Dec 15, 2021
The best branded content, isn’t. Branded, that is. Or rather, it is branded, but the brand wouldn’t say it is, and neither would you, or other brands. And those other brands often aren’t even aspiring to make the kind of branded content that isn’t, but is, and they should be.
Confused? That’s because the best branded content out there comes from “brands” that seemingly aren’t brands. Such as NYT Op-Docs. Let’s just use them as our case study, because it’s one of the best examples out there. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately as many brand awards announce their line-ups/winners, as I work with brand clients and filmmakers who work with them, and as I prepare for my class as part of the inaugural Brand Storytelling curriculum, and I think the NYT Op-Docs have a lot of lessons on what works for all brands.
First, the NYT Op-Docs program isn’t funded by any brand (outside of the NYT), but it’s more “on-brand” than most branded content, more ubiquitous in the public’s consciousness than other branded content, wins awards, is treated by the industry (from filmmakers to festivals, to the Academy) as “real” filmmaking, and arguably has more impact than most branded content.
It also likely has less views than most branded content, but we can’t prove that as the views are hidden (on their site, and not all of them are on YouTube), and they’ve spent less to make each film than most brands because filmmakers want that stamp of NYT “brand approval,” and are making these for obscenely low rates (ask any filmmaker). And the content studio heads, er editors, making it would probably argue to the death that they aren’t making branded content, even if their own publisher/CEO would likely admit under oath that they are doing just that. The point of the NYT Op-Doc is not just to tell a great story, but also to burnish the brand with readers consumers that the NYT is peerless when it comes to video and original stories, to establish the brand with customers who can’t be bothered to read a story, to win awards, and of course to hopefully sell more digital subscriptions as you come to trust the brand more, via their branded content.
This is different than their journalism. First, the videos aren’t journalism; they are – per the name – more like opinion pieces (and if they were even more like Op-Eds, they’d be even better, but that’s another post). But their journalism also isn’t branded content, of course. Sure, in some strange sense, one could argue that anything the NYT publishes is branded content because it’s on-brand as good journalism (usually). But that’s not what I’m arguing. And I’m also not dissing them for making great videos that happen to be branded content, but lauding them instead. More brands should look closely at what they’ve done and are doing, and think about how doing the same might apply to their own brand.
If you watch the NYT Op-Docs, and like them, you will be more likely to feel good about your relationship such as it is with the NYT. If you like a video enough to tell others to watch it, you are not just spreading the video, but the brand. If the films win some awards, or even get nominated for them, the brand also becomes more respected. This ongoing respect has also helped the NYT as it moves into longer form documentaries and series, and this makes it part of a machine that has been set up to help the NYT find new revenue streams beyond advertising, because they won’t exist unless they do this. Don’t believe me? That’s even how the NYT describes its goals with these moves: “On TV, we can connect with new audiences, create new habits, build a new business and find the next generation of Times subscribers.”
It’s an elegant solution to a somewhat existential problem for the paper. As advertising shrinks, they need non-ad revenue. It’s somewhat the reverse of the problem of brands, the advertisers, but it’s all centered around the decline of advertising as something that works. But as advertising has proven as something less than ideal, the NYT hit upon the right way to make branded content, while most brands are making branded content that is really not much more than an ad.
Sure, the best brand funded content rises above this, but not most of it. I’ve seen numerous videos/films and sat in numerous meetings (now on Zoom), where the obvious intent of the film was to just get the brand and/or its product in front of consumers in some new way. If most brands or agencies made a NYT Op-Doc, you’d see someone holding the newspaper at least three times, or every story would be about a NYT employee, or they’d all feature a celebrity host/ambassador plugging some cause that aligns with the NYT mission (in this case, it would all be about supporting good journalism) and every film would have to somehow align with that mission.
But instead of doing that, the NYT focused on its core values, what it does best, and extended that into films. They built a brand around the films by making them consistently good, something people want to share, and with minimal branding. Each film also has a distinct creative vision. What ties them together is that mix of of curation and quality, information and entertainment, new info and evergreen stories.
It’s a long-play strategy, and it’s working. They’ve slowly built an engine that is respected, is known by more people than probably actually watch it, and it’s extending the brand while bringing in new revenue streams, as well as – at the end of the day – contributing to the most important one, product sales of digital subscriptions. But that’s not the goal. And I bet that internally they worry about how to measure that conversion, but likely a lot less than most brands do, because they know that each op-doc, and the entire program, is part of a bigger strategy than just selling their main product.
Of course, it’s also the New York fucking Times. So, you may feel it’s an unfair comparison to brands, or project to emulate as a brand. They have readers and/or an audience, and they can do this more easily than many others. They can get filmmakers – the best ones -for cheaper than brands and be taken more seriously by everyone because it’s one of the best brands out there. But remember that wasn’t always a given. Back when the NYT was writing up its digital strategy, many people wondered (and many still do) whether the NYT can make the transition to digital and whether their video strategy would work was also a big question. But they had a brand, and they took a long-term approach, and its mostly working.
There are things they could do better – a lot better, and to be honest, I’m not even a fan of many of their choices and films. But it remains a model with many lessons for brands. Aside from all of those hinted at above, I think the most important is the fact that their Op-Docs strategy fits into a more “holistic” approach to content, where in the most crass sense, all IP can be exploited in different ways, and all of it builds a virtuous cycle, where the direct “measurable impact” of any one piece of content is less important than how it contributes to the whole. This last bit – building a virtuous cycle of content – is what I wish more brands would keep in mind as they explore moving into films and other content (podcasts, blogs, VR, journalism, what have you), and it takes that kind of long-view thinking to have anything more than flash in the pan success. That’s what we – those of us who overlap into this space, which seems to be about half my readers – should be aiming for when we talk about brand films, and what I hope we see more of in 2022 and onwards.
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Film
Will Roku Buy a Studio?: That's what Jessica Toonkel at The Information thinks (paywall). The argument is that as their sales slow, they need more revenue from their AVOD service, and they've had good success with other content, including what they got from Quibi (wow), so why not buy Lionsgate, A24 or even a comic publisher like Dark Horse comics? It's M&A season, so other than over-valued companies, why not?! (BN)
Tips for Sundance Bound Folks (and Filmmakers): Producer Mynette Louie posted this to Facebook, and I think it's the best Sundance advice I've read:
Of course, the article she links to in Filmmaker Magazine is her real point, and it also has good tips for those with films in the festival, and it's from 2015 but remains relevant. (BN)
The Ankler News: Richard Rushfield's The Ankler has been a must-read for everyone in the business for quite awhile now, and just keeps getting better, and is worth the subscription fee. Today he announced he's joining forces with Janice Min, who turned around The Hollywood Reporter, to make The Ankler a bigger endeavor, with more columnists and big changes to come. I was a fan of the changes Min brought to THR, although she made it more mainstream than I hope The Ankler becomes. That said, Rushfield would have had a field day with this quote she gave the NYT about the new venture: "“That push-pull tension between the people who eat McCarthy Salads at the Polo Lounge with the Silicon Valley algorithm people — that’s a real tension that’s going to drive the next 10, 20, 30 years here,” Ms. Min said." (BN)
HBO Max Might Have Outsmarted the Streaming Wars: This past year, Warner Bros. released their HBO Max films the same day they hit theaters. However controversial the decision was, the strategy earned HBO and HBO Max 9 million subscribers. While HBO and HBO Max subscribers hover around 70 million (compared to Netflix’s 214 million), “[Warner Bros’] strategy to release blockbuster films like Dune directly day-and-date on HBO Max has kept the service relevant throughout 2021,” explains Sarah Henschel, principal media analyst at Omdia. HBO Max’s success in the streaming wars can also be attributed to their relatively cheaper ad-supported tier ($10 per month). Angela Watercutter, writer for Wired has the story. (GSH)
Austin joins legal fight over fees not paid to cities by Netflix, other streaming services: In Texas, cable and video service providers are required to pay the municipality 5% of gross revenue for letting them use transmission lines on public property. But the big streamers (Netflix, Hulu...etc) that also take advantage of these power lines have gone without paying these fees. Following in the footsteps of Houston and Dallas, Austin made a move against the big streamers last Thursday and will be bringing them to court over the matter. A Netflix spokesperson responded, “These cases falsely seek to treat streaming services as if they were cable and internet access providers, which they aren’t… They also threaten to place a tax on consumers that the legislature never intended, and we are confident that the courts will conclude that these cases are meritless.” Ryan Autullo, reporter for the Austin American-Statesman has the news. (GSH) This battle may seem silly, but this is actually the kind of thinking we need to bring back some support for public access media. (BN)
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Branded Content
The Imprint Projects campaign for Amazon Studio's All In: Imprint Projects and Amazon Studios just won a Drum Award for Experience for their campaign in support of the film All In: The Fight for Democracy. You can read about what they did and watch a video about it here, but while this is technically marketing, it's also a great example of how to carry out a successful impact campaign for a film. And they show measurable results. Regular filmmakers can learn a lot from this, but brands should also watch it to see how your impact campaign for a film can be just as important as the film itself - something more brands should copy. Great stuff. (BN)
Inside the New Brand Storytelling Certificate Program: Last week, I noted here that the new Brand Storytelling Certificate program had launched, and that I am an instructor in the program. Now, the co-founders of the program, Rick Parkhill and Stephen Marshall, have given an interview with more info on the program and how it will work. Check it out. (BN)
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Miscellany:
The Appeal of Artists Who Won Fame After Death: Emily Bobrow of the WSJ (paywall) takes a look at the phenomenon of our fascination with artists who only found fame after death. Focusing mainly on Vivian Maier, but also artists as famous as Poe and Van Gogh, she notes that, "Part of the appeal of artists who would never know their own success is that their lives were often, like ours, beset with frustration, rejection and money woes." And of course that, "If critics were wrong about Melville, how can they be trusted? If Poe failed to live by his pen, how can anyone else? The sting of defeat feels a touch less painful when we know we are in such good company." A good article to read for those who were just rejected by Sundance or SXSW (!). (BN)
Similarly, A Literary Lazarus: John Williams: Covers the career of John Williams, author of Butcher's Crossing, Stoner and Augustus, who is now in the pantheon of the Library of America with a new collection of those same novels. Williams wasn't undiscovered at death, but his least famous novel at death became his most famous 40 years later, and is now known not only an amazing novel, but "a perfect novel" by many. Others even say he wrote perfect sentences. James Campbell covers his life for the WSJ (paywall). (BN)
Ryan Gellert, new-ish CEO of Patagonia on "Saving the Home Planet:" The NYT Corner Office interview this week is with Gellert, who is now the CEO of Patagonia. He speaks about how he came to the company, and his beliefs, and how to judge the real intent of a company's commitments: "If you really want to understand a business and its intent, look at its body of work and make your own decision. I am comfortable with the imperfect but consistently committed body of work that Patagonia has delivered. We try to be relentlessly transparent..." Good point. I was lucky enough to get to know Gellert when I was consulting with Patagonia (and he was not yet CEO), and he's the real deal. Check out the interview. (BN)
A Metaverse Wedding in the NYT Vows Section: Here's the article and a photo. Kill me now (maybe I'll get famous after death). (BN)
GSH = Articles written by Sub-Genre's Gabriel Schillinger-Hyman, not Brian Newman (BN)
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