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5 Tips for Better Branded Content
Tuesday, May 24, 2011 at 3:51PM 
Paul Kontonis, VP, Group Director of Brand Content at Digitas' Third Act outlines five new imperatives for brands breaking into the branded content space. From production to audience design to measurement, this indispensable guide points brands to branded content success. You can follow Paul on Twitter @kontonis.
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Today, brands must think differently about how to reach consumers: not by interrupting consumers' experiences with advertising messaging, but by offering value through original and co-created content. Such content allows a brand to tell its own story, bring to life its core sensibilities, and connect with consumers in a deeper, more meaningful way.
Now more than ever, brands face an array of choices for branded content -- from cooking shows to healthy eating, fitness to life-balance, reality shows to scripted comedy. Brands must also choose partners: cable networks, film studios, portals, online communities, video ad networks, online celebrities or independent producers?
Here are five new imperatives in the branded content space:
1) Produce high quality content: Quality development, writing and production matters. What the audience sees on the screen, whether big or little, reflects your brand and should be guided by your brand guidelines. Working with the unions -- Writers Guild, Screen Actors Guild, Producers Guild -- has gotten easier and should be welcomed into your production.
2) Partner with influential talent: Talent continues to play an important role, and is worth the investment for branded content. Gone are the days of talent showing up on set, delivering their lines and walking away. Instead, hire talent who will bring their online clout and leverage their social graph to help promote the program and drive viewership.
3) Plan your reach carefully: Audience design is critical to getting a target viewership to watch branded content. Identify your audience first and then create the right content and distribution model. The content can then hit the right messaging through the right distribution. Strategic design for the paid, earned, owned ecosystem of the customer journey connects people with content and amplifies participation.
If you develop a Web series for moms, for example, moms will want to watch - if the content is right. But you still need paid media to help target that audience and bring the content to them.
4) Measure engagement: Today, engagement is the most important metric for savvy brand marketers; while in the early days of branded content, many were happy measuring views. Activate audiences by creating relevant content: content that is entertaining, educational, or funny or valuable. Real engagement or success can be measured by users creating their own complementary content, coupon downloads, shared videos, hashtag tweets, etc.
5) Be evergreen: Understand how the content and the audience can be owned by the brand. When the flight dates have passed and the paid media spend is complete, will anyone still find your content? Or will it disappear into the midst like so many of its 40+ million views branded content paid media-only programs of the past? Your brand website, Facebook page, Twitter and YouTube channel play critical roles in the long-term value of your content. Do not underestimate their value, since you are not paying a CPM for those views.
This a great time for branded content. What was once a dream is becoming more and more a smart reality. Be bold with your brand and take advantage of the content opportunities that are out there. Your consumers will thank you with the best metrics out there: loyalty and sales.
Reader Comments (7)
Paul these are excellent fundamentals and good insight. I'd love to hear more about your thoughts about the ideal budget split (and effort allocation) between production costs (including talent) and everything else (distribution and engagement efforts and other organizational efforts).
Thanks!
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