Dear storyteller, we found the intangible bias and it's in branded entertainment

This article is written in first person narrative following an interview with the agency’s creative director. As part of a PR campaign launching the branded entertainment arm of Lush, Dear Storyteller, this piece was published in the November, 2019 print issue of Campaign Brief.

You’ve been tagged in a video and it comes with a single fire emoji as form of a review; of course your expectations are high. You click and an ad starts playing. You’re frustrated, you try to skip it immediately. If it doesn’t let you skip within a predictable five second window, your annoyance peaks. You relentlessly tap the bottom right hand corner of the screen, turn the sound off, do anything to avoid the disruptive piece of advertising you’re being made to watch. It’s of no value to you; it’s a barrier between you and the thing you actually want to watch. This is an experience almost as common as clients saying, as per my last email. Yet, when we’re put under the pressures of working to a deadline, within the limits of a creative brief, and alongside the weight of client expectations; we often lose sight of what we already know. That’s when we start creating more of what’s already out there. Sure, we may do it better than it’s been done before, but traditional conventions of advertising can only get us so far. Brands don’t have to interrupt entertainment to tell audiences what they do, they can (and should) create entertainment that’s of value to their audience.

Our brains prioritise stories and we’ve evolved to become pattern recognising machines. This means that when we see an advertisement, we’re hardwired to switch off. I’ve seen these before, they’re a waste of my time, this is of no value to me, I need to escape. This instant recognition is why traditional conventions of advertising are so acerbic. We need to break the patterns of recognition before we can expect our audiences to give us their attention – enter, branded entertainment.

Imagine a brand utopia where millions of people watch two hours of uninterrupted brand messaging, while paying a premium for the privilege to do so. *ahem* The Lego Movie. They didn’t tell us why we should play with Lego, they showed us. Because unlike a lot of businesses, Lego understands that their job is not to sell small plastic bricks. They know that if they sell imagination, adventure, and wonder the customer will do the rest. This is where branded entertainment has the upper hand. By focusing on values-based, story-driven marketing, branded entertainment is the antithesis – or, antidote – to traditional advertising. It puts the audience, their interests, and their needs first. And, in doing so, branded entertainment has the power to cross an emotional threshold and empower people to act.

Igniting action was the brief we recently received from UnitingCare West during homelessness week this year. In an impressive act of client-agency trust, UnitingCare West moved in favour of branded entertainment to tell their story of humanity and resilience. Gavin Carroll, Creative Director, James Lush, and myself developed a short film that audiences didn’t immediately suspect as advertising. Rather, they were motivated to see how the story resolved. It’s a film that shows what the organisation stands for and, because of the value it offered the public, it was screened at Yagan Square throughout homelessness week at no cost to the client. This is the power of branded entertainment.

With a marketing approach such as this one, traditional strategy processes are also challenged. The importance lies in knowing what people are talking about, joining the conversations, and then adding value to those spaces. Saying, people like us do things like this. If brands get this right, they’re able to attach their values to the values of their consumers, creating the intangible bias between why someone prefers product a) over product b). Because, how we spend our money is a reflection of ourselves and our beliefs. This is also true for brands. And, if they continue to spend their budgets on advertising that’s built on an interruption model, it risks alienating audiences who are in control of their viewing now more than ever.

So, how do we get clients to embrace the shift?

It’s a matter of showing their behaviours back to them; holding a mirror up to their own tastes when it comes to entertainment and showing them examples that provoke an emotional response. From there, I tend to work by the mantra, move fast and break things. Before there’s a chance for the client mask to drip back over the humanness we have uncovered, we pitch an idea. A couple of days later, a script. Soon after that, a storyboard to bring it to life. If you spend weeks deliberating over countless presentations, you’re basically sending your client into analysis paralysis. Once you observe emotional buy in, act and act quickly.

In Perth, Lush – The Content Agency is the first to launch a side hustle solely dedicated to branded entertainment, Dear Storyteller. With our history of creating stories that are almost tangible - stories that get to the heart of an organisation and their audiences - branded entertainment became the next logical step on this path. We were born to tell stories, why stop now?