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20<br />
GERMANy<br />
fff She adds: “The response has been<br />
enormous. After two years, we see great<br />
potential for product placement.<br />
However, product placement is not a<br />
stand-alone solution for us. It’s always<br />
accompanied by other advertising<br />
forms, such as spots or sponsorship. The<br />
potential revenue is estimated at<br />
approximately €200m annually.”<br />
A number of agencies, along with BEO<br />
are currently working on establishing a<br />
product placement association for the<br />
German-speaking countries.<br />
Meanwhile, the German Product<br />
Placement Congress in Stuttgart gathers<br />
together most of the key players and has<br />
done much to draw attention to the<br />
complex issues raised by branded<br />
entertainment. TV remains at the heart<br />
of most German branded-entertainment<br />
campaigns, with digital platforms,<br />
cinema, video, music and games playing<br />
supporting roles. But big budgets will<br />
always as a rule require the involvement<br />
of television. The central question is<br />
what comes first — the platform or the<br />
idea for a promising brandedentertainment<br />
campaign? Why not<br />
develop an innovative idea for content<br />
first and spin it out from there? As there<br />
are only a limited number of TV<br />
platforms in Germany, innovation is<br />
essential but there are also a couple of<br />
emerging trends that are influencing the<br />
market’s evolution. The digital<br />
platforms, for example, are becoming<br />
more and more important in the media<br />
mix. A growing trend among producers<br />
is to use the digital platforms to kickstart<br />
a campaign before migrating it to<br />
TV. As Stephan Borg, department head<br />
of development and cross-media at ITV<br />
Studios Germany, observes: “Editors,<br />
who have been creating TV content for<br />
many years, are discovering a whole<br />
new life for their ideas on the web or as<br />
an app. There is a pioneering spirit and a<br />
new desire to experiment and innovate.<br />
Why not design a quiz show as a web<br />
game or as an iPhone app? Why not then<br />
invite the best players on the web on to<br />
the larger stage of a TV quiz show? And<br />
why not have news of the champions<br />
and their prizes tweeted via the new<br />
generation of TV sets — which of course<br />
make exact user targeting possible?”<br />
Social branded entertainment, also, has<br />
the potential to set trends and establish<br />
brands. Understanding this, Renault ZE<br />
(zero emission) was one of the main<br />
sponsors of ProSieben’s Green Seven<br />
week, which featured a range of<br />
documentaries on ecology.<br />
Another key trend is video gaming. In<br />
addition to associating a brand with the<br />
powerful pull of the gaming experience,<br />
video gaming offers “a potentially<br />
massive consumer base, huge<br />
scaleability of reach — especially in<br />
online gaming — and the possibility to<br />
track the user”, says Christian Hofbauer,<br />
CEO of Branded Entertainment Online.<br />
Not surprisingly, video gaming has<br />
become “a central focus of marketing<br />
decision-makers,” he adds.<br />
SUNDAY, JUNE 17,2012<br />
n Print campaign<br />
for Renault<br />
Utilitaires<br />
Against this backdrop, creativity is<br />
flourishing. Several innovative ideas<br />
have emerged, such as the integration of<br />
a cinema into the game Farmerama, in<br />
which TV-spots and videos can be<br />
shown. Over in German-speaking<br />
Austria, the energy drink Red Bull has<br />
successfully embedded its brand in a TV<br />
station. Servus TV, owned by Red Bull,<br />
delivers top quality sports-focused<br />
programming and covers an array of<br />
sporting events, not limited to those<br />
sponsored by Red Bull. In conclusion,<br />
Germany has embraced branded<br />
content with enthusiasm and is set on<br />
realising its potential via TV, the digital<br />
media and at major events that are able<br />
to reach, connect, engage and involve<br />
the German consumer. ^<br />
WWW.BRANDEDENTERTAINMENTONLINE.DE<br />
is the news and knowledge-exchange marketplace for branded<br />
entertainment in the German-speaking territories
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