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As the festive season ushers in a wave of client enthusiasm and spending, one technique that has been steadily claiming a distinguished spot within the advertising arsenal of brands throughout the festive season is branded content.
Shailja Saraswati
Shailja Saraswati, Chief Content Officer, Omnicom Media Group India, mentioned by making content that captures this festive spirit, brands can profit from the chance to succeed in the appropriate individuals in fascinating methods,
She continued, “The vacation season is the busiest and most worthwhile time of the yr. Companies and brands begin planning particular advertising strategies as a result of lots of people store for items throughout this time. People are likely to make a variety of spontaneous purchases and worry lacking out on good offers. Brands can use this alternative to extend their gross sales.”
Branded content traits this festive season
Speaking about probably the most noteworthy traits in branded content creation and consumption throughout the festive season this yr, Saraswati mentioned, “You will discover e-commerce brands prioritise on-line content for festive procuring and spend money on omnichannel customised content for numerous platforms.
“Also, extra behaviour-centric campaigns will emerge the place content will align with festive shopping for behaviours. There can even be a rise in regional and vernacular content to assist interact smaller metropolis audiences. You may also count on to see brands goal luxurious objects to faucet into elevated festive season spending,” commented Saraswati.
Madhura Ranade
Madhura Ranade, Vice-President – Business and Branded Content, Dentsu Creative – Experience, mentioned that their groups have been utilizing AI to develop customised branded content experiences for the a number of brands they work with.
“For the festive season, now we have collaborated with quite a lot of brands to provide generative AI visuals that can put them within the highlight and spark dialog on social media,” Ranade mentioned.
“For sure of our purchasers, we are additionally utilizing augmented actuality (AR) and digital actuality (VR) to create immersive and fascinating branded content experiences. These narrative interactions interact prospects in branded worlds and supply them entry to the model ecosystem. In order to remain forward of the curve, brands have turn into extra open to investing closely in these growing applied sciences all through the vacation season,” she added.
Ashish Sehgal
According to Ashish Sehgal, Chief Growth Officer, Advertisement Revenue at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, this festive season, a serious new pattern might be interactive branded content.
“Interactive branded content helps enhance the content expertise and evolve from passive consumption to lively engagement from our viewers,” Sehgal added.
Plan forward and perceive your viewers’s behaviour throughout the festive season
While banking on the festive spirit by way of branded content is necessary, Ranade emphasised the necessity to plan forward and perceive viewers necessities.
“It’s essential to start planning your branded content initiatives early as a result of the vacation season is a busy time for each brands and customers. This permits us ample time to create authentic ideas, high-calibre content and an environment friendly marketing campaign schedule,” Ranade mentioned.
“Understanding the viewers and what they require over the vacation season is crucial. We modify our branded content to be extra pertinent and interesting to them as soon as now we have a greater understanding of the viewers. Also, we do not restrict the distribution channels for our brands and make use of a variety of how to succeed in the audience, notably by way of influencer advertising and creator partnerships. More importantly, be inventive,” she added.
On being requested how necessary it’s for brands to have a seamless, cross-platform branded content technique throughout the festive season, in a cluttered digital house, Saraswati mentioned that customising content for every platform is essential for cross-platform marketing campaign success. An omnichannel method stays important for festive season advertising strategies.
Aziz Khan
Aziz Khan, co-founder and CRO, RVCJ Digital Media, emphasised that one other facet that they deal with throughout collaborations is sustaining transparency and open communication with the model.
“We take note of the relevance and timing of collaborations throughout the festive season. In abstract, we method collaborations with brands throughout the festive season by prioritising inventive freedom, model messaging, transparency and relevance. By putting a stability between these components, we are in a position to create content that successfully promotes the model whereas nonetheless participating our viewers.”
TV platforms’ branded content choices
On being requested how ZeeTV is adapting to include branded content into their programming throughout the festive season, Sehgal mentioned that whereas the channel hand maintain the brands by way of the content co-creation course of, the main focus stays on forming the appropriate synergy between the characters and the model wants – as the appropriate character selection can result in exponential ROI for brands.
According to him, the in-show integrations assist the brands type deep connections with Zee’s engaged audiences.
“We create particular festive-themed episodes of our high reveals the place brands can sponsor segments and get an unique one-on-one window to pitch their merchandise together with ample product placement alternatives. This festive season, we are taking our content providing a notch greater throughout markets with the launch of actuality reveals like Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, Dadagiri and annual occasions like Zee Marathi Awards and Zee Kutumba Awards. These reveals and occasions not solely present a viewership spike on TV but in addition create multimedia engagement alternatives for brands in each part – press launch, name to entry, audition course of, digital promotion, primary episodes and finale,” Sehgal mentioned
Meanwhile, Star Plus collaborated with Maruti Suzuki for a particular festive season affiliation. The collaboration concerned the Star Parivaar, which incorporates characters from all fiction reveals on Star Plus, utilizing Maruti Suzuki automobiles all through the festive season, from Diwali to Holi.
As a part of this collaboration, the channel additionally launched the Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara on the present ‘Ravivaar With Star Parivaar’.
Another instance of a collaboration within the West Bengal market contains Star Jalsha collaborating with Reliance Trends to particularly goal the Durga Puja competition. It was an intensive marketing campaign that encompassed varied elements, together with on-ground occasions, on-air promotions and digital advertising efforts.
Brands banking on sports activities+festive spirit on OTTs
On Disney+ Hotstar, two latest branded content campaigns particularly ‘Thums Up Fan Pulse’ for Thums Up and ‘The Men of Platinum – Season 2’ by Platinum Guild International (PGI) India, have successfully harnessed the cricket narrative. These campaigns have been strategically designed to align with the cricketing fervour, encompassing the competition of cricket with the lately concluded Asia Cup 2023 and the upcoming ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023.
Radio platforms present hyper-local branded content choices
Sunil Kumaran
Sunil Kumaran, COO, Big FM emphasised that branded content on radio provides advertisers an opportunity for a larger degree of integration, leveraging their hyper-local attain.
Kumaran mentioned that radio has at all times been a medium that caters to branded content by way of its varied IPs. During the competition interval, brands usually gravitate in direction of tactical promotions like presents and reductions or pursue cause-led advertising. Radio as a medium is uniquely positioned for each sorts of choices.
“For tactical promotions, we leverage frequency-building components like contests whereas for function advertising, now we have devoted spikes. We imagine the sport going ahead is dependent upon two pillars which are innovation and scalability. While innovation may be technologically fuelled, scaling up may be by including components of digital and on-ground to the choices,” he added.
While explaining the first plans and strategies for incorporating branded content throughout the festive season this yr, Kumaran mentioned that Big FM has been engaged on festive IPs for a very long time now. In reality, our Ganpati property ‘BIG Green Ganesha’ was conceptualised at a time when individuals have been solely starting to know the idea of eco-friendly Ganesha idols.
“The festive season is usually cluttered with branded campaigns, necessitating revolutionary approaches for achievement. However, innovation needn’t be restricted to the idea alone. It may also lengthen to the promoting medium or the mixing of expertise inside the thought. A chief instance is that of our profitable marketing campaign BIG FM Super Duper Dhamaka, which mixed the native attain of radio with an AI-driven video chatbot, selling native retailers but in addition giving them an opportunity to achieve entry to a star voice to advertise their model and increase their attain. This yr, we intend to raise our recreation additional by harnessing instruments reminiscent of Artificial Intelligence, machine studying and gamification to curate one thing really distinctive. A multi-platform method giving audiences an immersive model expertise is what’s going to contribute to its success,” he added.
Digital content platforms proceed deal with inventive freedom in festive season branded content
Khan mentioned that RVCJ has strategically approached collaborations with brands throughout the festive season to make sure a stability between inventive freedom and model messaging.
“To start with, we perceive the significance of inventive freedom in sustaining our distinctive voice and interesting our followers. Hence, when collaborating with brands, we make sure that now we have the freedom to infuse our inventive components and incorporate our signature type into the content. This permits us to take care of our authenticity and resonate with our viewers, whereas additionally selling the model in an revolutionary and entertaining method. At the identical time, we recognise the importance of delivering the model’s messaging successfully,” Khan mentioned.
Use influencers’ affect to boost the festive spirit
Priyadarshi Banerjee
Priyadarshi Banerjee – Vice-President – Business Development and Account Management, Kofluence, mentioned that by way of their end-to-end marketing campaign administration platform, they match brands with influencers whose profiles naturally mirror the celebratory spirit, grandeur and pleasure synonymous with festive events. “Their on-line presence ought to resonate with the emotions of the season, creating an genuine connection. Any marketing campaign’s success hinges on understanding the viewers deeply,” he mentioned.
He then added that content that induces a homely feeling and heat by way of pleased faces works exceptionally nicely. “We encourage influencers to make use of visually interesting storytelling to showcase how our services or products elevate the festive expertise. This collaborative method, the place influencers have inventive enter, ensures that the content aligns with their genuine type whereas successfully conveying our model’s festive message,” he added.
https://www.buzzincontent.com/story/how-brands-are-rethinking-branded-content-strategies-this-festive-season/
