Those of you who have watched the movie Lage Raho Munna Bhai must have noticed the radio station for which the actress Vidya Balan works for. And the radio station was none other than WorldSpace satellite radio. Well, this article is not about WorldSpace radio, nor about `Gandhigiri'; but about branded entertainment. Branded entertainment can be defined as "The process of integrating the brand into the script of the entertainment offering which ensures higher brand recall, higher impact and, therefore, better Return on Investment (RoI) for marketers and advertisers". It is the integration of advertising into the entertainment content. By merging the brand into the script of the entertainment offering branded content, it has the potential to reach a larger audience than otherwise possible. Branded entertainment is about the brand world and the world of fantasy sharing the same space and not just logo placement.
The last count of the number of television channels beamed in India was 317, and this number is increasing every day. Growth of multiplexes is booming. Growth of newspapers and magazines has increased manifold. With the new FM licensing regime, growth of FM radio stations is expected to scale up. Likewise, Out-of-Home (OOH) media has also shown signs of revival. The last few years have witnessed tremendous media explosion and the choice for marketers has increased phenomenally. All this has led to tremendous cluttering and the challenge for brand marketers is to continuously evolve a distinct brand identity. These not being possible by plain vanilla advertising, marketers are looking at options to reach the audiences beyond traditional advertising. Marketers' battle for continuous mind share continues and with the media explosion the choice for advertising has increased exponentially. All these factors combined are contributing to the growth of branded entertainment formats. |
