create content. In a sense, this is no different than real life where artists often take their inspiration from their fans.

Though Coke's efforts have cause some to raise valid criticism about whether the campaign can be considered all that successful since the views and audience seems small by Coke standards, sometimes the most forward thinking ideas aren't the ones which go viral right away. To me, the real power of this campaign is that it imagines a world where brands can help connect people with the artists they love in a way that empowers them to contribute to what the artists are creating.

Inspiration as a form of co-creation is not just a great marketing concept, but one which offers musicians and even filmmakers a new way to engage their audience on a deeper level and also get better ideas and inspiration to make their work better.  The only downside is that it leaves a lot of people to thank from the Grammy/Oscars stage ...

A Promising Future For Branded Entertainment

If there is one sign of hope for the marketing industry as a whole, it is that no one really wants boring, one-way, shout-oriented interruptive marketing to survive. Social media is a natural ally in this fight, given its focus on fostering conversations and creating content, but what about the role of marketing as entertainment? It isn't necessarily the first word anyone might choose to describe effective marketing, but this week at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show in Las Vegas it was the featured topic in a panel I moderated at an event focused on the intersection of broadcast, marketing, social media and entertainment.

What Is Branded Entertainment?

The focus on the panel was on branded entertainment through online video - though on several occasions it was raised that this content can increasingly find its way onto other platforms as well such as broadcast TV or mobile. There were three core models of branded entertainment being used by brands today that panelists shared:

1. Product Placement - The most simplistic form, some would argue that this barely qualifies to be called branded entertainment ... yet it is increasingly popular for brands to use as a way of inserting their brand or products into existing content.
2. Brand Sponsorship/Integration - This category had the most varying descriptions, incorporating everything from a brand simply adding a "sponsored by" slate to a video to inserting a pre-roll or post-roll ad.
3. Branded Content Creation - The "purest" form of branded entertainment, this area was clearly the focus of the panel. Included in this category were examples like Royal Carribean's recent Ocean Views campaign, as well as Lexus' popular LStudio online video channel that spawned the popular series Web Therapy with Lisa Kudrow which was recently picked up by Showtime as a pilot.

What Will The Future Of Branded Entertainment Look Like?

Ultimately, the premise behind branded entertainment is that great content will provide an entertainment value and there is a role of marketing to play in trying to create or support more of that type of content. The ongoing challenge will be one of setting the boundaries between what is reasonable underwriting or brand sponsorship of a message, and what is over the top. This is the real question at the heart of the growth of branded entertainment - and one that several filmmakers have recently tackled - including The Joneses (a film about a fictional family planted in the surburbs to create demand for new products by flaunting them to neighbors) and Morgan Spurlock's new documentary - "The Greatest Movie Ever Sold" or as it is "officially" meant to be called "POM Wonderful Presents The Greatest Movie Ever Sold."

Despite these cautionary notes, however, the powerful premise of branded entertainment is that brands need to get better at telling a story instead of merely hawking product benefits or service descriptions. People engage with entertainment, and they tend to share it if they like it. In a world where consumers have more ways to ignore and filter out brand messages than ever before, engagement is the new and necessary metric because it means more than empty measures of reach or frequency.

Branded entertainment today is still a strategy for marketers and organizations who are ahead of the curve. It won't be long, however, before the followers and later adopters in the mainstream start to join the party.  After all, no one wants to miss out on a good show.

How Filmmaking Can Change The World (With Your Help)

Every community has its secrets. There are things that no one talks about because they are afraid to. Often, these things are not well understood and it is hard to know what to say about them. They are usually deeply personal as well and referred to as a stigma, which is a word that communicators who work in health care know well. When it comes to changing perceptions about a disease condition or issue, combating the stigma around it is usually the toughest battle to fight.

But if we don't try, then the unthinkable can happen. About five years ago, the father of my friend Rashi put a gun to his head and shot himself. He was struggling with a deep depression and no one in the community knew how to acknowledge it or help him. After years of struggling in the hospital, he died last year. This story has been repeated over and over in communities around the world. The fact is, mental illness is a taboo. Because it is not physically visible, many communities don't acknowledge it and this lack of understanding can lead to disastrous results.

While some are making strides in changing this, it still remains an undiscussed topic all over the world - including in my culture: the South Asian one. Inspired by the story of Rashi's father, this weekend another good friend, Rehana Mirza, is releasing her first feature film called Hiding Divya about 3 generations of women who struggle with mental illness and a community surrounding them who don't understand. It is a very personal project for the entire team behind it, and one that all of us hope can have a transformative power to reduce the stigma around mental illness in many communities, including our own.

If you live in New York City, NY; Edison, NJ, Novi, MI, Peachtree, GA, North Bergen, NJ or Fremont, CA - please consider going and seeing the film in person ... and if you happen to be in another community, check out the Facebook page for the film and read a letter from the Director of the film to help support this important effort.

Stigma can be a terrible thing and when films like Hiding Divya take on the tough challenge of shining a light on it and forcing communities to confront it, we all need to help share that story. The world needs more of them.

See a list of participating theaters or buy a ticket online >>

Palm Pre Misses Opportunity With Bollywood Hero Sponsorship

Earlier this month, the IFC channel launched a new three part mini-series called Bollywood Hero that featured the story of an American actor (Chris Kattan) who decides to leave Hollywood for Bollywood to become a leading man. The show aired in early August and has been replaying on the channel since then. I found it entertaining and highly recommend it, but I doubt you're reading this blog to get my review of a TV mini-series ... so let's talk about the marketing.

The first thing any marketer would notice is that the show seemed to have two main sponsors - Palm (focused on promoting their new Pre) and esurance.com:

What was most interesting about these sponsors, however, was not that they both chose to support the program (which I think is great), but in how they chose to "activate" their sponsorships. Palm placed banner ads and logos on the website for the film that pointed to a branded page all about the Palm Pre. No mention of Bollywood, the campaign or anything related to the film. Esurance.com, on the other hand, chose to put together a full campaign called "Bollywood Casting Call" that invited lovers of Bollywood dance to submit their videos for a chance to win the "prize" of being animated to dance in an animated promo for the brand with their cartoon spokesperson Erin Esurance:

Anyone who has seen a Bollywood film (or even a farce about one) knows that a good part of the film is about the dancing. Picking up on that, esurance.com invited people to participant in the fun and offered an outlet to become a part of their campaign. Though the tie to the film could have been stronger, the campaign generated 54 video entries and over 25,000 video views - over what seems to be a relatively short duration of a few weeks. More importantly, esurance.com now has several branded videos online to use as marketing assets, and will soon have one more when they create the animated prize video featuring the winning video.

Palm on the other hand may realize some brand awareness and positive brand association for choosing to sponsor an independent production such as this, but leaves much of their opportunity on the table by not choosing to integrate the campaign more into their overall efforts. What could they have done? Exclusive content on the Pre to drive trial and maybe even purchase, giving product to the winners of the dance contest, or even creating a demo of the product where you could watch a trailer of the film on the Pre would all have been ways to further engage the audience with their product and get more out of their sponsorship.

One final yet simple idea: imagine if Palm just did more to support of one of the best marketing tactics for the film itself ... a flash mob dance in Times Square (video below) that has already generated almost 200,000 views. Sometimes it's not enough to put up the money to simply sponsor or underwrite something - to really get the value from it you need to take a more integrated approach.

Untangling Your Brand: 4 Marketing Lessons From Lost

Last night was the season finale of the TV show Lost - and just in case you haven't watched it and have it sitting on DVR waiting for you, don't worry ... there are no spoilers in this post. Actually, though I'm an enthusiast of the show, the reason for this post isn't to gush about how great I think it is. It is about what you learn from how the show has been promoted. Like many recent dramas, it is not an easy show to follow. It isn't about nothing, and you can't just miss a few episodes and still get into it. Yet as I wrote about in PNI (search for "Lost" with the Search Inside feature on Amazon - it is Page 108) - the show's unique format of taking you into the backstory of each characters builds an emotional investment from the viewer in a way that many other shows never manage to do. You believe in the characters because you know about the situations that make them the way that they are.

There is a marketing lesson in that, as there is in several other choices the show's producers and marketing teams have made. Here are a few things that the show does and the marketing lesson that you can learn from them:

1. Share the backstory. As I mentioned above, giving viewers a look at where the characters come from gives each of them a sense purpose and allows you to feel more empathy towards them. As any good screenwriter knows, the point isn't for you to love every character - it's for you to feel something towards them. Once you do that, you're engaged in the show. Marketing Lesson: Make sure you share the story behind your brand so you can give people a reason to believe in it.
2. Untangle the complexity. One of the smartest things the show does is they feature a simplified 3-5 minute version of every episode untangled (see video below in this post). These descriptions are from the outside looking into the show, referring to a character who wears too much eye makeup as "eyeliner" and poking fun generally at the actors in the show and the way they portray their roles. Alongside this irreverance, Lost Untangled explains the plotline of every episode in a way that allows you to understand it despite the complexity of time shifting, multiple characters and hidden clues. Marketing Lesson: If you have something complicated to sell, get creative about how you can simplify it.
3. React to your critics. Early in the show, the creators were criticized because they got people emotionally invested in the core characters of the show, and then introduced new characters and shifted the focus. Many viewers were confused because the characters they knew had essentially vanished. Though this was presumably part of the broader story arc, the producers recognized that viewers needed some connection to the characters they already loved, and found a way to bring that back - while still progressing their story and introducing the new characters they had planned to. Marketing Lesson: Don't ignore your critics, but don't change your strategy because of them either.
4. Have a finite ending. As the trailers after last night's finale noted, next year will be the final season of Lost. For a top rated show, it cannot have been an easy decision to let the show end at what seems to be the height of its popularity - yet having a finite end is important for both audiences and for the writers of the show. Everyone knows that the show is leading toward something. There is a sense of anticipation and excitement, as well as urgency to watch. It's not a soap opera where people go into comas, die, wake up and go on again. Marketing Lesson: Having an ending is important - even if it's just a campaign that ends so you can start a new one.