Who’s behind the controls of advertiser-funded programmes?

Yet more than two years after the hype began, AFP – as it has come to be called – has yet to make a big splash. So although AFP holds a lot of promise, there needs to be a greater understanding of what the term really means and how brand association can work within current regulatory restrictions before it can really make waves.

Last week, news emerged that the launch of an ad-funded channel had faltered. Talks between Consortium4TV, a venture involving 10 of the UK’s leading advertisers – including Procter & Gamble, Honda and Orange – and the interactive TV outfit ZipTV stalled last week after problems developed with signing-off agreements.

Broadcasters, clients and agencies alike will admit there has been lots of talk but little action in the development of AFP so far.

“It’s the most talked-about, least understood sector of the media at the moment,” says Gary Knight, head of sponsorship and branded content at ITV.

Mark Wood, commercial director at Sky Media, says he made a speech on the issue of AFP six months ago, and another one 10 years ago, and that it could have been the same speech for all that the industry has developed – ie, not at all.

What’s holding the market back?Quite simply, a large element is misunderstanding on the part of all of those involved.

It’s not about shopping TV ads, product placement or logos in the corners of programmes, and it’s not about marketers sitting in the director’s chair – it is far more sophisticated, but that doesn’t seem to have been fully grasped yet.

Brand proposition

Andrew McCall, managing director of TV consultancy Inside Broadcast, says: “It’s absolutely not about product placement. It’s much more about using the environment of a programme to support a brand proposition.”

Perhaps this means projects more akin to a brand such as Adidas funding a sports-related show or Stella capitalising on its established association with movies and funding films for TV.

OMD head of interactive TV Toby Hack agrees. He says: “AFP should be really about associating the concept of a brand with the concept of a TV programme.”

Examples of deals in which clients have funded programmes that communicate the spirit of their brands include Renault’s launch of its Scenic model and PlayStation 2’s association with The Grill on Channel 4 (see boxes).

Many executives Media Week has spoken to feel the current regulations on product placement and brand prominence are a massive stumbling block for advertisers thinking of getting into the field.

Product placement is simply not allowed and the rule of undue prominence in the codes says that, generally, a brand should not be referred to or shown in close-up. “I think there’s room in the rules for more leniency,” says Wood. “Viewers aren’t stupid.

There’s a middle ground.”

Mike Falconer, who helped found the Branded Content Marketing Association to tackle the issues around advertiserfunded content, disagrees.

“Confusion about regulation is dragging the market back – but it’s a red herring,” he says. “This market isn’t about product placement. Telecoms shouldn’t be looking for shows they can shove their phones into – they should be looking for shows that communicate what they’re about as a brand.”

Either way, Ofcom said this week that the current rules on these matters, which were originally drawn up by the now defunct Independent Television Commission, will not change in the near future.

Falconer’s day job is as head of Stream, creative agency TBWA’s brand content division. He believes there’s something of a chicken-and-egg situation – there haven’t been enough good, strong examples to generate investment and interest in the sector, but until agencies, clients and broadcasters really understand the issues, that’s not going to happen.

There are other obstacles.

Perhaps the greatest is the nature of the relationship between broadcasters and advertisers, which to date has mainly involved the money for spots funding production – but indirectly. When specific brands put the cash up for a show, marketers could make the assumption that they can have a hand in the editorial.

Terry Gorst, TV director at OMD Affinity, says: “There’s an educational job that needs to be done with clients – they see it as a 30-minute ad for their product, which of course it isn’t.”

Instead, marketing directors find themselves at the mercy of programme producers and editors while also needing to see some sort of return on their investment.

“It’s not about buying a presence on TV,” says Guy Martin, joint head of commercial development at television sales house IDS. “You’re not going to get immediate sales lift. It’s about more of a longer-term gain.”

Integrity paramount

Knight says the creative idea and editorial integrity of the programme is paramount, just as it is in the standard programmemaking process.

“Just because you’ve got a pot of funding doesn’t mean you have a great show,” he says. “I’m getting a lot more advertisers coming to me and giving me a brand brief, which is much broader than a media brief and requires a higher level of trust.

“Then I talk to my programme makers about whether they can produce a show that fits with the brand brief that people will want to watch.” So if there’s no product placement or brand prominence in the actual programme, aren’t we really talking about TV sponsorship deals here? Sky’s Wood thinks that is true.

“There’s not much you can do beyond sponsorship at the moment,” he says.

Although to the viewer the programme won’t look any different from those with standard sponsorship idents, if the advertiser has been working with a production company on the generation of a programme idea, then the fit between content and brand promises to be much more snug than if a broadcaster makes a programme and then goes out to seek a sponsor after the production is done.

Krane Jeffery, a sponsorship executive at Carat, thinks the term advertising-funded programming is itself misleading.

“We have coined a term here at Carat – ‘advertiser-inspired programming’ – that perhaps gives more credit to the creation of branded content,” says Jeffery.

“We feel that ‘advertiser-funded programming’ doesn’t really do justice to those examples of programming that have been developed, commissioned and created as a direct result of advertiser backing.”

The only thing that seems certain is that as TV advertising continues to struggle getting the impact and share of mind it used to claim as a right, advertisers are going to have to find new ways of holding on to that consumer attention.

The days of seeing soap-sud brands in Coronation Street rather than around it still seem quite far off.

Case study: Renault

In September last year, Carat put together a cross-media deal with UKTV and BBC Magazines on behalf of Renault. Carat said that the agency, the client and the media owner all wanted to do something new with TV for the launch of the new Renault Scenic and they came up with a series of 16 short films featuring locations around the UK.

Produced by BBC Broadcast, each vignette was narrated by an actor/presenter, was 120 seconds in length and was repeated in peak time and other parts of the day on UK Gold, UK Style and UK History.

The short executions varied from channel to channel according to the focus of each station. On UK Gold, the programmes featured locations used in famous movies. UK Style used gardens and interiors of landmark British buildings, and UK History focused the films on some of Britain’s most famous sites. Sponsorship credits comprised 10-second idents at the start and five seconds when the films ended. The credits were fully integrated into the programme.

The sponsorship package also included research to evaluate the success of both TV and press separately and the combined cross-media effects. Carat reported that it reached 3.5 million people in the target audience and that spontaneous advertising awareness was higher among readers and viewers compared with the research control group.

Case study: PlayStation 2

A 10-part entertainment series on Channel 4 called The Grillkicked off in February. Fronted by T4 cohost Vernon Kay, the series was produced by Freedom Media and co-funded by Channel 4 and PlayStation 2.

PlayStation 2 was responsible for managing the exploitation of the content into a range of promotional activities linked to the show.

Darren Carter, marketing director of Sony Computer Entertainment, explains.

“By co-funding we get the ability to exploit the programme,” he says. “For example, on Playstation.com we have additional interviews not featured on the show. When you have a normal sponsorship deal you really don’t have any control – you just go for the ride and access to additional material is limited.

“With The Grill, we discussed what we wanted beforehand with Channel 4, what we were both looking for. It was much better to work with the channel.”

He believes advertiserfunded programming is the way forward.

“ The Grillis aimed at our heartland of 16 to 24-yearold adults, not just males,” he says. “It’s on T4 postHollyoaks, so we’re obviously not just going for men. We’re trying to broaden the appeal.”

Channel 4 and PlayStation 2 had co-funded projects before with the international youth magazine show Passengers.

The co-funding of The Grill was a continuation of PlayStation 2’s attempts to strengthen its position with 16 to 24-year-old males and females.