Branding - Antidote to Virtual World
It is a well known fact that the world is moving towards virtualization and Brands can leave an extremely powerful impression when they engage with their target audience through their favourite shows.
Hence, Brand placement, when a brand is strategically placed within the script of a film or TV series to offer promotion to the brand, becomes important. Brands can benefit immensely from this trend booming in the advertising sector.
Natural brand placements within content can be a compelling way for brands to connect with audiences in an authentic and unobtrusive way.
It’s a turn-key, scalable way for Brands to secure in-content exposure via streaming titles on OTTs and movies. Brand placement, of course, has been occurring in popular entertainment for at least centuries now.
WHY BRANDS KEEP BETTING ON IT?
Firstly, let’s back up a bit. As part of advertising, the company pays content creators to place its brand on the set of a movie, TV show, or music video. Even though many brand placements are the result of paid relationships, there are some brand placements that are driven by creative decisions, such as a writer wanting to convey a character’s affluence through Gucci. The audience cannot typically distinguish paid placements from unpaid placements.
However, with streaming becoming more popular these days, brand placement becomes an even more attractive option for brand managers. And, simultaneously, they plan to decrease their spending on traditional branding like print ads and TV ads. People today watch much less linear TV – the kind that has ads interrupting every few minutes – and are therefore exposed to fewer traditional TV advertisements. And when watching web videos, a staggering 90% of consumers skip or ignore ads.
So as brand managers struggle to reach their target audience, they are turning towards brand placement to get their brands into media content in ways that can’t be skipped or muted.
HOW TO START OFF WITH THE RIGHT BALANCE?
So in order to be noticeable without seeming intrusive, how do brands start off with the right balance?
As a starting point, audiences respond most strongly to verbal brand placements, which feature the brand name spoken by their favourite character, but not shown. These brand placements are more likely to be noticed by target audiences. Also, they’re less likely to trigger persuasion knowledge than placements in which the brand is both shown and spoken about. Verbal placements appear to hit the mark.
Taking it further, audiences may be more receptive to brand placements that appear early in a show or movie as they become more engrossed in the plot and characters of the show or movie as it progresses. In case a placement occurs at the climax, when the attention is fixated on what will happen next, audiences are less likely to notice it and more inclined to be frustrated.
TYPES OF BRAND PLACEMENT
Using brand placement on OTTs can take several forms: verbal and visual placements.
Verbal Placement: Essentially, verbal brand placement is a verbal mention of the brand in a show or movie embedded into the script. Placement like this increases brand awareness and makes the brand more relatable to target audiences. Watch the magic happen when the mention of the brand comes from the mouths of their loved characters.
Visual Placement: Having a visual representation of a brand can capture the attention of the audience and trigger them to search for the brand online. The large companies dominate the market as they have been around for several years and it’s common to see them on OTT platforms almost every day. A brand is ultimately perceived as a quality of association with characters who use and approve of it.
EXAMPLES OF BRAND PLACEMENTS
A favourite Netflix series Stranger Things featured multiple scenes with Baskin Robbins. And it is hard to forget Mad Men. Of course the show centres around a branding agency, so it’s no surprise that lots of brand names come up in the show. Heineken, however, has been the biggest example to that. Those scenes certainly add to the audiences’ enjoyment of the film, but whether or not it definitely worked for the brand.
To brief it all, generating new business avenues for brands is to create authentic relationships between Brands and target audiences. It’s about changing the way brands approach what not all that long ago was simply a transactional endorsement business. As the branding ecosystem evolves to include esports, gaming, and different types of television and digital ad loads, the brand placement is evolving as well.
Having looked at the movies and shows that have featured the most brand placements, comment below and let us know the best brand placement that has left a long lasting impression on you.
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