Across two specific cases, the campaigns of Mercedes-Benz and Red Bull, we will meet and discuss some of the implications of branded content.
The branded content is a tool increasingly used by brands. The increased use of mobile devices and the Internet navigation have make more viable the use of this instrument. We will deep on about the nature and scope of this form of advertising across the analysis of the campaigns “A SL in my garage” of Mercedes-Benz, and “Way Back Home” of Red-Bull.
Most people know the movie “Cast Away” directed by Robert Zemeckis. What few people know is that it is a precedent of branded content. In this movie, Tom Hanks plays a FedEx employee who suffers a shipwreck. Hanks, who was one of the producers of this film, embodies the values of this company through his character Chuck Noland. It emphasizes its ability to analyze situations related to planning that will be of help to survive and get out alive of the island during the movie. This incarnation comes to the point, delivering, without even opening the package after 8 years of suffering the accident. This work of fiction, though not enough, is the background to branded content.
The branded content is defined as any content related to a brand. This is a type of advertising where the protagonist is not the product but the identity or branding of a brand: the concept and its mission. This tool comes up from the need for a change from traditional advertising. They are changing the forms of entertainment and consumer through the Internet, social networks and mobile devices; that is way branded content is increasing. The content is consumed in the same amount, but in different way. Now young people are still spectators of series, shows and movies, with the only difference that they see them avoiding TV advertising, generally through the Internet. They do this by downloading or watching video content over the Internet either on the computer or through mobile devices. In this situation, the brands have a solution: to adapt to the new habits and produce content that entertains its audience, to engage them to their brand. The following text discusses this tool through two specific cases.
Mercedes-Benz: “A SL in my garage”
Mercedes-Benz launched a branded content with its SL model. The objective of this campaign was to increase the young audience of this brand. Mercedes-Benz was immersing into the problem that their clientele, very loyal to the brand, it was getting old and was not buying their cars. The solution was to run their campaigns to young people, while renewing their car models, renewing its design and giving a more sporty and youthful image. To conquer this audience, more ventured into the world of Internet and mobile, in addition to traditional media, Mercedes-Benz has launched several Internet campaigns to attract this audience with the slogan “Something is happening in Mercedes”.
“A SL in my garage,” is part of this campaign. To make it, the brand choose three different persons to whom they changed their car for a Mercedes-Benz SL. In each of these Mercedes they put them different cameras to capture all the sensations of each of this people would live along the first path with this car. In this video you can see the result: http://youtu.be/e7u2se-SSSY. After this video, Mercedes opted to publish more of its content with Yahoo!. A study about this search has resulted in nearly 7 in 10 have entered more than once in the Mercedes-Benz content and 68% of the sample has been browsing over 5 minutes. Of these, the most researched have had a more positive assessment of its content. The action performed by the Internet has been accessing the web from Mercedes-Benz and second navigation on the actual content of Yahoo! and visiting the YouTube channel of the brand.
This Yahoo! study has shown that the Mercedes-Benz campaign achieved its objective: the content has been mostly perceived as a rejuvenator of the brand, emphasizing that has maintained consistency with Mercedes-Benz. To a lesser extent has been listed as original.
In addition, this campaign has had a significant virality. After seeing the contents of the Yahoo! page, 68% have talked to someone about the Mercedes-Benz campaign, 50% have been taught that content to others and 28% have consulted more information about this brand.
The Mercedes-Benz content on Yahoo! was valued as follows:
- It emphasized the shortage of such shares brand online.
- It surprised the relationship between Yahoo! and Mercedes-Benz, but was understood as an exchange of values between two great brands where Yahoo! would bring youth and modernity, and Mercedes attractive content and care.
- He played an approximation at women by the brand.
Red Bull: Way back home
In 2010 Red Bull produced the film “Way Back Home” with the direction of Dave Sowerby, a friend of the protagonist of the film, Danny MacAskill. In it, Danny takes an incredible variety of bike tricks on a journey from Edinburgh back to his hometown of Dunvegan on the Isle of Skye. This film that it last just eight minutes became the most successful campaign of Red Bull, has received over 25 million views on YouTube and has been shared about 2 million times through social networks. Http://youtu.be/Cj6ho1-G6tw. This film is part of the identity of Red Bull in belonging sports, especially the extreme ones, and all kinds of activities related to urban culture, especially the music. Red Bull has a strategy based on three pillars: the sponsorship of athletes and teams, creating own events, especially cultural and sporting events, and content production, audiovisual and digital.
In the creation of their own content plays a key role the Red Bull Media House, a project that makes a clear commitment to the creation of branded content. It caused an evolution of the company’s strategy has enabled integration, channel and monetize all audio-visual content obtained through events and sponsorships. Red Bull generates much content and the brand’s owner Dietrich Mateschitz has a clear purpose. These are the fundaments of content strategy of the brand Red Bull:
- Long term focus: the creation of a strategy, a thorough study of what it wants to convey to the public and which attributes you want to associate with the brand through communication content.
- It aims to create a unique and quality content: unique content, entertaining, useful, relevant, and above all, quality one is the best way to attract consumers to the brand.
- A production channels both for themselves and their partners: About the generation of branded content, branding can be helped by producers and even they can use other brands produces, Red Bull Media House is not closed to produce content to other brands besides their own.
- With much media value: Red Bull has increased sales and profits by developing actions that have nothing to do with selling the product directly, but conveying brand values and fostering interaction and user experimentation in it.
Through these cases, we have found that reactions to branded content are much more positive than those of traditional advertising:
- If this type of content is interesting and original can positively impact the brand.
- The promotion of this type of content can create a powerful impact on the brand.
- Assist the brand differentiation from its competitors.
- It is able to entertain itself.
- The brand values are remembered by the public so much easier because of the identifying with the content.
- As compelling content and seamlessly, the new generation of Internet users is an ideal audience.
- The ability to virality is very high and can establish a strong dialogue with the consumer.
Hand in hand with the content, brands can not only achieve your visibility and preference, but allow them to transmit their values public relevance, originality and entertainment brand.