"Hi Hey Hello"

6 June 2013

4 mins 45s

The future of advertising?

One of the key challenges for the communications industry in a world where their messages can be rejected with the click of a mouse button is finding ways of creating advertising content that's sufficiently engaging to hold the attention of viewers.

So-called 'branded content' often attempts to do this by presenting a piece of entertainment which has little or nothing to do with the brand that financed it. No matter how much the public may enjoy such an offering, it's clearly questionable whether the brand will benefit from the goodwill that's generated. Furthermore, there can be a sense of betrayal when the true purpose of 'branded content' is revealed which could prove entirely counter-productive.

The model represented by the featured piece offers an interesting alternative. Instead of burying Samsung's role, this film glories in it. The company's phones are at the centre of the film from the start and the transparency of this makes it much more palatable than films which play down commercial involvement.

It helps, of course, that director Joseph Kahn has created such a lovely bit of work and it's certainly possible that it would succeed regardless of how Samsung was woven into it.

There clearly isn't one single remedy to the dilemma of overcoming the public's resistance to advertising but among the many solutions that emerge, films like this one that overtly integrate a series of commercial messages seem likely to become an increasingly valuable advertising tool.

USA

Corporations