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WESTWOOD - More than 275 attendees and 70,000 livestream views attended our Branded Entertainment panel on Monday, where speakers from ABC, Yahoo!, Fox, Relativity, ICM, EQAL and more discussed how brands create branded web series, games and communities at UCLA Anderson.

Brands including advertisers (Puma, Kraft), movies/TV (Limitless, Glee), games (Angry Birds Rio, Mortal Kombat) and celebs (LeBron James, Jenni Garth) are creating new ways to integrate brands into content and online communities, and promoting using social media. Miss it?
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Thanks to our panelists, audience for great tweet-notes. And thanks to support from Yahoo! Originals, FastPay, our hosts UCLA Anderson EMA, MEMES and the Marketing Association, and our livestream partner TechZulu.

HIGHLIGHTS:
Why do Branded Entertainment? You can reach hard-to-reach-via-TV, younger, online auds, easier brand integration into online, lower production costs, easier to experiment, more creativity, more ownership, increased engagement with auds, create online communities and relationships, from "your consumers" to "your community."

How are Branded Shows Developed?

Advertisers and creatives work together via RFPs, agencies, producers and personal connections to brainstorm brand integration with aligned audiences, that's ideally seamless.
Content must have good story, be relevant to auds to be watched, shared, passed along
Writers and directors who are creating content to pitch to brands must understand the brand's audience, voice, marketing messages, demos, and have ideas for brand integration.
A strong online social media following can help greenlight a project. For example, after an unofficial Mortal Kombat YouTube video got Mortal Kombat Legacymillions of views, ICM helped its creator Kevin Tanchareon work with Warner Bros. Interacive to greenlight the web series. Its first episode has >8M views in its first few weeks.

9 Types of Brand Integration

Pre/Post Rolls, Brought To You By: Yahoo! Originals includes pre/post rolls and "Brought to you by" for top shows like Primetime in No Time, a recap of last night's TV shows.
Product Placement: Puma sponsored Jon Chu's LXD web series with dozens of close-up shots of dancers' shoes and clothing. The LeBrons integrates multiple sponsors into its animated show, including Intel, HP, Bing, and Sprite. The LeBron James-voiced characters use Bing to search for info on HP laptops in the shows. http://youtube.com/thelebrons
Influencer: Relativity promoted the movie Limitless by sending a request video to influential YouTube stars, who created movie-themed response videos like Michael Buckley's, which asked fans to make a vid comment for a chance to win an iPad.
Storyline Integration: New characters or storylines can integrate brands into the story. ABC Digital Studios created online Cougartown webisodes with Diet Dr. Pepper integrated into the story. Producer Jenni Powell worked with an identify theft advertiser to create a storyline where a character in a comedy web series realizes someone's masquerading as him online in a funny
Immersion. ICM and BioWare game company worked with The Guild star Felicia Day to create the Dragon Age: Redemption web series, set entirely within the fantasy world of the Dragon Age game.
Community. EQAL (creators of lonelygirl15) helped Kraft create a vibrant, engaged online community around its web series Real Women of Philadelphia to promote Philadelphia Cream Cheese. Community members became super engaged, saying the show changed their lives in this testimonial video.
Game app: The Fox movie Rio worked with Rovio's Angry Birds to create Angry Birds Rio
Social Game: Rio integrated into Farmville where players could create a Rio beach area of their farm.
Events. Matter/ Edelman worked with Brita to create an offline lounge at the Sundance Film Fest.

Marketing and Social Media: Brands use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. to promote their content

Niches: Seed and promote your branded content into online communities, Facebook pages, etc. who like the brand / content
Exclusive Content: Relativity created exclusive content of James Cameron and iJustine tweeting underwater to promote Sanctum. To access the livestream, fans had to Like the Sanctum Facebook page
Influencer Auds: ICM and Felicia Day promote her new Dragon Age: Redemption series by asking other high-profile high-followers clients like Neil Patrick Harris, etc. to all start tweeting news about her show on the same day. Other highly-followed influencers started retweeting, creating an instant online buzz that resulted in increased views. YouTube stars have built-in audience of loyal fans who will promote
Home Page: Yahoo! post web series on its homepage for instant >1-4 M views
On-Air: ABC Digital Studio uses on-air spots to promote web series
Celeb Power: Get celebs use social media to promote content. LeBron James tweets to promote new episodes of The LeBrons web series to his nearly 2M followers
Social Game: Farmville - Rio integration goes viral on Facebook
Events: At the Brita - Sundance event, attendees tweeted and checked-in = social.

How to Measure Success?

Sales: Ultimately, advertisers measure success by increased sales at the cash register, box office, or iTunes store. Kraft measured a 5% increase in Philadelphia Cream Cheese sales, attributed to its Real Women community. Puma saw increased sales after its LXD web series. Sprint also had increased sales after integration into The Guild. Angry Birds Rio was the #1 top selling app at release, reaching 10M iTunes downloads in 10 days. Limitless was #1 opening weekend at the Box Office.
Engagement: Facebook likes & comments; Tweets and RTs
Traditional is still used: CPM, clicks, views (25%, 50%, 75%, 100% completion)
Engagement dashboards are being developed to help measure success of online campaigns - open opportunity for a metrics / research company!

THANKS PANELISTS!
* David Beebe, ABC Digital Studio, Director @davidbeebe
* Neal Weiss, Yahoo! Originals, Head of Creative Development
* Matt McMahon, Fox Digital Entertainment, VP Mobile @iammattmcmahon
* Kendall Rhodes, Relativity Media, VP Digital Programming & Content @spinkendall
* Matt Seigel, EQAL, Vice President, Branded Content and Communities
* George Ruiz, ICM, Head of New Media and SVP of Business Affairs @georgeruiz
* Shannon Pruitt, Brand Arc; formerly at Warner Bros. TV Group.
* William H. Masterson III, Believe Entertainment Group, Co-Founder
* Jenni Powell, Producer, Video Game Reunion @jennipowell
* Tamara Kruger, Senior VP, Matter / Edelman Sports and Entertainment
* Moderator: Kevin Winston, Digital LA @DigitalLA @kevinwinston

THANKS AUDIENCE for great tweet-notes. Search #DigitalLAbrand for dozens of great tweet-notes! Here are some highlights:

RT @davidbeebe consumers will connect w/content when it is relevant, makes an emotional impact & delivers tangible value. #DigitalLABrand

RT @fashmarketing Brands need to work with 10-20 online influencers who fit into targeted, niche audiences. generates best roi. #digitallabrand

RT @KellyYeemondi: Smart Branded content with virtual currency and contests really builds community aud

participation. #digitallabrand

RT @fashmarketing: Know your content's/ web series/ brand's mission, integrate sponsors around it. #digitallabrand

RT @chasmiller Have passion, commitment and skin in the game to show an agency or studio you are vested in the idea #digitalLAbrand

RT @michaeljbarber: Brands must have trust & learn f content creators. Teaching from both teams. Creators aud

must have patience #digitalLAbrand

RT @chasmiller Knowing how a creative pitch relates to an audience will increase your chances of success #digitalLAbrand

RT @sheersocial Before you approach a brand as a producer DO THE RESEARCH in the brand and its audience #digitallabrand

RT @chasmiller: Participation will be driven by knowing the "what's in it for me" factor for your audience #digitalLAbrand aud

RT @fashmarketing Self funding is the best way to show the world your amazing idea. #digitallabrand make it yourself. own it.

RT @chasmiller Linking offline experiences to online exclusive entertainment is a compelling way to drive engagement #digitalLAbrand

RT @dcaballero But what's the metric 4 success? "advertisers: At the end of the day, branded content has to sell more goods and services." #digitallabrand

INDIE BRANDED WEB SERIES WORKSHOP
Immediately before the panel, indie content creators met up in a workshop to share stories about working with smaller / local brands to create branded content. While local brands have smaller budgets to spend on creating or sponsoring content, they can be a little more flexible and open to new ideas than larger brands for content integration and marketing and social media promotion.

Thanks to our workshop guest speakers!
- JC Christofilis, Dilemma LA - transmedia
- Fabienne Toback, FT Media - branded online content
- Steve Sieves and Dahveed, Supa Pirate Booty Hunt - animated series