how i learned to stop worrying and love branded entertainment

A vivid childhood memory recently came back to me. It was of my Dad tuning into the live radio broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera. It was religious. Every Saturday afternoon without fail no matter if it was coming from the car radio, home stereo or a transistor while crabbing off the docks of the Chesapeake Bay. I remember hearing the rumbling of the crowd stirring as they waited for the orchestra to end their warm up and cue the onset of the performance. Right before the curtain went up, the radio announcer quietly but firmly said, “Texaco is proud to present La Boheme”. They would broadcast the entire first act uninterrupted. At intermission, they’d play a Texaco radio spot followed by a quick discussion of the performance. The crowd would hush again and they would continue with the, again uninterrupted, second act. When the performance ended the announcer would speak one last time “Please join us next week as Texaco presents Aida“ They’d play one more plug then proceed with the next regularly scheduled show.

Near where I grew up in Bethesda, Maryland was a shopping mall. At the far corner of the mall were two gas stations directly next to each other. Oddly enough, they shared the same entrance. One station was an Exxon and the other was a Texaco. One time we stopped for gas. There was a line at the Texaco but a couple empty pumps at the Exxon. My dad pulled into the Texaco. I asked him why he didn’t just go to Exxon. There was no wait. My dad responded without hesitation and said, “Because I want to keep getting the opera.”

     EQUALS    

What brought on this memory was a series of discussions we were having with Kirt Gunn. The discussions entailed Epoch partnering with Kirt to form a new brand entertainment entity that eventually became Dandelion. I had been skeptical about the entire trend. I saw it either as product placement or a narrative killer. Kirt showed us his case studies. He explained his business model. He talked about the strategy. He was very persuasive but I wasn’t completely convinced. Then he said something that struck. He said (and I paraphrase), brands want to connect with their customers they need to stop interrupting the experience and start providing the experience.

My dad understood this concept innately. Back in the day so did brands. Somewhere along the way they stopped trying to earn loyalty and started buying it. Today’s generation and the next have too many tools and too many options at their disposal to avoid unwanted messaging. The only messages that will get through are the ones that provide real value. You give me something (entertainment) and I’ll give you something (time/loyalty). It’s a fair value proposition.


Brand content is in its infancy so I cannot predict in what dominant form it will be but I can say with certainty that history repeats itself. So give the audience a good web series they can pass around to their Twitter followers and they may just opt for the longer line.