​What once worked as a piece of effective advertising on TV - a piece of product placement, a 30-second spot or a mention before heading to the commercial break - has been called into question in recent years, as multiplatform viewing rises and attention during commercial breaks declines.

The solution to this advertising dilemma is often a piece of branded content, a piece of the ad deal that has become so important that several TV networks have created special divisions in their companies to deal with the requests.

Viacom has Viacom Velocity, CNN’s Digital Studios launched in January, NBCU has a client-solutions division and Turner Broadcasting uses Funny or Die for branded segments that can live beyond the on-air ad break. Each are meant to work with advertisers to get their messages out to viewers who increasingly watch their content on mobile devices that allow them to skip commercials entirely.

The demand has gotten so high, in fact, that television networks say branded content is part of almost every ad deal they make now. Ad Age runs through just a few of the more recent effective pieces of branded content of the past year:

CNN’s Digital Studios presented its online series, City of Tomorrow, sponsored by Cisco, which had a featured episode based in its home city of Barcelona.

Viacom Velocity ran an on-air special for 20th Century Fox’s film Maze Runner in September with Toyota, who sponsored the Million Dollar Maze Runner, awarding a Toyota Scion to the winner.

NBCUniversal’s client-solutions group created a campaign called “Cherokee Effect,” which starred NBCU talent (like Bravo’s Real Housewives franchise) during each of their series.

Read more at Ad Age.

Brief Take: With the traditional ad break option often being ruled out as an effective ad space, TV networks are under more and more pressure to create ground-breaking ads on platforms where they will actually be seen.

[Image courtesy of CNN]

Tags:


  Save as PDF