OgilvyEntertainment Press Review is a collection of the latest client, branded entertainment, and industry news.

Read Making magic, using logic: the Ogilvy Branded Entertainment Assessment Model^TM.

BRANDED ENTERTAINMENT

Esurance Launches Facebook Contest Media Post Publications 1.22.13 Esurance has launched a contest on Facebook as part of its South by Southwest 2013 sponsorship. The SXSW “Dream Gig” contest, hosted on the Esurance Facebook page, invites lovers of social media, film, tech, and music to apply to join the Esurance team onsite at its booth at the Austin, Texas music festival to help cover the event.

Chinese Viewers Flocking to Brands’ Online Mini-Movies brandchannel 1.22.13 In Pepsico’s short film “Bring Happiness Home,” a ragtag bunch of Chinese travelers trying to get home for Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) comes together thanks to Pepsi and Lay’s. The film has logged more than 100 million views in its first week of release online, and is among many recently produced pieces that suggest 2013 could be an explosive year for branded content in China.

Capri Sun Launches Major Social Campaign Media Post Publications 1.22.13 Kraft Foods’ Capri Sun is today launching its biggest social media activation to date. The “Seize the Day” campaign, which is kicking off with a sweepstakes, aims to engage moms by helping them help their kids stay busy and make the most of each day.

ADVERTISING

Audi Asks Viewers to Choose the Ending of Its Super Bowl Spot AdWeek 1.23.13 Audi is letting viewers choose its Super Bowl ad this year—or rather, the ending of it. Venables Bell & Partners in San Francisco has created three different endings to a 60-second spot about a teenage boy on prom night. This Friday, from midnight to midnight ET, viewers will get to see all three versions and vote for their favorite.

How Google Glass Could Change Advertising Mashable 1.23.13 It’s 2015 and you’ve just arrived back in New York City from a weekend trip. You’re standing in Times Square when it occurs to you that you’re hungry. So, literally in the blink of an eye, you call up information about all the nearby restaurants. You realize, however, that you could also use some companionship so you say “friends nearby restaurants.” Just then you see that a pal of yours has checked in to Fannelli Cafe in SoHo. You quickly text him and arrange to meet. When you call up directions, you get an offer for $2 off your first Guinness. All thanks to Google Glass.

Rookie Advertisers Make Noise On Super Bowl Sunday Media Post Publications 1.22.13 There has been a lot of talk this season about the play of NFL rookie quarterbacks, including Andrew Luck, Robert Griffin III, Russell Wilson, Brandon Weeden and Ryan Tannehill. Now comes the time to anticipate the play of rookie advertisers in the Super Bowl.

ENTERTAINMENT

NASA to Premiere New Mars Exploration Film Mashable 1.23.13 NASA is unveiling a new documentary film about the history of Mars exploration today to an audience in the Los Angeles area, and there’s a chance the movie could eventually get distributed nationally. “The Changing Face of Mars” premieres tonight at 8 p.m. PST at the California Institute of Technology’s Beckman Auditorium in Pasadena. Admission is free, with seating on a first-come, first-served basis.

Sundance Filmmakers Can Self-Distribute Films Online After Festival Mashable 1.23.13 The Sundance Film Festival, which kicked off last week in Park City, Utah, has long been one of the go-to events for filmmakers hoping to get their projects noticed by some of the industry’s top players. This year, the institute announced its partnership with an online video platform called Reelhouse, which filmmakers from the event can use to self-distribute their work online.

SeaWorld Orlando Launches ‘Epic Voyage’ Media Post Publications 1.21.13 SeaWorld Orlando is kicking off its “Epic Voyage” campaign in New York City as part of its launch of the park’s largest-ever attraction opening this spring. The campaign for “Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin” includes stops in seven cities and a new mobile app, both designed to give families a sneak peek into the new attraction’s adventure in ways as amazing as the continent itself. 

MEDIA & TECH

Google’s Universal Analytics Set To Transform Online Marketing Media Post Publications 1.22.13 It has been a few months since Google announced Universal Analytics, which will provide marketers with greater visibility into people’s interactions with a Web site at multiple levels. Universal Analytics will transform how marketers interpret consumer behavior. Universal Analytics will open doors for more in-depth analysis of brands’ Web sites. It is a complete overhaul of Google Analytics. It requires marketers’ immediate attention in order to stay on top of the data revolution that is reshaping much of our economy and society.

Golf Channel, WGT Team for Virtual Play Media Post Publications 1.18.13 The Golf Channel has a deal with online game marketer WGT to offer a virtual tour, including an opportunity to “play” such famed courses as St. Andrews and Bethpage Black. The free gaming will be housed on a network micro-site.

Instagram For Video – Music, Meaning And Moments Succeed Where Others Fail Tech Crunch 1.20.13 There is a burgeoning fascination around the topic of which startups will become the “Instagram for video.” Stories abound on the subject. I previously wrote about it for TechCrunch, but focused primarily on execution and getting the U/X “right” rather than identifying potential winners. While most articles do identify mobile video “contenders,” they also miss the mark, because they fail to focus on the fundamental differences between video and still-image content. These differences mean that virtually all current “public share”-focused video Instagram clones are dead on arrival out of the gates.

SUSTAINABILITY

Catching On: McDonald’s, UK grocer Sainsbury’s Embrace Sustainability Push brandchannel 1.23.13 Efforts to curb overfishing of the world’s most popular species are reaching deeper into supermarkets and fast-food menus. The UK grocery Sainsbury’s will begin a “Switch the Fish” campaign on Friday, giving away seven tons of such “sustainable fish” as lemon sole, mussels, Cornish sardines and coley fillets, Marketing Magazine reports.

Surviving the Heat: Coca-Cola Stay With WWF in Quest to Save the Polar Bear brandchannel 1.23.13 It’s been slightly more than a year since Coca-Cola failed quite publicly in attempting to help fight climate change — an effort that made plenty of consumers unhappy with the beverage company’s embrace of a controversial political cause. But Coke hasn’t backed down, continuing its partnership with the World Wildlife Fund to help keep the Arctic ice intact and protected from melting — and help save its iconic polar bear.

Victoria’s Secret Bans Toxic Chemicals, Joining Environmental Campaign brandchannel 1.22.13 Limited Brands, owner of Victoria’s Secret and La Senza, has committed to eliminate hazardous chemicals from its global supply chain in response to Greenpeace’s Detox campaign. An investigation in 2012 by the environmental advocacy organization revealed a hormone-disrupting phthalate in underwear sold in Victoria’s Secret stores in the United States.

OgilvyEntertainment is proud to be participating in the National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE) 2013 Market Conference in Miami from January 28 to 30. OgilvyEntertainment will feature prominently during the 3-day content marketplace, which aims to be the catalyst for the discovery, creation and monetization of the world’s most compelling content. Now celebrating its 50^th anniversary, NATPE has continued to be an exciting event that promotes conversation and collaboration between advertising agencies, brands, Hollywood, and more, across the expanding world of multiplatform content. Hosted at the Fontainebleau Resort in Miami Beach, the event will kick off on January 28 with an opening address by legendary investor Mark Cuban. The conference will conclude on January 30 following a jam-packed agenda of exciting conversations and exhibitions from over 150 speakers, exhibiting everything from dramatic shifts in traditional and non-traditional platforms, the various forms of industry disruption, the innovative technologies that are changing branded content, and much, much more!

Doug Scott will be leading three key presentations. The first is Content 2020: A Keynote Presentation with Coca-Cola on Monday, January 28 from 2:00pm – 2:45pm. Doug will host the Q&A session with Neil Bedwell, Global Group Director of Digital Strategy & Content at Coca-Cola, following his presentation of the company’s Content 2020 global strategy. Immediately afterward from 3:00pm – 3:30pm, Doug will give a presentation titled Expanding Branded Entertainment Horizons.  This presentation will focus on OgilvyEntertainment’s The Horizons Project and the power of branded entertainment to shift the perception of DuPont from a chemical company to a solutions-driven thought leader on solving world problems.  Doug’s final presentation at NATPE is Forces of Disruption in Branded Entertainment, which will be held on Tuesday, January 29 from 12:00pm – 12:30pm.  In his final session, Doug will discuss the impact of disruptive innovation and his predictions for future trends in branded content.

Other notable companies such as Samsung, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Google YouTube, Pepsi, and Facebook  will share their perspectives—from the disruption of the television business model to the rise of branded storytelling.

This year’s NATPE conference overlaps with another notable content conference: the 2013 Realscreen Summit (in Washington D.C from January 27 to 30). Realscreen Summit is an annual event bringing over 1,500 representatives from the advertising and TV industry together to discuss issues and trends within the non-fiction film and television industry. Due to the overlapping dates, both events will feature video conferencing to encourage and promote inter-conference connectivity and continued conversation between all attendees.

Don’t forget to catch OgilvyEntertainment in Miami at what is sure to be an exciting and essential event for branded entertainment stakeholders!

OgilvyEntertainment Press Review is a collection of the latest client, branded entertainment, and industry news.

Read Making magic, using logic: the Ogilvy Branded Entertainment Assessment Model^TM.

BRANDED ENTERTAINMENT

Content marketing in 2013: what the experts think Econsultancy 1.14.13 As 2013 begins, we asked a series of marketers for their thoughts on where content marketing is going and what brands and publishers have been doing particularly well. Their insights are below, along with some video shot by Outbrain at the launch of the Content Marketing Survey Report late last year.

Sears Scores All-Star Game Deal To Launch Season-Long Activation With NBA NY Sports Journalism 1.14.13 The NBA has added another marketer to its potent All-Star weekend of events, signing a deal that makes national retailer Sears the title sponsor of Shooting Stars, a skills competition during All-Star Saturday Night presented by State Farm. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Solving the Content Creation Conundrum AdAge 1.14.13 Content marketing remains the bright, shiny objet du jour for marketers, even as they work to figure out how to best implement it and measure results. Content marketing is attracting its share of marketers’ budgets — 12% on average — and more than half of marketers plan to spend even more in the coming year, according to a survey Ad Age conducted in late 2012 of nearly 600 marketers. Yet, it’s clear most marketers are struggling with some pretty basic questions: Who should be the “boss” of content? How much should be spent on content marketing? Is it effective?

ADVERTISING

Real, Time Media Post Publications 1.14.13 Real and time. Two concepts that define much of how we think, but ones that are also defined, in part, by media. I’ve been writing about the way media influences people for most of my life, though most of it has been spent covering the part where money is made. As it turns out, that also happens to be the part that is having a big influence on the way people really think and for how long they think about it.

Killing ‘Mobile’ Advertising To Live Smarter Second Lives Media Post Publications 1.14.13 It only took a few months of having the iPad in the device market for marketers to mention offhandedly that tablets really weren’t “mobile.” The use case and behaviors were very different between tablets and smartphones. Clearly, the midsized screens were tapping into a different mode among users — perhaps one that no one ever fully anticipated — a kind of lean-in-lean-back.

The New York Times’ Plan to Save the Banner Ad Digiday 1.11.13 Like many publications, The New York Times has a banner ad problem. The problem is this: the Web is littered with banners and new computer-driven methods of buying discrete audiences is putting even further pressure on the display ad market. But unlike newfangled publications like BuzzFeed, the NYT isn’t giving up on the banner. In fact, it wants to reinvent it by giving it a heavy dose of the same tech savvy behind its recent pathbreaking interactive feature, “Snow Fall.”

ENTERTAINMENT

Cyanide & Happiness Rejects TV Deal, Turns to Kickstarter Mashable 1.17.13 Cyanide & Happiness won’t be coming to a television near you. The creators behind the popular webcomic announced that they walked away from a potential deal with a cable network to turn their webcomic into a television show, MediaBistro reports. Kris Wilson told readers that he and the other Cyanide & Happiness creators had been approached about a TV show twice before, but walked away “due to rights and creative control issues.”

‘Disney Infinity’ Wants to Make Playtime Digital: Will it Succeed? Mashable 1.17.13 Disney Infinity is more than just a new game, it’s a new business and merchandising model from Disney Interactive. One part Minecraft, two parts Skylanders, with dashes of Club Penguin and Mario Paint, it’s Disney’s most ambitious interactive investment yet. The new project — which Disney describes not as a game but as a “universe” — is Disney’s attempt to fuse physical toys with a digital world.

Streaming Video Delivers Blow To Paid Cable Media Post Publications 1.11.13 Driven by the rise of streaming video and better over-the-top technology, cable-led paid-TV services peaked in 2011, and are now on track to decline through 2017. That’s according to new findings and forecasts from research group TDG, which reports that paid-TV subscriptions topped out at about 101 million in 2011, remained virtually unchanged in 2012, and will sink to less than 95 million by 2017.

MEDIA & TECH

IBM develops flexible nanocircuitry 10,000 times thinner than paper Extreme Tech 1.15.13 Expectations for circuitry are growing in every conceivable market, so IBM researchers have developed high-performance nanoscale circuits that are thin enough to be folded and bent to fit in countless devices. From curvy computers to implantable medical devices, these razor thin circuits can provide massive horsepower to small and oddly shaped devices that we’ve yet to even dream about.

IllumiRoom Turns Your Entire Living Room Into a TV Screen Mashable 1.14.13 Our TV sets are getting bigger and bigger and with ever greater resolutions. But what if the screen isn’t enough anymore though? That’s the idea behind Microsoft’s latest idea, a technology that turns the room around your TV into an extension of it.

Google Launches Zavers Coupon Service Media Post Publications 1.13.13 Google launched a digital coupon service Friday called Zavers that allows retail stores and brands to reward loyal customers with coupons. The service could support both local and national brands.

SUSTAINABILITY

Google Grants $2.65M for Smarter Electricity Distribution Triple Pundit 1.17.13 The tech giant Google has been steadily building a portfolio of sustainability-related projects that put it squarely in the vanguard of corporate leadership, with a long and growing list that includes green data centers, solar power installations, open source alternative energy maps based on Google Earth and even a manure-to-energy project. That’s a pretty impressive list, but in a self-improvement kind of way that seems to ask the question: now what?

Tata, Unilever Steer Tea Sustainability Project Environmental Leader 1.16.13 Tata Global Beverages, Unilever, Yorkshire Tea and Finlays, along with several organizations from across the tea value chain, have launched the second phase of Tea 2030, a project aimed at developing sustainability innovations to help secure the industry’s long-term future.

Top Sustainability Consultants: Where Do You Rank? Media Post Publications 1.16.13 As green marketers, we spend a lot of time thinking about brands as clients. In Verdantix’s recent study Global Sustainability Leaders Survey: Brands, the tables are turned as they rank the consultants and service providers offering counsel on sustainability. The study was based on interviews with 250 senior sustainability decision-makers at firms with annual revenues greater than $250 million, across 21 industries in 13 countries.

Econsultancy and Outbrain teamed up last October to produce a Content Marketing Survey Report, the results of which should be of vital interest to marketers around the globe.  More than 1,200 marketing professionals took part in the survey, which examined the number of brands incorporating content marketing, the strategies and mediums employed, as well as the challenges they have faced such as budget, size, and those unexpected little fun, never before seen things that happen when you take on new programs.  The result was a revealing look at how marketers are responding to the challenges of content and a handful of insightful, future-facing projections.  In a world where consumers are incessantly bombarded by commercial messaging, it has become increasingly crucial for marketers to stand apart from their competitors, and tailor messaging to engage target audiences.

2012 was a noteworthy year for content marketing, arguably its most important year to date, as it was filled with striking examples that are likely to set an industry standard.  McDonald Canada’s “Our Food, Your Questions”, while risky, was met with much praise for the campaign’s ability to engage in a meaningful discussion with customers on the issue of food quality.  Red Bull sponsored daredevil extraordinaire, Felix Baumgartner, with a record shattering space jump (Red Bull Stratos), attracted 8 million of views and is likely to pave the way for ‘hero-centric’ storytelling, which is predicted to be an important trend for 2013.  Another notable content-led campaign, Oreo’s ‘Daily Twist’ celebrated the brand’s 100^th anniversary by “twisting” the look of an Oreo cookie each day for 100 days, engaging the audience in a manner both creative and continuously engaging.

The research study was not without its surprises.  The survey found that over 90% of in-house marketers and agencies “believe that content marketing will become more important in the next 12 months.”  Despite this self-proclaimed exigency, only 38% of in-house marketers and a measly 13% of agencies/consultants stated that they currently had a defined strategy for content marketing.  This asymmetric response will no doubt need to be corrected in 2013 and marketers seem to be well aware of this, as 55% of in-house, and 58% of agency/consulting marketers stated that they were planning to create a defined strategy for their content marketing. Surprisingly, 29% of ad agencies stated that they were not planning to create one.  It will be interesting to see how the agencies that do not have a plan for content marketing will fare throughout 2013.

It might be dangerous to view content marketing as merely a trend that will fizzle out by the end of 2013, and therefore not worth pursuing.  On the contrary, it is becoming increasingly evident that consumers are craving a more tangible relationship with the products they purchase and companies need to give them that value.  Currently, 46% of companies stated that they have individuals dedicated to producing content marketing and only 34% have budgets dedicated to it.  It is clear that marketers will need to put in extra effort to engage their audiences with valuable content for 2013 if they want to stay relevant and competitive.

Unfortunately, marketers also need to be focused on creating meaningful, quality-driven content marketing that provides long-tail value.  “For content marketing to ‘work’, the input needs to be good,” said James Gurd, owner of Digital Juggler, “Content has to serve a purpose and provide a value to the end-user.  I personally think that there is too much content being produced at the expense of a focus on quality…there is no structured, coherent plan and content gets thrown up on a website with no understanding of where it sits in the user journey and why customers would want to use it.”  Indeed, the ambition for creating compelling, instead of substandard content, seems to be a noticeable barrier for marketers.  The survey reported that, for agencies/consultants, 46% cited the lack of understanding and training, and 39% cited the lack of content creation skills, as obstacles to creating content marketing.  It is arguably more effective to take the time to create high quality content, than rush into it without clear objectives.  It is interesting to note, however, that in-house marketers are not experiencing similar barriers.  Their respondents cited ‘lack of human resources’ (42%), and ‘lack of budget’ (35%) as the two main obstacles.

The Content Marketing Survey Report also demonstrates that there is a wide variety of content types that are being utilized by marketers, the most popular being social posts and updates, of which 83% of in-house markets and 70% agency clients are using.  Email newsletters, on-site news articles, PR releases, blogs, and videos also account for over 50% of content marketing utilized by marketers.  As we have seen, video content marketing continues to grow in popularity as more powerful technologies (including mobile and tablet devices) are introduced into the market.

The results of this survey make it clear that in-house marketers are more comfortable with, and are adopting content marketing faster than agency counterparts.  Nevertheless, the latter are pledging to increase their focus on content marketing in order to further engage their audiences and provide value and utility.  As we’ve outlined in our white paper (Ogilvy.com/BEAM), brands can employ the magic of branded entertainment effectively and profitably by creating entertainment authentic to brand ideals and rooted in the logic that drives all elements of the marketing mix.

Ever dreamt of being an astronaut and traveling to space?  Well, thanks to Axe’s biggest product launch to date, dreams are about to become a reality for 22 lucky fans, who will experience an adventure unlike any other as they are blasted into space.

On January 10th, Axe launched a unique campaign in 60 countries giving people the opportunity to apply to this global competition by simply stating why they deserve to go to space.  The most voted fans will qualify for a challenge in their own country, with winners joining together in Orlando, Florida for the final stage of the competition at the Axe Apollo Space Academy.  Then the lucky 22 will be chosen based on competitive space-simulation challenges.

And then they are off!

Winners will be launched beyond Earth’s atmosphere, over 100 kilometeres into space, and will achieve astronaut status.  As legendary astronaut Buzz Aldrin put it, “Space travel for everyone is the next frontier in the human experience.”