From sideshow to main attraction
Former BBC One controller Lorraine Heggessey discusses the creation of compelling branded content
I’m thrilled to have been asked to speak at the Dubai Lynx this year. My speech will be a rallying cry to the industry to really up its game in terms of aspirations for branded content across the MENA region; to create more ambitious projects with better production values and more compelling storytelling at their heart.
Last year Boom Pictures, the independent production group that I co-founded in 2012, merged with the Twofour Group, the parent company of UAE-based Twofour Arabia. One of the great things about this merger was the bringing together of our branded content specialists, Boomerang, with Twofour’s award-winning team, giving us a greater footprint in this exciting area. When we set up Boom, one of our aims was to expand our work with brands as we believe they are becoming increasingly important as commissioners of short and long form content.
Branded content is obviously very different to traditional advertising, for both the agency and the brand. From the production company’s point of view, the experience is also very different to a traditional broadcaster-funded production. The key is to ensure that it isn’t different for viewers and that they get just as much satisfaction and enjoyment out of branded content as they get from any other programme. This takes the perfect marriage of content and brand, which only a skilful producer can achieve.
The first step with any branded content project is to ensure that the broadcaster/ brand match is right from the outset. Broadcasters are brands in their own right and the partnerships that are formed in content creation need to have a certain synergy that ensures fundamental contradictions in values don’t sink the project before production even starts.
A good local example of how this marriage can work is a Twofour Arabia project that brought together Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority, Abu Dhabi Media and Discovery to produce In The Footsteps of Thesiger. The documentary series followed a recreation of Wilfred Thesiger’s famous expedition by camel across the Empty Quarter, showcasing remote, beautiful parts of the UAE not often seen on TV. This was a good marriage. The programme achieved the objectives of the culture team at the Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority by promoting local culture to an audience in Abu Dhabi, whilst the international broadcast on the Discovery channel promoted the country to a global audience. The broadcasters were very happy with the level of programme making from our award-winning documentary filmmakers, which hit their key audience demographics by weaving together the tales of two great adventures past and present.
As funding models across our industry evolve, I believe that it’s crucial for a production company to be looking at new collaborations and partnerships that can get great content projects off the ground. Our branded content teams are not looking to eat the agencies’ lunch, we recognise that they are crucial to our ability to interact with brands. Likewise, our established relationships with broadcasters as trusted suppliers of quality independently produced content are an important part of the mix to getting a project away too. The different points of view that we bring to the project are what will make it strong and, to this end, early collaboration in the process is essential.
A good example of this collaboration is GT Academy, which we produce for Nissan and PlayStation. It’s a complicated relationship that brings together the agency Grand Central, huge brands Nissan and PlayStation, and a multitude of international broadcasters, including ITV, RTL and MBC. The underlying premise of the series is simple; to take gamers who consistently excel at the motor-racing game Gran Turismo from the virtual world into the real world of motor racing. In a tense elimination contest set on the British Grand Prix track at Silverstone, they are trained to become racing drivers. We use our traditional programme making skills to ensure a thoroughly entertaining, engaging format that appeals to a global male-skewing 16-34 audience, whilst the agency we work with ensures the messaging works for their brands. Six years on, we now annually produce eight different localised versions (including this region), that air in more than 160 countries with a global audience of 100 million. What’s more, one of our winning contestants is now in a driver development programme with the Red Bull F1 team.
Every brand has great stories to tell, whether they realise it or not. We need to delve beneath the surface to find the most interesting stories that are waiting to be told and create a format around them. When Dupont (and Ogilvy Entertainment) wanted to tell their story, we produced a format that humanised their products in a series of programmes for BBC World. From the affordable bullet resistant vest that was saving police lives in Sau Paulo to the power project that was getting electricity to remote villages in India for the first time, we showed how Dupont was changing people’s lives.
Rather than simply following the rest of the world as this exciting area continues to evolve and expand, I think the MENA region can forge ahead to pioneer how brands engage with their customers through content. We know it is possible to create interesting, thoughtful, inspiring content that will showcase the brand’s values. But it takes timely joined up collaboration between brands, agencies and broadcasters to make this happen.
Writing, formatting, crafting and producing content that millions of people will drop everything to watch is at the heart of what we do every day as an independent TV producer, regardless whether it is a broadcaster or a brand that is picking up the bill. Lorraine Heggessey is executive chair of Boom Pictures (incorporating Twofour Arabia). She is a former controller of BBC One and will be speaking at the Dubai Lynx on Monday at 4.30pm