ZenithOptimedia’s Newcast Unit to Give Branded Entertainment a Global Twist

Branded entertainment—integrating brand marketing into the things that people want to see and do—has taken on a new vigor these days, with a growing marketer interest in tailoring message to fit more neatly into the lives and pastimes of their target audiences.

That’s true not just in the U.S. but around the world, according to media agency ZenithOptimedia, and that’s why the Public Groupe subsidiary this week expanded its European-based Newcast U.K. branded entertainment offering to the U.S. Plans are to launch similar regional divisions in Canada, Latin American and Eastern Europe by the middle of this year.

The Newcast division will work to find opportunities for brands to integrate with both online and offline content and events and manage campaigns across media platforms, offering a coherent dashboard for the confusing welter of ROI metrics that can come from integrating different channels into a single campaign.

Dave Ehlers, Newcast president and managing director for ZenithOptimedia’s U.S. business, points to a branded entertainment campaign the agency mounted before the Newcast rollout as model it will pursue. In August 2009 it unveiled plans to integrate JP Morgan Chase’s newly-launched Chase Sapphire card into the content around four different titles on cable’s Travel Channel, showing in interstitial ads how the card figures into the various passions of the shows’ hosts.

“The product will vary a bit from country to country based on regulations,”Ehlers says. “For example, you can’t do as much on broadcast in the U.K. as you can in the U.S., s o in Britain there’s a stronger slant toward the experiential portion of a branded campaign. But in the U.S. we’re looking for content and engagement on any platform, since broadcast can do everything from storyline integration to contests and sweepstakes.”

Daily business at the U.S. Newcast operation will be overseen by senior managing director Susan Joseph Smith, formerly director of strategic solutions at Rainbow Media, where she sold branded sponsorships for the AMC and WE TV cable properties.

“What this group is tasked with, under Susan Smith’s leadership, is coming up with those innovative ideas,”Ehlers says. ‘Whether the lead is digital, experiential or broadcast, it’s really the idea that resonates, that we sell though to the client and then figure out the best vendors and marketing partners to bring that to life.”

For global ZenithOptimedia clients such as Nestle, Twentieth Century Fox and personal care manufacturer Reckitt-Benckiser, the Newcast approach to branded campaigns would also mean being able to tailor a worldwide message to suit regional or national tastes, preferences and habits.

“This is the first branded entertainment agency that’s global in scope,”Ehlers says. “We’ve been servicing growing numbers of multinational clients that are looking for best practices around the globe. And sometimes an idea that gains traction in a market such as Germany will have a nucleus that can translate to other countries. The core idea can live, just with different adaptations from country to country.”

Alternative media research firm PQ Media estimates that U.S. spending on branded entertainment grew 5% last year to reach $26 billion, and forecasts that the channel could grow another 8% to hit $28 billion in 2010.