Branded Entertainment is rapidly growing in the US and is emerging as a leading alternative media strategy. The difficulty of reaching increasingly elusive consumers, who have more ways to ignore and filter out brand messages than ever before, has made it more important for brands in the US to invest in the power of emotional connections – ie. entertainment.

In 2010, advertisers in the US spent over $25bn on branded entertainment. That number is expected to reach over $38bn by 2014, a 9.2% compound annual growth rate. However, despite its rapid growth, in many ways branded content is still in its infancy. It is often misunderstood and misused by the very advertisers footing the bill for it.

The biggest barriers to success for US advertisers are not regulatory, they are:1.Finding the right balance between the interests of their brands and the entertainment of their audiences2.Achieving scale in one of the most fragmented media markets in the worldWe believe that our entry successfully overcomes both of these barriers.

We connected to teens through teen singer Charice, a vision-corrected mentor who had made it before her time. We collaborated with Charice and Nick Jonas to write a teen anthem called One-Day - that not only got teens singing, but motivated them to start making their “one day” dreams a reality, today.Taking cues from today’s teen pop stars we launched the song on iTunes, released a lyric video, and turned on the social media engines of Charice and Nick Jonas.

The song headlined a commercial where Charice laid down a challenge, prompting teens to upload their “one-day” dream stories. Winners would get a little closer to their dreams by being mentored by Charice, as well as having their stories told in her One-Day music video. The campaign culminated with Charice’s video (featuring our winners) premièring in the No.1 teen television program of the summer – the Teen Choice Awards.

It worked! The lyric video garnered more than 1.9m YouTube video views, 16,048 YouTube Likes, and 8,828 Comments. It was such a hit that teens started uploading their own cover versions and dance routines. The song even cracked the iTunes top 100 chart, as well as the AdAge top 10 most viral videos, just behind Justin Bieber.

Most of all, we got teens talking:-58% of teens who saw the campaign stated that they were likely to ask their parents for Acuvue-Sales went from +13% to +32%We made Acuvue no.1 in the daily disposable category.