How advertiser funded films are going to change the marketing spectrum in India?

Branding and entertainment have traditionally been woven together by a simpler concept of product placement where a product is placed on the screen making it a part of the set-up in order to strike the audience with the brand and its usage by the movie/ programme’s characters.

A few years back when Adidas decided to finance the ‘Goal’ movie trilogy with about $100 million investment, it was more than just a product placement. The financial risk was high due to the huge investment while it also gave Adidas the freedom to try and convey its message and brand personality to its audience in more number of ways than what a product placement would have offered.

Such productions where the whole programme or a movie is financed by a brand or a company whose primary objective is to put across its brand communication to its audience in a way which is more entertaining and assertive than the traditional advertising are known as advertiser funded programmes (AFP) and advertiser funded films (AFF). Some people also choose to call this practice Brand entertainment since a brand wrapped in a programme or film entertains the audience.It essentially is a step further by marketers from the product placement concept in the entertainment domain for communicating with its customers.

Simply put, AFFs and AFPs are content that allows brands to forge a deeper relationship with production houses via a funding model either in full or in part. Once executed, the advertiser’s investment is employed into producing the content while the advertiser earns a great degree of ownership over the content as well as its use as a wider communication platform for its brand/product/message.

Watch a short video by Schuyler Moore on how AFFs can be the future of marketing. Click here

Outside India, AFPs and AFFs have been regularly used as marketing and communication tools. The term soap opera was so called because the original soap operas were funded and produced by soap companies such as P&G. Some of the recent examples are short films by BMW, Castrol edge, TBA by Vodafone etc. P&G and Walmart have already announced their interest and entry into this newer advertising platform.

Click the below links to watch the video clips.

BMW funded short film - Hire

Castrol funded documentary film on Cristiano Ronalo

AFPs have been common in Indian marketing context as well, though AFF is a newer concept for India. Some of the examples of AFPs in India are - Cadbury Bournvita Confidence Champion, IDBIs Sawaal India ka, L’Oreal Elite Model Look ’06 etc, MTV Panasonic face of beauty (Watch video clip) etc.

Read more on IDBIs Sawaal India ka

AFFs prospects doesn’t look bleak either with the numero uno car company of India, Maruti Suzuki having tested the AFF waters very recently by partly funding the bollywood release “Mere Dad ki Maruti” produced by Y-Films, a subsidiary of Yash Raj Films. The producers wanted to make an advertising funded movie and with the of the movie based on family car, they pitches it to multiple auto companies in the country and Maruti turned out to be the most favoured partner with highest bid. 

Maruti Suzuki invested around Rs 6 crores in the movie which had a total budget of Rs 10 crores. As for the returns for the auto major, the movie has already earned more than Rs 8 crore and apart from having its brand name in the film title, it also managed to hog the spotlight throughout the two hours as Maruti is the main protagonist of the film. From Maruti 800 to the Swift and finally the Ertiga, the story weaves in both loyalty and aspiration towards the brand. A common feedback from the movie audience was that the movie was a fun-filled 2 hour Maruti advertisement.

 Marketers’ biggest challenge these days is to secure brand-space in their customers’ minds and with customers trying harder than ever to keep traditional advertising away, the challenge has only become more daunting. Hence, newer platforms for communication must be continuously looked upon. Advertiser funded programmes (AFP) and advertiser funded films (AFF) are such innovative planks to base marketing communications on.

AFPs and AFFs can be the new flag-bearers for Indian marketing rumble but how quickly and in what spectrum they evolve, it is yet to be seen.

Cheers,

Public Service Announcements - Effective or just good to watch?

A PSA generally is a message to inform the public on issues that are considered to be in the general best interests of the community at large. These are aimed at altering public attitudes by raising consciousness about particular issues and are usually created with collaboration between private and public entities. These may be created to reflect a social message or humanitarian notion.

An interesting PSA or Public service announcement/advertisement/campaign as many call it, got my attention last week. This campaign in particular tries to address the much talked about issue in the current times, women safety. The recent unfortunate events shook the confidence of citizen in a number of agencies. Law enforcement agency has always been at the receiving end for being perceived to be callous and even inefficient at times. In order to make an attempt to restore the confidence of people into its functioning and to assure them of their help and support, Mumbai police, along with Ogilvy Mumbai came up with a PSA.

The campaign used real police men and women to convey a sincere message to its audience which translates to – “we will teach Mumbai how to respect its women.”It is a five-film campaign, each film focus on one issue related to harassment and abuse of women. All the ad-films encourage women to report any incident, big or small to police without the fear of being harassed at police stations. The campaign has been conceived and executed by Ogilvy Mumbai with the help of Mumbai police.

You can watch a couple of films from the campaign here.

Mumbai Police and Ogilvy Mumbai 1

Mumbai Police and Ogilvy Mumbai 2

The trend for public service advertisements and campaign is not new in India. Some of the most famous PSA campaigns India has ever seen are Pulse Polio mission, HIV AIDS Awareness campaigns and Balbir Pasha. These were created to raise awareness for social and health issues like AIDS and Polio.

Balbir Pasha Teaser Ad

Balbir Pasha Ad-Film 1

A recent trend that has emerged in this front is surge of businesses trying to link their brand or brand image to a social cause and hence putting their eggs in PSA basket not just as a measure of business communication but to reiterate their support to address certain social or humanitarian causes.

Tata Tea’s “Jago re” campaign, Times of India’s Teach India campaign” and Aircel’s “Save our Tiger” campaign are such examples which have tried to address issues related to governance, corruption, education and declining tiger population in the country.

However, the biggest question which everyone is asking is – How effective are these campaigns?

The answer isn’t as simple as it may appear.

On the face of it, the PSAs are definitely catchy due to their creative prowess. However, the problem lies in the fact that these ads are usually made to win awards for agencies (the ones which are on social issues without a business house backing) and unfortunately that’s the only logical consummation their creators are looking for with these creative ads. Very rarely we would see a ground work and follow-up activities being done to make these campaigns effective and be sincere to the cause. Quite the same applies to the PSAs created for businesses, as seldom are business houses serious about the efficacy and change that these campaigns can bring about. All these ads are supposed to do is to grab eye-balls and create a recall with the associated brand.  

CSR is another major reason why we find many businesses jumping on the PSA band-wagon. Corporates are required to show a small percentage of their income being spent on good for society and this seems to be an interesting avenue to show the concern and seriousness of the organization for a particular cause, achieve a certain degree of brand recall and respect in the eyes of audience and also manage the regulations and policy requirements.

How these ads can be more effective in achieving ground results, it is yet to be seen but unless there is a change in how ad agencies, government, NGOs and business houses look at PSAs as the vehicle of social messages, PSAs may continue to be marred by “what a beautiful ad!” syndrome without actually doing what it must do.

Cheers,