Ieyondmssffifrml
Will Brandcasting succeed
where advertising failed?
Ardi Kolah revisits an idea that should find its time has come
I N THE HEADY DAYS of 2000 BDG
| (befote dot gone) J formed a company
I on the back of an idea that I had been
developing in the late r99os to exploit the
fusion of broadcast techniques and brand
communication.
Brand values, embedded in the content
rather than delivered as an intermption
to the viewers' favourite programmes
(advertising), would win over audiences
and brand owners alike.
I termed this approach'Brandcasting' -
with its roots in sponsorship but taken to
its next level, where brand owners would
also own their own channels of commu-
nication (iChannels) gt"itrg them total
- So why did we think that brands and
control over the message and its delivery.
At this point, entertainment would
meet brand communication.
My company, Brands as Broadcasters,
employed a team of six talented people,
had two sets of accountants, a famous law
firm and f,roo,ooo of my own investment.
It even had a European Community
trademark (anyone interested in offering
serious money for this, email me!). We
had an interesting array ofpartners, from
Oracle (on the technology side) to |im
Henson Creations (on the creative side).
We went in search of clients and caoi
tal to expand orrr very modest operation.
We believed, almost with religious
fervour, that in the brave new world of
TiVo boxes and vast consutner choice,
'We could have been
brand owners would attract an audience
content that
1""'ftH.'iilJJfjrcffer the peopre who
The power of the narrative
We rejected the traditional way of brand
communication - 'telling' the audience
what you want them to hear. Instead, we
created a proposition as to why the
audience would come to the brand owner.
It is about pull rather than push. And it is
about the PON (power of the narrative).
With ow know how and background
inbroadcasting, brand communication,
marketing, sponsorship, PR and technol,
ogy we could have been the people
who brought you ... the Kellogg's Fitness
l@ Adma$ . october 2Oo4
Channel, Nike's Top roo Sports Channel,
Chanel's Fashion Channel, Kenwood's
Cooking Channel, Hilton Group's Travel
Channel, Schwab's Investment Chanlel,
and so on.
These new channels would have
competed on the EPG (electronic pro-
gramme guide) against terrestrial,
satellite and cable broadcasters' offerings.
Modified channels and content could
have populated broadband and even
mobile (3G) platforms. Moore's Law
It
made the cost of achieving this a reality.
is measurable and there is even ROI
(return on investment).
their fans would take such a step into
what we called'brand worlds'?
Advertising was tailing then - as it is
now. Three key reasons for this are:
1 . fragmentation of channels
2. fragmentation of audiences
3. brand owners' competitive strategies
borrowed from each other rather than
creating a step-change advantage.
So it was more of the same; business as
usual and no real innovation. Product and
service differentiation was being reduced
to its lowest common denominator.
Yet audiences were crFng out for
much more. Audiences wanted to be
treated differently. Forget mass customi-
sation. They were talking from the
brought you ... the
Kellogg's Fitness
Channel, Nike's Top
100 Sports Channel,
Chanel's Fashion
Channel, Schwab's
lnvestment Channel
and so on'
perspective of a market of segment of one.
They wanted to be treated as individuals,
not as market segments. We were moving
from value for money (\|FM) to value for
attention MFA). Audiences were increas
ingly time-poor, so the reason to pay
attention to a one-way communication
message (advertising) was becoming less
attractive.
We believed that interactivity held the
key - particularly where the audience
could choose what it wanted to watch,
when it wanted, as well as enjoy a level of
personalisation that analogue broadcast-
ing or communication just didn't deliver.
As little or as much interactivity as
they wanted PBB (pre-Big Brother).
Minefields of tech prediction
As history teaches us, technology is the
great enabler of change. We became
seducedby predictions from European and
US organisations, such as Forrester
Research and others, that broadband
would be universal and throughout large
swathes of Europe in the space of a few
yeils.
Brand owners would need to start
making plans sooner rather than later if
they wanted to exploit these new oppor-
tunities for connectivity and interactivity
with audiences that were increasingly
getting more difficult to reach through
traditional communication channels.
We believed digital penetration would
accelerate and drive behaviour in the
living room and the bedroom as well as
out of home. There would be an appetite
for lean-back or sit-forward types of inter-
activity, depending on whether you
consumed content from the computer,
your TV, your mobile, your harrd-held or a
combination of any of these platforms.
Such was the interest in what we had
to say, Admap ran a cover story on'Brand-
casting'(r); I appeared as a guest speaker
at the Lord Mayor of Londons Britain
Creates Luncheon at Mansion House; got
elected to BAFIA (the British Academy of
Film and Television Arts) and was made a
Fellow of the CIM (Chartered Institute of
O World Adveriisins Research Center 2004

'Brand owners must
rewire the circuitry
with which they deal
with the audience
and brand interface.
The alternative is
certain brand death'
Marketing). Even the weekiy marketing
trade press took some cursory interest.
So you can guess the next bit - the
company had some modest success with
brand owners prepared to be different. We
created the pilot for FI TV (which got
shelved), with Pets$amas.com (now dot
gone) ald one or two other less memo-
rable projects before my dream and my
money took offtogether into neverland.
Five years on
Fast-forward to today. The world has
charrged dramatically in the wal<e of glu
and the Iraq conflict. Trust holds a greater
importance as a foundation stone in effec-
tive communication. Something that
many brand owners, such as Coca Cola
and Shell, have found out to their cost.
So has much changed in the thinking
of brand owners since zooo? I dont think
so. Many of them are still asleep at the
switch and are stuck trying to beat the
competition. What many brand owners
have not realised is that this is counter-
productive.It has the opposite effect
from the one that they intend. When
asked to build competitive advantage,
many managers typically rate themselves
against competitors, assess what they do
and strive to do better.
The standards and actions of the
competition implicitly guide what brand
owners do. But the net result is no more
than incremental benefits for tremen-
dous amounts of effort involved. This is
wastage on a phenomenal scale.
Consumers do not want to be sold to.
O World Advertising Research Cenier 2004
Ardi Kolah is one of the too
50 thinkers in marketing in
the world today, according to
Shape the Agenda, published
by the Chartered Institute of
Marketing. He is a marketing,
sponsorship and public
relations practitioner.
So having a bigger advertising budget
does not always equate with market share
Marketers must now work lmowing that
their brands are the weal< linl< in the conti-
(BA versus Virgin). And spending more
on communication does not ]ead to
nuity with audiences. And, as a result of
accelerating discontinuities, this relation-
trusting the brand owner in fact the ship is growing more dysfunctional every
reverse, NLE (No Logo effect), is true. day. As the pace of change becomes so
To achieve high growth in the future, much fastel our relationships are becom-
brand owners will need to break free from
this vicious circle. Competitive bench-
ing much more temporary. Audiences have
become far more promiscuous. Those who
marking is not the answer. And neither
is imitation or pursuit. Turning the
once consruned Pepsi now drink Mecca
Cola. Who would have predicted that
telescope the other way may sound nuts particular accelerating discontinuity?
but it is going to be the way of the futwe. This disconnection between con-
sumers and brands is fuelled further by the
Audiences as the key VL (vicarious ["itrg) factor. We live in a
It is the audience, not the competition, that world where there is so much choice and
we need to have in vision. We need to be fuformation and so many different experi-
passionate about the audience, rather than ences that we believe we had, but in fact we
just about the products and services we havent actually had: we live in reality TV
create. It is the audience that must take As a result, we have to radically rethinl<
centre stage in our strategic thinking. And our focus, and what ow skill sets need to
it is the audience that must take centre be, otherwise we will end up in a landscape
stage in strategic marketing. No TV or where adverrising, promotions, billboards,
radio programme can ever hope to be suc- sponsorship, edutainment, eatertainment
cessfiil unless it is conceived and produced and the other trillion permutations have
with an audience in mind. So whyis brand become irrelevant background noise that
communication any different? It isnt. is blocked out by an uninterested, media-
Brand owners should start challenging sophisticated audience.
the assumptions they have made about Brand owners must rewire the circuitry
their audiences because the likelihood is with which they deal with the audience
that they are out ofdate. and brand interface. The altemative is
certain brand death.
Flashback to 1970 Dont take my word for it. Since the
Alvin Toffler wrote Future Shock (z) and Data Protection Act and the EU Directive
predicted that we would be living in a on Privacy and Electronic Communica-
world of accelerating discontinuities, tion, we now have to negotiate the right
where the points of a compass no longer to communicate with the audience. The
navigated us in the direction of the future. balance of power has most definitely
He was right, wasnt he? The central shifted - and continues to tip more
essence ofFurure Shockhasnot changed in heavily in favour of the consumei.
zoo4 and what Toffler predicted nearly 35 So entertaining audiences in the first
years earlier has come home to roost place doesn't now seem like such a uazy
today. idea, does it? Brandcasting, in the way I
Having already witnessed the phe- believe it should be done, will become a
nomenon of hyper-inflation, are you reality. I
ready for hyper-acceleration?
r. S Marinker: Brandcasting: the future for
Accelerating discontinuities Commercial TV? Admap, December zooo.
In case you havent noticed, information z. ATofrler: Future shock. Pan, rg7j.
has become perishable and brand loyalty is
nice to have, but seldom bankable. ardi@kolah.com
october 2oo4. Adma$ 133