For the past 100 years, the we’ve all been following a pretty set formula: tell an engaging story in 30 seconds and then bring it back to the product at the end. The story can be funny, cool, clever or emotional, but whatever it is, it’s always got to come back to the pack shot and the end frame. It’s a formula that has won many an award, and quite honestly, to fit all of that into 30 seconds is a craft in itself. But in the last couple of years, some of the world’s biggest brands have disregarded this tried-and-tested formula and are experimenting with new approaches.

Take for example this Activia film featuring Shakira. It's actually a 3 1/2 minute music video with a CSR drive and no product at all. It definitely doesn’t fit into the formula we were all taught at advertising school. But it’s arguably the most successful brand content of 2014: its had 405,000,000 views on YouTube and 5,819,822 social shares across Twitter, Facebook and the blogosphere since it was uploaded in May 2014, making it the most shared brand content ever. It even enabled the World Food Programme to provide over nearly 4 million school meals with donations from Activia and Shakira.

 So what are we supposed to make of this?

One thing is for sure: the definition of brand communications is changing. With the decline in traditional media, brands are evolving their approach to engage a new digital audience. And it turns out, a 30 second overtly branded piece is not the best formula to engage online audiences. Instead, brands are looking at what people are actually interested in watching online, and trying to find a way to get on board. Music videos are the most watched content online – after kitten videos – so brands getting more involved with music is a logical move.

Getting back to the ad. After the initial suspicion, you realise the match between an artist known for enthusiastically shaking her middle regions, and a brand that is all about improving digestion and making you feel great, is really quite genius. Her energy, and get-up-and-go is exactly what Activia want to stand for. While the music video does not feature any product, they have cleverly created offshoot videos, which demonstrate how the product fits into the overall theme. The music video serves as the hook to draw audience, and bringing people into a world of branded storytelling.

Is this 3 1/2 minute music video really an ad? Or is it a very clever way of blurring the lines between music, content and brand storytelling? Our definition for what is advertising and what is not is totally blurring. We predict that this will be a real trend in 2015 as brands experiment with new ways of engaging audiences online.

 

By Katey-Ellen Price, Partnerships Director at NEO-KIN.

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