Advertainment: Fusing Advertising and Entertainment
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1 Advertainment: Fusing Advertising and Entertainment CRISTEL ANTONIA RUSSELL, PH.D. ©2007 University of Michigan, Yaffe Center. This Note is written for educational classroom purposes, and may freely be used for such purposes, as long as it is distributed in this original unmodified form. For information about the Yaffe Center and its programs, please visit www.yaffecenter.org. 2 Table of Contents Introduction: What is Advertainment?............................................ 3 Factors Fueling the Growth of Advertainment...................................... 3 A Historical Perspective.......................................................................... 4 Nature of Advertainment Messages.................................................. 4 Product Placement................................................................................... 5 Product Integration.................................................................................. 5 Branded Entertainment ........................................................................... 6 How the Advertainment World Works............................................ 8 The Production Side................................................................................ 8 The Client Side........................................................................................ 9 The Agency Side..................................................................................... 9 Strategic Marketing Implications of Advertainment ................... 10 Setting Advertainment Objectives........................................................ 10 Measuring Advertainment Impact........................................................ 11 Strategic Issues: Lack of Control.......................................................... 12 Strategic Issues: Pricing ........................................................................ 13 Mini Cases .......................................................................................... 14 Wilson the Volley Ball in Cast Away .................................................. 14 Korean Mini-Series Promote South Korean Tourism......................... 14 A Tool for Social Marketing: Edutainment ......................................... 15 Do’s and Don’ts ................................................................................. 15 Do Combine Entertainment and Relevance......................................... 15 Do: Enhance A Simple Product Placement With A Promotion ......... 16 Do Tie Brands with Aspirational Celebrities....................................... 16 Don’t Overdo it ..................................................................................... 16 Legal and Ethical Issues ................................................................... 17 Hidden Persuasion................................................................................. 17 Regulation.............................................................................................. 18 Conclusion.......................................................................................... 18 Appendix 1: Product Placement Spending in Media ......................... 19 Appendix 2: Advertising vs. Placements on Television .................... 20 References ........................................................................................... 21 3 Introduction: What is Advertainment? The term advertainment was coined to reflect they consume entertainment, and making it the increasingly intertwined connections increasingly easy for them to avoid between advertising and entertainment. It commercial messages. With the introduction refers to promotional practices that integrate of Personal Video Recorders (PVRs), also brand communications within the content of referred to as Digital Video Recorders entertainment products. Brand communications (DVRs), such as TiVo or Replay TV, are now present in the content of a broad range consumers can not only more easily fast- of entertainment vehicles, including TV and forward through commercials but they can movies21, radio shows, songs and music now also easily skip them altogether with a videos, video games, plays, and even novels1. PVR’s auto-skip function. A Forrester The increased mingling of advertising with the Research’s study of PVR usage by 588 users entertainment world has generated a slue of in the US found that 60% of their time, on newly coined terms to reflect these trends, such average, was spent watching programs that as hybrid advertisement2 or the “Madison and were pre-recorded or delayed, which in turn Vine” expression, reflecting the physical resulted in 92% of commercials being intersection of the advertising industry’s New skipped. Thirty percent of respondents said York City hub, on Madison Avenue, and the they watched no commercials at all6. 3 entertainment hub on Vine Street . To this end, With viewers’ attention to TV advertising Advertising Age magazine sponsors a yearly declining, major brand advertisers (top 130) Madison & Vine conference where the latest responsible for $20 billion in ad spending trends in branded entertainment are reviewed 4 per year are losing confidence in the and discussed . Many factors are contributing effectiveness of TV advertising7. According to advertisers’ increased interest in and use of to a 2006 survey by the Association of advertainment techniques. National Advertisers (USA) TV Ad Forum, Factors Fueling the Growth of Advertainment 78% of advertisers expressed a loss of confidence in the effectiveness of TV Advertainment has grown mainly in reaction to advertising. These numbers present serious the increasing advertising clutter, escalating concerns for the marketing and advertising advertising costs, and the reduced effectiveness industries, and one fifth of industry leaders of traditional advertising messages. Consumers believe the PVR will lead to the death of the are exponentially exposed to commercial traditional 30-second spot5. As the messages but at the same time they are finding convergence of TV and the internet new ways to avoid them. An In-Stat/MDR continues, consumers will only gain more survey found that 54.3% of consumers claim to control over what they see and when they 5 skip 75-100% of commercials . In 2004, a see it6. So advertisers are looking at Knowledge Networks study concluded that alternatives such as branded entertainment 47% of viewers switch channels while within TV programs (61%), TV program 5 watching TV . The same study also sponsorships (55%), interactive advertising determined that the proportion of viewers during TV programs (48%), online video ads doing other activities while watching TV - (45%) and product placement (44%)8. such as eating, reading, or using the internet - 5 Although advertainment is gaining in increased from 67% in 1994 to 75% in 2004 . popularity, it is not new and there is a long The above statistics do not account for the history of such intermingling between impact of new technological advances which content and advertising. In order to are giving consumers more control over how understand how and why advertainment 4 works today, a turn to its historical roots is manufacturers had full control necessary. over how their products were portrayed. Starting in the 1930s, consumer product A Historical Perspective manufacturers invested in the production of radio programs to reach their target Marketers’ approach to using entertainment 17 content to promote their products dates back to audiences . This phenomenon was the use of branded products in motion particularly visible in the “soap opera” pictures9. This practice was variously termed genre, a term that actually testifies to the “publicity by motion picture”10, “co-operative blending of advertising of actual soap advertising”11, “tie-in advertising”12 and “trade products and programming. Similarly, outs”13, or even “exploitation”14. It represented radio programs were developed directly by a cooperative venture between a media maker detergent companies, notably Procter & and a manufacturer, in which on-screen Gamble, to promote their brands by exposure of a product, off-screen endorsement integrating them into the scripts. When by an actor, or a combination of those were soaps emerged on TV in the 1950s, the traded for paid advertising and unpaid close connection between programming promotions by the manufacturer15. The use of and advertising continued and marketers maintained direct control over the shows’ tie-ins became standardized in the 1930s. The 18 Walter E. Kline Agency in Beverly Hills storylines and creative design . provided studio executives with multiple-page Advertising agencies produced shows like lists of products available for on-screen use in ''The Colgate Comedy Hour'' and ''Texaco motion pictures, including Remington Star Theater,'' in which a chorus line of typewriters, IBM tabulating machines, Singer dapper gas-station attendants opened each sewing machines, and General Electric show by singing the Texaco jingle (''Oh, appliances9. Products were offered rent free in we're the men of Texaco, we work from Maine to Mexico'') before introducing the return for publicity stills for use in 19 manufacturers’ advertising16. host, Milton Berle . These tie-in promotions benefited multiple The practice of show sponsorship began to players in the filmmaking and distribution decline as advertisers realized they could industry. For the motion picture producer, they better reach their target markets by delivered free props. For the manufacturer,