The "Trend" of Branded Content: A Review of "Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold" - Sam Zises

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Cover image for  article: The "Trend" of Branded Content: A Review of "Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold" - Sam Zises

Some might find it curious that The New York Times' Stuart Elliott's review of the recently released "Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold" referred to branded content as a "trend."

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"In this instance, Morgan Spurlock - who directed and appears in the documentary and wrote it with Jeremy Chilnick - seeks to pull back the curtain on a trend called branded content, which is reshaping popular culture by blurring the line between entertainment and advertising in realms like movies, TV shows, songs, video games and online gaming." -Stuart Elliot, NYTimes

When I first read Mr. Elliott's piece, I was immediately perturbed at the thought that this marketing discipline was simply a passing trend.

Before publicly denouncing one of the most respected ad columnists in the world, I secretly Googled the word: "Trend - (n) a general direction in which something is developing or changing" (Google).

After some thought, I decided that I actually agree with Mr. Elliott. Trend (not to be confused with "trendy") appropriately describes branded content.

Having spent the last four years developing branded content, I've noticed one constant: change. This change or trend is not related to development strategies or the content itself. The constant change goes no deeper than the vocabulary we use to describe content.

As a member of several trade organizations including the 4A's Branded Content Committee (formally The Entertainment Marketing Committee), I find it interesting to hear industry leaders debate how to measure the ROI of branded content and how to define this medium to both the outside world and advertising community at large.

In an effort to add structure and uniformity to this debate, OgilvyEntertainment is currently preparing a glossary of keywords to help streamline the vernacular. In the meantime, 4A's defines branded content as "a marketing discipline that seeks to align a brand with content co-developed by a marketer and media partner(s)."

Insiders struggle with whether to use titles like "branded content," "branded entertainment," or "entertainment marketing." With distributors, advertisers and content creators working more closely than ever across this constantly evolving, fast-growing discipline, a consistent vocabulary is crucial to effective communication.

In his self-proclaimed "Docbuster," Spurlock examines the power of branded content with help from some of the most well-known industry executives of our time: Richard Kirshenbaum, Jon Bond, Michael Kassan and Ben Silverman, among others. Spurlock's incontrovertible demonstration of a McDonald's "diet" made "Super Size Me" a game-changer in fast food. In "The Greatest Movie Ever Sold," Spurlock similarly makes obvious what has always been true: brands and entertainment are interdependent, inseparable, one and the same -- and that's never going out of style.

Weeks prior to the theatrical release, "Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold" had already garnered 2.3 million Google search results, 18 thousand YouTube search results and more than 900 million online media impressions with stories covering the film (TEDTalk).

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These metrics don’t necessarily all translate into brand impressions, but from a low spend of $50,000 for Ban Deodorant all the way up to $1,000,000 for Pom Wonderful, brands like Mini, JetBlue, Hyatt, Old Navy, Sheetz, Merrell, Carmex and others are all getting good play. While it’s too early to make calls on the ROI, my lasting impression was of complex, honest, brilliant branded content.

Sam Zises is Group Marketing & Business Development Manager at OgilvyEntertainment. Sam can be reached at sam.zises@ogilvy.comor via his blog at www.samzises.com.

Read all Sam's MediaBizBloggers commentaries at TWEED by OgilvyEntertainment.

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