Brand Film Awards and workshop | Sanjana Chowdhury

The Brand Film Awards and workshop took place virtually on May 7th, 2020 hosted by Campaign US an PR Week. The program was divided into 3 Brand Film workshops followed by the Brand Film award ceremony. 

The first session was Building Brand Love into Organic Creativity led by Lindsay Stein, U.S. Editor, Campaign US in conversation with James Gregson Director, Head of Social Studio from The LEGO Group. The discussion was focused on The LEGO Group's evolution over the years- the role that LEGO's Creative Agency and social media content has played in LEGO's story and how it will continue to shape its future.

 

 

How Lego has been handling COVID 19 situation so far? James stated that for Lego as a brand, they are uniquely positioned to be able to support consumers in this difficult time. When there are tons of industries who are suffering heavily, the toy industry is particularly doing very well. 

“For Lego, it is crucial that they are supporting their audiences who are stuck at home and are looking for things to do, regardless of any age group of audiences.” 

As a result, Lego put together a campaign called #letsbuildtogether within 72 hours. The campaign was phased out, though initially the priority was to be as reactive as they efficiently can be. There is no promotional message, this campaign is not for selling a product. Its sole purpose was to support people who are stuck at home. 

An interesting outcome of this entire campaign is that how social enables one to reach millions quicker than any other media. Lego is a big global organization and most of its marketing dollars are focused on third party retails and traditional distribution channels like tv. But this campaign has helped galvanizing the entire organization, having them look at social in a very different way. 

Lego has a tangible, physical product and a very “digital-first” audience. They believe in efficiently navigating the balance between understanding the kids who are on YouTube and playing video games, but still pursuing critical problem solving. 

When talking about how Lego utilizes social media, James answered, 

“Lego has a prioritized approach to using social media. Primarily Youtube, facebook and Instagram are Lego’s priority channels. Pinterest, Twitter, as a secondary channel, is predominantly a lot of customer interaction and service activity.” 

Lego is a very safety conscious brand, not jumping on popular social platforms unless they are positive about the outcome of using a channel. “The numbers are, but Lego does not envision being on Tiktok anytime soon. Same goes for trending interactive tools, like QR codes, which are either hyper valuable or completely useless, depending on the efficiency of execution.”

Talking about how is COVID 19 going to affect future marketing James stated “If Lego must make pre-speculation from a high level, consumer behavior and physical interaction is going to change drastically. For example: Comicon has been a massive interactive platform till now, but now the whole physical event will be different. Lego is being hypersensitive to figure out what this new world means to the brand. For Lego, the opportunities are endless as there is a wave of new audiences driving towards them, either re-engaging or new.”

Lastly, he talked about how the Lego team is staying creatively inspired. 

“It’s challenging. Understanding the expectations will change, creatives are being more purpose driven than ever. It is interesting to see how and why they are building and using the branding opportunity to do things differently and right.”

James ended the session stating that the consumer scenario itself has evolved. World is moving toward to audience agnostic marketing. In future there might be a point when there will be no exclusive gender-based product. Driving change from that perspective, Lego is pushing the business from every level to change gender restrictions, thriving to be inclusive of everybody. 

 

As entertainment pivots to digital debuts from festival premieres, brand film faces the challenge of attracting attention in an ever-evolving ecosystem packed with content. In their second panel discussion, Engaging the Intended Audience, the talk went deep into digital content strategy and reaching viewers beyond own channels with this panel of entertainment and marketing experts consisting Marc Battaglia, Executive Creative Director, Marriott International, Senain Kheshgi, Co-founder, MAJORITY, Mike Prochaska, Director, Content Development, Omaze led by Oliver McAteer Associate Editor, Campaign US. They discussed on integrating content into a long-term campaign and how an authentic brand film can cultivate conversations beyond the campaign.

The Panel started talking about what is storytelling for them thru the lens of brands they work for. Mark answered “Finding out new creative space in head. For us as a brand, storytelling is thinking like a media company, putting audience first.”  

Before the stay at home world, all had a perspective filmmaker working with a brand finding core ethos for a brand value. Once a brand finds its partner, it grows and reaches its audience in a very organic way. Audiences engage only if the value of the storytelling is there. 

How has brand purpose shifted due to COVID 19? It seems the purpose does not necessarily shift, the strategy around achieving the purposes shifts. For example, for Marriott travelling is essential for running the business but in current situation one will not be able to jump into any plane any time soon. So thru content being innovative about “staycations” is the shift and make people believe that they will travel again.

“We are looking at a shift in the consumer perspective. The flashy ads now seem out of the place, the brands need to suggest an action they want their customers to take, converting it to purchase or engagement.” 

Senain stated that people are looking for more value driven brands now. 

Due to the stay at home situation and safety concerns, there are experiences people cannot have right now- Mike says. 

“This is where optimism and storytelling come in picture and creative collaboration for storytelling can be a great avenue. It’s really exciting to collaborate brands with filmmaking and make something new, weave a story that creates value.” 

Talking about how the creative process changed over the past years, Senain says traditional advertising are taking the approach for brand films with very specific needs. For example, topics like gun violence videos should not feel like an ad but hits the core. For brands, taking the leap of faith and get the right person to tell the story is vital.

Lastly, the discussion sums up with the role of stakeholders in the process. Brand entertainment is the hardest thing to create emotional connection back to the brand. To make a successful brand campaign brands need to have that high level buy in form the top level. Be upfront about what tactics is working for what sort of project (transparency and honesty), be efficient with cost. Its vital higher-level decision makers be part of that conversation.  

The event wrapped with the Award ceremony. For me, it was truly an enlightening series of workshops! My key takeaways are that it is vital for brands to always be mindful of what value is being delivered through their communication, be it online or offline. A brand’s success always depends on its understanding of consumer trends and having a clear understanding of and strategy for media and channels to adapt to that trend. There is no “one shoe fits all” in the branding space and so the brands need to be resilient, agile, and adaptive to this ever-changing scenario.