Let’s be honest, you probably can’t call yourself a couch potato anymore. In order to get your entertainment fixes, you probably spend just as much time at your desk, or lying on your bed, or even the commuter train. The fact that you are reading this means you’re probably spending less time with your TV and more time online.
Well you’re not alone. This past May, American Internet users watched nearly 34 billion videos, and the average YouTube user watched a record average of 100 videos, according to comScore’s Video Metrix service. If there was ever any doubt that an online audience existed, these numbers speak for themselves.
With a hungry audience, it’s no wonder that Hollywood is getting interested and more celebrities are going head-to-head with the amateurs who so far have dominated the web video game. By teaming up with advertisers, content producers are able to side-step the all-powerful networks and the red tape of time slots, ratings, regulations and family values. Audiences are used to seeing their favorite stars on TV, billboards and in movies or magazines shilling the latest soft drink or perfume. The move to the web, however, is blurring the line between entertainment and advertisement.
Branded and sponsored content is a way to monetize web video, but as its popularity as a platform grows, there are questions about how authentic or valuable content can be when it’s so closely tied to advertising.
Brand or Sponsor?
“Branded” and “Sponsored” are buzz words for content that has been paid for by an advertiser. The results, however, can be very different. This past June, at the Digital Content NewFront conference in New York, celebrities, producers, writers and web video creators gathered together to convince brand advertisers that paid-for content is the future of entertainment. There is money to be made.
The Case for Sponsored Content
Sponsored content is often seen as more authentic because even though it’s funded by a brand, the content generally has nothing to do with the product nor is the product usually endorsed.
Lisa Kudrow’s web series Web Therapy is now in its third season on LStudio, an online programming site sponsored by Lexus. The largely improvised series, which features Kudrow as an abrasive therapist who counsels her patients via three minute iChat sessions, is a successful example of sponsored content, and it was picked up by Showtime to air in half-hour segments later this year.
While Web Therapy is sponsored by Lexus, products rarely creep into the show, and the characters never suddenly start talking about how much they love their cars. For that reason, though it’s a distant goal for most web series, sponsored videos might find their way on to network TV in a way that branded videos probably cannot.
Felicia Day’s web series, The Guild, a show about a group of online gamers, is another example of sponsored content. Best known for her role on TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Day writes, produces, and also stars as Codex, a gamer trying to live a normal life after an online friend shows up at her door.
Initially financed via fan PayPal donations, the show is now going on its fourth season and is sponsored by a brand advertiser. The Guild’s fan-driven success eventually triggered advertiser interest, and since the second season, has been sponsored by Sprint, and distributed by Xbox Live and Microsoft. Despite the obvious video game connection, this isn’t a venue for Microsoft to plug its games. The show entertains a community that is likely already using its products. The goal with sponsored content isn’t to directly pitch, but for advertisers to build their brand image among a target consumer group.
Problems with Branded Content
On the other end of the advertiser-supported spectrum is branded content, which is contentious for many people because it blurs the line between entertainment and advertising. Branded videos are literally based on or around the brand with (usually) rampant product placement. Still, it’s a concept that, if done well, could bring audiences interesting programming. Branded videos that fail, however, come across as thinly veiled commercials.
Actors and former Arrested Development co-stars, Jason Bateman and Will Arnett, have been looking for brands to partner with their sponsor-driven production company, DumbDumb. Their goal is to create and produce digital content that will match a brand’s personality and marketing objectives, while keeping to their own comedic stylings. So what does that mean exactly?
If their debut episode for a web series called Dirty Shorts, that aired on College Humor and YouTube is any indication, it means producing a bland, five-minute commercial for Orbit Gum.
Maybe you think it’s actually funny, and that’s a matter of personal taste, but it’s undeniably an advertisement. There is certainly money to be made from branded content. The question is whether viewers will care that they’re being marketed to so long as the content they are watching is entertaining enough.
Branded content runs the risk of seeming like the bad product placement that network TV shows are often all too guilty of. A recent episode of ABC Family’s Pretty Little Liars wasn’t at all coy with their product placement, as the camera panned down to a character’s phone, and she announced that she had to check her messages on her new, and (and now quite discontinued) Microsoft Kin. The placement clearly wasn’t enough to get teens to buy the device. Similarly, the Internet was buzzing a few months earlier about the numerous products featured in Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” music video, including Virgin Mobile, Miracle Whip and Polaroid.
Viewers don’t like to feel like they are being tricked into watching a commercial. Transparency is key and content has to be useful to viewers. Kraft’s online campaign for Philadelphia Cream Cheese that launched in March, is an example of how brands can benefit by building online, interactive communities and fans through social media and web video.
The campaign featured celebrity cookbook author and Food Network personality, Paula Deen, who encouraged “real women” to create and upload videos of themselves making their favorite recipes. The campaign was considered a huge success with more than 5,000 video submissions.
Kraft’s campaign did so well because it engaged its audience through websites, Twitter, and Facebook and encouraged an authentic community to grow, rather than simply promoting their products through branded content.
The Future
Seamlessly integrated advertising and good programing are key if Seth Green’s new venture into reality programing is to be a success. The actor who voices the character of Chris Griffin on Family Guy, and is the creator/producer of
Together with Digital Broadcasting Group, an online branded entertainment production and video distribution company, Green wants to expand the scope of reality programming. Imagine a version of The Truman Show, where a live Internet audience can watch and dictate the every move of a yet-to-be cast average 20-something guy, with no job and no love life. “Adam” (as he’s called in the promo pitch) is on camera 24/7, with his fate left in the hands of a “benevolent” online audience.
Green’s “social experiment” will likely hit the web later this year. Just weeks after pitching to an audience of advertisers, Green’s signed on with Ford as a sponsor.
The idea of working with a sponsor is that part of the challenges the character will face on the show, and part of the things he uses, will be based on advertisers’ support, Green said backstage at the Digital Content NewFront conference after his initial pitch. With Ford on board, the willing, Truman-like participant will be featured driving around in a 2011 Ford Fiesta. “Our goal is to have really organic and integrated advertising, so that the consumer doesn’t feel like they are being sold to,” Green said.
URule is a series that necessarily will exist online since it relies on a live audience, whose online voting will change the show in real-time. Green will need to work to find a way to make his sponsors seem organic. There is already one big question: If human-puppet “Adam” is an average unemployed 20-something, what is he doing driving around in a brand new Ford? While Reality TV is usually anything but a reflection of reality, it seems like URule will have to work to maintain any sort of integrity.
However content producers decide to integrate their sponsors into their work, it’s clear that web series are becoming a serious money maker, and viewers should expect to see more developments from big names online.
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More About: advertising, branded content, celebrities, college humor, Dumbdumb, entertainment, Jason Bateman, lisa kudrow, Seth Green, sponsored content, The Guild, URule, web series, web video, Will Arnett
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