In partnership with IBM, OgilvyEntertainment have successfully blended Branded Content with the Fourth Estate to create a new practice known as Brand Journalism.
In piloting this approach we purposely identified timely “new news” stories that also included a compelling contribution from IBM. Our research led us to Smarter Electricity Grids and Electronic Health Records; two topics that have recently been pushed to center stage in the public imagination and legislative arena.
With the help of a nimble three-man crew from Radical Media’s documentary division, we struck out to capture the opinions of industry experts, consumers and IBMers. We visited illustrative “islands of brilliance” across North America and gained almost unheard-of access to helipads and turbine rooms, thanks to the discreet size and editorial nature of our film unit.
Each tour was capped with an extended interview with an accredited, uncompensated journalist – a commentator whose opinions on the respective subject have been widely published.
As we edited each report together the journalist emerged as a natural spine of logic running through each piece – lending our pilots an unbiased and commonsensical tone. Similarly, we allowed the validity of the story to speak for itself by employing few of the sophisticated editing techniques that denote traditional TV advertising.
We believe the end result feels less like a commercial spot and more like a 60 Minutes segment. So much so, that these assets have already appeared everywhere from the CNBC Business of Innovation broadcast to IBM events. Indeed we are currently investigating new distribution methods that marry digital watermarking technology with 24-hour news outlets. Contact us for more information.
Hi Nick,
It's a pretty new (and exciting) solution a vendor brought to us; a tracking device encoded into footage alerts the vendor to transmissions, allowing them to produce accurate broadcast monitoring reports detailing channels, audience reach, length of clip, time and date.
Contact me at otto.bell@ogilvy.com and we can discuss the specific vendor.
Hello all,
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Thank you :)
Hi Nicki. Could you explain the digital watermarking aspect of this?
That Smarter Traffic ad (about IBM helping with the reduction of traffic in Stockholm) is also yours ? I think these are great ideas !
how come you don't have the capability to send a copy of this to someone? Great work but would like to share.