A week of interaction

BY: RYAN ANDERSON  |  Branded Entertainment

One of the reasons that we keep this blog is because we have a lot of diverse expertise at Fuel, from advertising types to game developers to interactivity experts to creatives.  We each have our own areas of interest, and sometimes end up talking about completely different things.

This week, we’re doing things a bit differently.  This week, the Fuel bloggers that you know and love are all going to be writing about the same topic, from different viewpoints.  The topic this week is branded interaction.

When we made the decision to focus on branded entertainment, we did so because we vehemently believe in the power of interaction.  Banner ads, television spots, print magazine campaigns all have their place, but are ultimately passive in nature.  When is the last time someone got wrapped up in a print ad for fifteen minutes?  What branded entertainment (when done correctly) creates is an engaged viewer - one who is focused solely on the task at hand, and does so because he or she is genuinely interested in it, not because it is interrupting what they actually want to be watching.

But what is the value of interaction?

I’m a PR guy, so I spend a lot of my time thinking about the power of community. Community is created around many things - interest groups, geography, common beliefs.  The beauty of branded entertainment is that it can be crafted to interest any number of communities by making the content appeal to a particular interest or belief.  The real value in branded interaction is what happens after the initial experience.

If the experience is positive, the viewer is likely to send a piece to others who share in their community.  The effect of this sharing is based on the experience itself and the level of connection of the viewer.  By stimulating discussion among the most connected, a branded experience can become a part of a community, not by being a “good ad,” but by presenting an entertaining experience that resonates with a core audience and encourages discussion.

What I’m talking about isn’t an easy thing to accomplish, but it’s an important way to look at marketing within a particular community of interest.  Our job as marketers is no longer to force our message onto people - it doesn’t work anymore.  Our job now is to create engagement and conversation around a brand.  Branded entertainment is just one of the ways that this can be accomplished, but when done correctly, as Brady is fond of saying, your 30-second spot can turn into a 600-second spot, and your audience can turn into your distribution network.

Stay tuned for a week of others’ perspectives on branded interaction, and as always, we love to hear your feedback in the comments.