What is Branded Entertainment?
The collaboration of brands with entertainment creators to produce content that easily integrates the brand message or product without interrupting the audience’s experience with traditional ads is known as branded entertainment.
Moreover, any kind of entertainment that is specifically created for the brand of a company .
Additionally, it is an umbrella term for all brand-produced content. Branded content engages the audience with the same mindset. In other words, branded entertainment creates content that audiences watch because they want to, not because they cannot skip it.
It describes everything from TV shows, movies, and video games to parks and advertising campaigns.
Furthermore, branded entertainment exists in various forms, and each form has its unique features and advantages for movies that help promote a company’s trademark and product.
Likewise, video games can provide fascinating wits that can be helpful for customers to learn more about a product or service.
In addition to this, it is becoming very popular, not only considering it offers companies a way to reach new customers but moreover, considering it is very cost-effective.
Types of Branded Entertainment
1- Direct-to-Customer
This type of branded entertainment also called DTC branded entertainment is used to produce and market directly to the customer. “The Office” TV show and movie “The Hangover” are examples of direct-to-customer branded entertainment.
2- Indirect-to-customer
This is referred to as ITC branded entertainment branded content. This type is used to produce and market indirectly to the customer. “The X-Flies” TV show and “The Lord of the Ring” movie are suitable examples of ITC branded entertainment.
3- Parallel-to-customer
It is also known as PTC Branded Entertainment. This type of entertainment is produced and marketed simultaneously to both the customer and the producer. It involves games such as “Call of Duty” and apps like Facebook.
Not only but also, it enables brands to engage with customers in new ways. By partnering with filmmakers or producers, musicians, and game developers brands can get access to different new avenues for storytelling. In this way, films and TV shows become the most common form of it.
Web series or short films bite-sized pieces of content enable brands to tell engaging stories in a format that can be easily shareable and accessible to the people. Similarly, video games bring opportunities, enabling players to engage with brands in the virtual world. Here are some advantages of branded entertainment given below:
Benefits of Branded Entertainment
1- Increase Brand Visibility
Branded entertainment can be used to increase the visibility of brands. Brands can reach a great number of viewers genuinely by integrating their products or messages into famous entertainment content.
2- Emotional Connection with Customers
It can allow brands to connect with customers on an emotional level. Brands can induce feelings of joy, and excitement; strengthen the bond between customers and brands by telling gripping stories, and create engaging experiences.
3- Audience Engagement
It creates more engagement with customers as compared to traditional advertising methods. Branded content has the power to engage customers with brands through social media shares, fan theories, etc.
4- Enhance Brand Perception
Brands can improve their reputation and image by associating with high-quality content. High-quality branded content has the power to enhance your brand’s perception.
The brand becomes unforgetable and shareable by offering value through entertainment, like interesting stories or humor. This strategy helps build loyalty and makes the brand a natural part of people’s lives.
Difference between Branded Entertainment & Content Marketing
If you think they are the same; no they are not. But they both include content creation for marketing purposes. Content marketing is about the creation and sharing the content where the goal is to indirectly stimulate interest in the product or service of a brand.
Unlike branded entertainment, it is transparent and only works if the audience is fully aware that the content is paid for and produced by a brand.
However, it is a very popular technique in digital marketing but there is one important thing for its improvement which is measurement of its success.
There are several ways to measure the success
- The first, way of measurement is to assess the change in sales volume for the product or service associated with the campaign.
- The second way is to measure the change in customer satisfaction rating for the product or service.
- Last but not least, measure the change in brand awareness for the product or service.
Conclusion:
Branded entertainment is a powerful tool for brands to connect with customers effectively. Brands can get the attention and imagination of audiences in a manner that traditional advertising usually struggles to achieve by effortlessly integrating their products and messages into compelling storytelling across different platforms. Moreover psychology plays an important role in it.