Let the brand tell the story
Russ Lidstone with Rebecca Moody, Anthony Edwards and Zoe Decool
Euro RSCG
The best advertising has always been entertaining and the transmedia age offers brands a golden opportunity to create captivating content with a brand narrative.
In a 1930 speech to the Association of National Advertisers, American President Herbert Hoover celebrated a gold standard for the advertising industry: "At one time, advertising was perhaps looked upon as an intrusion, a clamour to the credulous. But your subtlety and beguiling methods have long since overcome this resentment. From all of which the public has ceased to deny the usefulness of advertising and has come to include you in the things we bear in life. "
More than 80 years later, this remains the Holy Grail. The quest is still the same, to be invited into consumers' lives by providing them with 'branded entertainment', in other words, amusing or stimulating them with a brand sales message at heart (our beguiling methods). And this is truer than ever. We are entering a world where, as The Atlantic wrote in April 2011: "Audiences' ability to filter out advertising from their lives… may one day result in all content becoming branded. "
Consumers have always had a chance to filter out our work (as the UK's tea kettles and national grid will testify), but never has the contest for share of attention span been as fierce as now in this new transmedia age. If the advertiser of the 1930s had to learn to harness the growing power of radio, outdoor and film, we must now harness the complexities of the cross-screen world. Diversified content is king – the custom content council showed the total spend on branded content grew to the highest level ever in 2011 – $1,914,000 per company.
With the race on for brands to forge ever deepening engagement with consumers, we will argue that, in order to continue our industry's success, we simply need to reaffirm our innate storytelling credentials, while staying true to our role as brand guardians; much in the same way as our predecessors of old. And it is our belief that, if we properly harness the opportunities of the digital age, our industry could reach yet another gold standard era. And, as ever, branded entertainment will be at its heart.
Since its origins, the advertising world has produced great populist entertainment. Katie and her Oxo family gripped us in the 1960s, and kids of the 1980s still remember with nostalgia tuning into the ads between shows because it was made known that a new instalment in the Gold Blend Couple series was about to air. From the yearly Super Bowl gold spots to the now eagerly awaited John Lewis Christmas TV commercials, ads have long provided kindling for the cultural campfire. The best are anticipated, commented upon and memed.
At the heart of great entertainment lies great storytelling: successful brand stories touch an emotional chord and, in 'entertaining', can become powerful tools of persuasion. John Sadowski (Admap, October 2011) demonstrated why in four points: our brain is more likely to embrace a story than a rational demonstration; stories reach the entire brain – both the rational and emotional parts; human beings love to share stories; and stories unify communities.
Julian Saunders' example of the war of the yellow fat in the 1980s (Market Leader, Q3 2011) illustrates quite literally the power of a great story. Margarine brand Krona went beyond the war on taste between marge and butter to build a myth: it was subsequently purchased by the caseload by Australian housewives. This particular brand story elevated the brand above the rational and complex, 'deja-vu', discourse on taste. Again, Saunders' argument is that great brands best persuade consumers at an emotionally engaging level. And, it seems, the people want more.
The Global Web Index in its 2011 Annual Report shows a clear evolution in the consumer/brand relationship: "Consumers are extremely open to brand engagement and, in the age of entertainment, this goes beyond information and conversation. The lead motivation for younger consumers is for brands to 'entertain them'; with up to 66% of 16-24 year olds stating this as a way they would like a brand to act towards them."
So, if branded entertainment is a practice that advertising has championed since its origins, how do we successfully continue to deliver it in a brave new digital world?
With the advent of new content creation opportunities, numerous brands spotted a refreshing way to connect with consumers. BMW pioneered with 'The Hire' and others followed. Initiatives such as Eurostar's Somers Town cinema venture and Absolut's partnership with Spike Jonze were innovative, surprising and risky approaches to branded content. But we can learn from these pioneers.
The risk is that branded entertainment becomes simple product placement created by brilliant content producers – in other words, the intersection where Cubby Broccoli, Aston Martin (plus Heineken, Sony, Omega, Coke Zero, Smirnoff, Ford) and a suitcase containing £50 million-worth of product placement meet for a ten-second sneak peek, as in Quantum of Solace.
In order to keep the commercial savvy at the heart of our content output, advertisers, as brand guardians, must stay true to three key areas of good practice/expertise.
1. Placing brand truth at heart
The best brand stories have, above all, a quest or 'controlling idea': a universal truth that chimes with the audience; a truth that resonates with our state of mind as a society. So, love conquered all with Gold Blend; Christmas presents are best shared with John Lewis; and ladies always fall for 'the man your man could smell like'.
With Dulux 'Let's Colour', we recognised 'the regenerative power of colour', an organising thought that ran through the very heart of our TED award-winning campaign. With V05 Extreme Style, we play to every rebellious teenage boy's desire to 'Break the Mould' with the funkiest hair-do in the pack to get the girl.
When challenged to drive global consideration for Chivas Regal 12 among 28-40 year old 'Modern Gentlemen', our start point was to identify a clear role for the brand in the target audience's social life. In our campaign 'Here's to Real Friends', we reinterpreted the Chivas concept of chivalry in a modern way, celebrating true brotherly friendship in a unique style. We developed a simple, yet compelling, purpose for Chivas: a toast to honour your real friends.
If a story lacks a 'controlling idea', brands risk falling into self-indulgence, creating content (albeit quality content) for its own sake. This is where a split between content and entertainment can arise; entertainment associates value with a cause. The audience not only demands quality but a reward for its engagement, a take-out, which is inherent in the brand's cause. So the first learning is that content, like any piece of communication, should always live to serve the brand.
Dulux campaign in India
Dulux campaign in UK
2. Creating compelling narratives
While it's vital to pinpoint the 'controlling idea', every story needs a narrative, a constructive format, a reason to stick with it from start to finish. Especially in a world of viewing 'drop-offs'. We want twists, turns, action and resolution: does the V05 boy get the girl? Did they stay in the oppressed, mythical village of Pliktisijiteur or run off into the distance? What obstacles got in their way?
Narrative is core to the entertainment value of a great story. And again, it's in our DNA. Let's not forget the linguistic craftsmanship of the great long-form DPS press ads of the David Abbott era or the beauty of the prose Nike used to communicate the notion of surpassing oneself in the late Steve Prefontaine campaign:
"Where are all the rock star runners? He was this kid from Coos Bay, who wanted to run faster than any other human being in the world. A kid that was too small and not fast enough. A kid everyone kept telling to give up a foolish dream. They called him 'Pre'. The man who ran like fire every day, every race, wire to wire. The man who caused people to stop and say, 'I've never seen anyone run like that before'. A runner who never paced himself, slowed down or quit. But Pre wasn't a runner. He was a rebel who happened to run. Where is the next Pre?"
The digital age now places a vast number of new tools at our fingertips to help us embellish the advertising narrative and drive even deeper engagement beyond pure prose and the confines of the traditional TVC or eight-word poster. Just click onto Moonbot Studio's Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore for inspiration.
Where once we relied on ingenious pieces of CRM, or physical brand experiences, to deepen the narrative, we can now offer our audience 'behind the scene peeks', back stories, character profiles, opportunities to take part in the story, and so on.
With the latest V05 Extreme Style campaign iteration, 'The Pliktisijiteur Pageant', we have been able to take Unilever beyond the world of the classic 30-second TV ad for the first time. The Facebook page offers fans the chance to see the untelevised 90-second director's cut, a behind-the-scenes 'mockumentary', hair-styling tips from the main protagonist, and so on. For Dulux 'Let's Colour', we filmed a series of five-minute documentaries in São Paulo, Paris, Jodhpur and Tower Hamlets to live online and underpin how the 'regenerative power of colour' touches different cultures' lives at a community level.
In 'Here's to real friends', we produced two short films, Twinkle and Big Bear, with Oscar-winning director Joachim Back based on a series of wild tales that four close friends recount one night over a bottle of Chivas.
Simply put, new technology means we can become even greater storytellers. No longer are we bound to traditionally linear narratives; now's our chance to become multi-dimensional bards, offering multiple rewards to the audience.
3. Managing transmedia access
Media and entertainment brands, like Lost, already recognise the value of transmedia storytelling. They are good not only at broadcasting, but connecting with consumers seamlessly at every touchpoint, inviting them into their stories, building up to more magical experiences and converting the story trail into hard cash.
Transmedia storytelling is about creating a patchwork of content in a variety of channels, whereby the consumer, not the storyteller, is encouraged to join the dots of the broader brand narrative. It requires a clear understanding of media planning (where consumers interact with different platforms), and media habits (how and why people use them) and, of course, the narrative you are trying to create. For the launch of the Peugeot 205 Envy, we created a transmedia 'whodunnit' with the consumer cast as the hero detective. The investigation took place across many platforms – hacking into the suspects' messages via a mobile number, watching interviews on video platforms, exploring an interactive crime scene via a URL and a daily release of new clues via social media.
So, while we are all accustomed to creating message hierarchies across media, greater emphasis must be placed on detailed channel planning and the entire user experience we are looking to create for consumers.
Now back to Herbert Hoover. When the 31st US President made his speech to the Association of National Advertisers, they were exciting times: radio's popularity was spreading, the first TV broadcasts were being made, and there were huge advancements on the big screen as we moved to talkies and Technicolor.
Today's media landscape is changing even more dramatically. These are defining and exciting times in the history of advertising. In the 1930s, Hoover congratulated an industry that had managed to grab hold of the opportunities presented to it. And today, we again have the chance to ensure advertising remains a vibrant part of pop culture.
To do this, we must remember that we have always been in the branded entertainment game. Let's not excitedly drop the ball but simply look to our skills as brand storytellers and take advantage of the ever more compelling platforms and channels to market. Here's to a new golden era of advertising.
About the Author
Russ Lidstone is chief executive at Euro RSCG and one of only a handful of strategists to become CEO. He has led planning at a number of UK advertising agencies, including JWT and Lowe.
russ.lidstone@eurorscg.com
© Copyright Warc 2012
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