Cannes, France: The importance of brands was the subject matter of a number of conference sessions on Tuesday.
As an illustration of the importance of brands, keynote speaker Richard Dickson, senior vice president worldwide marketing, media & entertainment for Mattel Brands, USA, lauded the 50 year-old Barbie doll brand. Barbie was as popular today in the world as she has ever been. “Ten million girls experience Barbie via the Barbiegirls website,’ he said. The site generates one million new users every month.
His advice on achieving longevity was: “Don’t evolve your business, reinvent it.’
If you were unsure about how successful a viral campaign can be you only need to think of The Dove Evolution online campaign was the point made by Unilever UK’s Caroline Slootweg. The visual of a woman’s face being transformed into that of a glam model has been watched over a billion times which makes it the most successful viral campaign ever.
Robert Friedman of @radical.media used the example of Driver TV, the VOD channel for car enthusiasts. The channel is dedicated to videos provided by car manufacturers and is a big favourite with car enthusiasts. He described Driver TV as “a poster child for branded entertainment’.
The advice passed on by Ogilvy Advertising’s Russell Jarman Price to finalists in the Content 360 pitching session on The Power Of The Brand was to practice the art of “embedding the brand seamlessly into the stories’.
