Tag: branded content

Toyota, Taco Bell & Starbucks Make Play For Branded Content

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
More and more brands are embracing branded and sponsored content in order to reach the increasingly distracted customers. This week alone saw three big brands making a play for content marketing. Toyota is sponsoring an upcoming original YouTube series created by Buzzfeed video creator and star Ashley Perez, aligning its brand message of “helping millennials go places” with the show’s theme of empowerment. Earlier this week, Taco Bell debuted an original weekly video series “Taco Tales” on its YouTube page, aiming to entertain and connect with customers with “stories that could only happen to Taco Bell fans.” Starbucks, on the other hand, is teaming up with three writers from “The Simpsons” for an original video series, which will come in the form of animated shorts that highlight Starbucks’ culture and feature its stores, the baristas, and the customers.

What Brands Should Do
As consumer attention becomes increasingly fragmented and the subpar mobile ad experience drives many users to use ad-blockers {a trend we explained in depth in the Ad Avoidance section of our Outlook 2016), it is becoming more and more difficult for brands to reach their desired audience via traditional media channels. Therefore, brands should take a cue from Mercedes’s influencer efforts and be willing to explore new forms of advertising such as sponsored or branded content, as well as new media formats such as VR and 360-degree video, to circumvent consumers’ growing ad aversion and pique their interest.

 

Sources: As linked in the article

NBC To Air Live Ads For Oreo And Toyota During “Hairspray” Broadcast

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
NBC is set to shake things up a bit for the upcoming broadcast of its live production of Hairspray by experimenting with native, in-program advertising. Instead of cutting to a commercial break, Oreo and Toyota will promote their products with live commercials performed in character by the cast of the musical in a retro style that harkens back to the early days of television commercials.

Moreover, the show will also feature a song-and-dance number inspired by Reddi-wip’s milk delivery history. In addition, NBC will also run two segments of sponsored content during two breaks with brand sponsors’ messages showing alongside behind-the-scene looks via split-screen.

What Brands Should Do
This is not the first time that NBC has tried out this type of native ads to appeal to an increasingly ad-avoidant TV audience, as the broadcaster substituted some regular ad spots during its primetime shows in February with AmEx-sponsored native content from the respective shows. This upcoming initiative seems to be a natural continuation of this trend. At a time when ad blockers and subscription-based streaming services are helping millions of viewers actively avoid ads, it is important for brands and media owners to take measures in response and come up with new ways, such as sponsored content and native ads, to engage with their audience.

For more information on how brands should leverage interesting branded content to earn consumer eyeballs, check out the Ad Avoidance section of our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: AdAge

Maybelline Sponsors Holiday Gift Guide On Snapchat To Reach Shoppers

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Maybelline is sponsoring a two-day campaign on Snapchat to reach Millennial holiday shoppers. The company is partnering with Sweet, the Snapchat-only publication created by Hearst, to launch a pop-up holiday gift guide that will run for today and Saturday. The sponsored gift guide highlights a collection of holiday gifts on Sweet’s Discover channel, interspersed with ads from the makeup brand. According to Hearst, Sweet gets about 16 million unique views a month and about one million daily. Previously, the Snapchat publisher also run a five-part themed series called “The United States of Sweet” sponsored by GE this summer.

What Brands Should Do
Snapchat’s ad business is hitting its stride as the company behind the popular messaging app files for a confidential IPO and start selling its first hardware product Spectacles (which we have managed to get two pairs ready for demo here at the Lab). This sponsored campaign serves as a good example of brands using messaging apps as a marketing channel to connect with customers. As Snapchat continues to improve its ad products to match its rapid growth, brands need to consider getting on Snapchat to reach its growing number of users via not only standard video ads, but also more unconventional ad units such as custom Geofilters and branded selfie lenses.

For more information on how brands should leverage interesting branded content to win back the increasingly ad-avoidant consumers, check out the Ad Avoidance section of our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: AdWeek

Lead image courtesy of Sweet’s promotional image

Shell Remakes Branded Music Video Into Interactive Vertical Video For Snapchat

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Multinational energy giant Shell worked with six artists led by Jennifer Hudson and created a branded music video to promote its clean energy initiatives in October. Now, the company has retooled the video into a vertical format that is native to Snapchat, where it will run as Snap Ads throughout December. Shell also added some interactive elements to the music video, allowing viewers to swipe between the six artists as the video plays to create a personalized experience. They can also tap on the video to see additional animations explaining Shell’s #makethefuture energy ideas.

What Brands Should Do
This Shell’s campaign shows how brands can retool their existing branded content to better fit user behaviors on mobile platforms and therefore maximize engagement. As consumer attention shifts toward mobile and many driven to ad-blockers by the subpar digital ad experience, brands are finding it increasingly difficult to reach their desired audience via traditional media channels.Therefore, brands need to take a cue from this example and start to explore new forms of advertising, such as sponsored or branded content as well as native video ads, to circumvent consumers’ growing ad aversion and pique their interest.

For more information on how brands can leverage interesting branded content to earn consumer attention, check out the Ad Avoidance section of our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: AdWeek

Facebook Adds HTML5-Based Instant Games To Messenger And News Feed

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Facebook has added a new feature to its platform to spice up its content offering. Starting today, users can enjoy fast-loading gaming experiences that Facebook dubbed “Instant Games” right in Facebook Messenger and their News Feeds. Instant Games are HTML5-based and thus work on both mobile and the web without installing additional apps. The first patch of Instant Games comes with 17 titles that include household names such as Pac-Man. Pepsi is among the first brands to take advantage of this new feature to launch a branded game on Messenger to connect with mobile consumers.

What Brands Should Do
As mobile gaming continues to absorb consumer attention, a number of brands have experimented with branded games in recent years to connect with mobile consumers. Last month, Chipotle created a branded memory matching game to reward players with free food, and Michael Kors launched a series of casino-themed mini-games on WeChat for its Singles’ Day event. Just yesterday, Pepsi launched a chatbot-powered branded game on Messenger to connect with mobile consumers.

Given Facebook’s brand-friendly track record, it seems safe to assume that more brands will soon be able to leverage Instant Games to create branded gaming experiences to engage with consumers on Facebook.

 

Source: Engadget

Cheetos Ventures Into Ecommerce With Branded Holiday Gifts

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
As part of its fashion-oriented holiday campaign, Cheetos has opened an online store to sell Chester Cheetah-themed holiday gifts, ranging from clothing and perfume to cosmetics and even jewelry. While some of the items in the catalog, such as the jewelry piece, charge premium prices, some on the lower end of the spectrum are already sold out, affirming the popularity of the Pepsi-owned snack brand among consumers.

What Brands Should Do
While admittedly rare, this is not the first time a Pepsi brand has branched out its CPG product category to grab consumer attention with branded products. Last year, the food and beverage giant sold Pepsi-branded smartphones to Chinese consumers as a marketing ploy. This week, Pepsi opened a kola-themed restaurant in New York City to broaden its brand expeirence. Similarly, with the new Cheetos-branded gifts, Pepsi is thinking outside the box and experimenting with a new way to transform their loyal fans into brand advocates, which should inspire brands to think of other ways that brands can permeate consumers’ daily life.

 

Source: Yahoo Finance

Header image courtesy of Cheeto’s YouTube video

IMAX To Push VR Cinema Into Mainstream

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Film technology company IMAX Corp. announced its partnership with Acer and Creative Artists Agency (CAA) to invest $50 million into developing 25 interactive VR experiences over the next three years. Other fund investors include China Media Capital, China’s Enlight Media, Studio City, and WPP. The fund will be used for partnerships with video game publishers and 360-degree filmmakers, and IMAX plans to build StarVR-based IMAX VR centers to bring high-quality VR entertainment to consumers.

Why Brands Should Care
This initiative should help further push virtual reality content into the mainstream consumer market. The VR centers IMAX plans to build should provide a good channel for brands to distribute their VR content, and WPP’s involvement certainly signals ad opportunities. As more and more brand marketers rush into VR to capitalize on the booming popularity of the emerging medium, bands should take a cue and start developing VR content that truly enhances brand messaging and contributes to the campaign objectives.

The Lab currently has five VR headsets — a PlayStation VR, an Oculus Rift, an HTC Vive, and two Samsung Gear VRs — ready for demos. Virtual reality is something that has to be experienced to be understood, so come by the Lab and ask for a VR demo to get a hands-on experience and figure out how your brand can use it to excite and engage with consumers.

 

Source: VentureBeat

Epicurious Revamps App With Better Native Ads

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Popular recipe site Epicurious has revamped its mobile app to better integrate native ad units to offer a smoother user experience. The app, which was launched in 2009 and made Epicurious the first food publisher with a mobile app portal, previously supported banner ads and disruptive video ads. With this revamp, the Condé Nast-owned food publisher is getting rid of banner ads on mobile and adding sponsored content tiles that emulate the in-app designs for galleries and recipes. Epicurious is using custom content management system Copilot and a Google SDK to power the native ad experience.

What Brands Should Do
This revamp should help food-related brands reach their targeted audiences on the Epicurious app more effectively with branded or sponsored content. By improving its ad products, Epicurious is also doing its fans a favor by offering them a better app experience, which in turn should encourage app usage and user engagement.

As we pointed out in the Ad Avoidance section of our Outlook 2016, branded content serves as a good way to engage increasingly ad-avoidant consumers, and more brands should take note of the increasing number of native ad products available and explore their options in terms of finding the most suitable content creators and publishers to work with.

 

Source: AdExchange

Header image is a promotional image courtesy of www.epicurious.com

A+E To Broadcast Branded Content Created By Hearst

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Following its partnership with ecommerce site Wayfair to reinvent TV shopping, A+E Networks is diving deeper into incorporating branded content with its broadcast programming with a new partnership with publishing giant Hearst. This deal allows brand marketers to work with the digital divisions of Hearst magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Elle to create branded content to be aired during commercial breaks on A+E’s cable networks and digital properties. The network is also planning to open up its “enthusiast” blocks, which are hours of themed programs A+E launched this summer, for brands to sponsor.

What Brands Should Do
This partnership provides a new distribution channel for the branded content that Hearst is creating for marketers, which currently lives on its own sites and on social platforms. As we pointed out in the Ad Avoidance section of our Outlook 2016, branded content serves as a good way to engage increasingly ad-avoidant consumers, and more brands should take advantage of this opportunity to reach fans of A+E shows. For example, to fully engage its target audience, a fashion retailer may sponsor a fashion-themed content block on Lifetime and punctuate it with branded videos on hot fashion trends created with Elle.

 

Source: AdAge

T-Mobile Sponsors Segment In Fox Sports’ World Series Broadcast

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
T-Mobile experiments with branded content as it sponsored a “commercial-free break” during Fox Sports’ broadcast of the World Series on Tuesday night. In the middle of the third inning, the network ran an in-game analysis session instead of the usual commercial break. Fox Sports studio host Kevin Burkhardt announced that the break was “brought to you by T-Mobile,” and finished the segment with a live read about the T-Mobile One campaign. A logo for the carrier’s unlimited phone and data plan was also prominently featured on the studio desk as well as on the bottom of the screen during the segment.

What Brands Should Do
This native ad serves as an interesting example of how traditional media companies can incorporate branded content into their existing content. One trend we identified in our Outlook 2016 is that consumers today are getting increasingly annoyed by the constant bombardment of ads and subpar digital ad experiences to the point that many are opting for the ad-free experiences enabled by subscription-based services and ad blockers. Therefore, it is imperative that brands and media owners work together to engage audiences in new ways, such as sponsored content and native ads, in order to earn consumer eyeballs.

 

Source: Digiday