When you consider these two trends together—a commercial-averse Gen Z audience and an uptick in ad-supported streaming offerings—it begs the question: Who is going to watch all of these commercials that streamers are creating space for? “We imagine that Gen Z is going to take a lot of bathroom breaks just to reap the benefits of a lower subscription fee, which means a lot of ads will go unwatched. The opportunity to change that is now,” said SuperBloom House co-founder and CEO Briony McCarthy.
Could this mean a renaissance for branded entertainment? A recent YPulse survey found that 69% of 13- to 39-year-olds use streaming services to avoid ads, and the solution could be “having advertisers create their own content for the new on-demand services.” But what does that look like?
Give the people what they want
When we talk about branded entertainment, we’re not talking about sponsorship. This form of advertising emerged in the 1950s and allowed companies to get their goods and brand names out there without disrupting the stories. Ford gave the production of Rebel Without a Cause automobiles, which became an integral part of early car culture and product placement appeal.
Culture has historically driven product sales. Just recently, sales of white Vans were up a whopping 7,800% post-Squid Games. But this isn’t what we mean by brands playing in entertainment.
What we’re talking about in 2023 is the brands becoming studios. Telling stories that are born from what they stand for or how they want to be perceived. This content can live in a theater like Barbie did, on a streamer like Nike’s The Day Sports Stood Still, or simply can be shared on any of the other dozens of digital distribution mechanisms available to our eyeballs.
Recently brands like Nike, AB InBev and Saint Laurent have launched their own in-house entertainment studios to create stories that will reach audiences beyond a commercial break. Our clients are beginning to ask for it too. Mark DiCristina, vp of brand experience at Mailchimp Studios, launched the brand’s internal studio back in 2019 to work directly with production companies on branded content.
“Paid advertising is foundational to our success as a brand, but if it’s all we’re doing, then we only ever have people’s attention when we’re interrupting them from the thing they actually want to be doing—and we’re only interrupting them when we’re paying for the impression,” he said. “By making content people actually want to consume, we expand our relationship with our audience, and we expand the meaning of our brand.”
