Convergent Ads: Economic downturn no dampener for integrated spend
by: Rachael Turk

Screen Hub
Wednesday 25 February, 2009

Despite a contraction of global marketing spends, there was an overwhelming optimism amongst speakers at the Screen Producers Association of Australia (SPAA) forum on 'Branded Entertainment' yesterday in terms of the opportunities for cross-platform projects and the potential for it to be a financially workable model (or models).

"The majority of major international consumer brands have moved at least 2-5% of their marketing budget into digital," Guy Gadney, Head of cross-platform development company The Project Factory, told Screen Hub.

"This is not being stolen from TVC but rather being pulled from other areas, such as direct marketing."

"It’s no longer an experimental medium. It’s a realisation that their audiences are in this space."

Not only are audiences indeed in the interactive space – as evidenced in studies such as the Nielsen Online 10th Australian Internet and Technology Report early last year that found that, for the first time, internet usage had outweighed TV viewing – but they can be assured of remaining there.

"It takes a while for behaviour to change," says Gadney, "but if you look back to Dot Com 1.0 when major media companies ultimately moved back into their core business, they could do that because core audience was still there.

"There is a new generation of viewers now. That core audience has moved. The 16-year-olds from 1998 are now 26. They don’t see digital media as an addendum."

Not surprisingly, the budgets described for integrated projects range significantly but the resounding message yesterday was one of cost-effective nature of cross-platform marketing.

Gadney estimates that, if a standard TVC might be approximately $250k per production, a quality interactive campaign could be achieved for less than half that figure.

In terms of longer form content, he says, “I am an advocate of the 14th episode approach where the online and mobile components get the same budget as one episode of the show.”

On a separate panel, Clemenger’s Senior TV Producer Denise McKeon described a 22-min documentary for MTV (produced with Luscious International) for which, “for the cost of a two-day TVC shoot in Sydney”, her team was also able to create not only the film but 2 x 60-second trailers, 2 x 30-second spots and 65 x 5- to 10-second “blip-verts” which were interspersed on MTV in buildup prior to launch.

Adam Zammit, the founder and CEO of entertainment agency Peer Group Media, referred to the Bacardi Express package produced over a two-year period that cost “several millions of dollars”. From this, 5 x half-hour documentaries were created, providing “thousand percent multiples on media buys”.

In March, Zammit will launch a new agency Peer Access, representing young visual artists to production companies, media and brands.

The Project Factory merged with convergent media specialist Lean Forward on February 14 of this year with the objective of maximising work across online, games and virtual worlds.

Rachael Turk
Rachael Turk is a Sydney based writer and the former editor of Inside Film Magazine. She has written for The Sydney Morning Herald, British Cinematographer and Online Asia and has three film projects in development.

http://www.rachaelturk.com

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