Branded Entertainment is rapidly growing in the US and it is emerging as a leading alternative media strategy. The difficulty of reaching increasingly elusive target consumers, who have more ways to ignore and filter out brand messages than ever before, and the transformation of communications due to these developments, have made it more important than ever for brands in the US to invest in strategies to engage target consumers in captive locations for extended periods of time, through the power of emotional connections – entertainment. In 2010, advertisers spent over $25bn on branded entertainment and 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, it is still in its infancy as it is often misunderstood and misused by the very advertisers footing the bill. However, the history of advertising in the US has shown us that new platforms are almost always initially misunderstood and misused. So, if the increasing expenditure on branded entertainment tells us anything, it’s that we can expect to see not just an increased amount of branded content, but an increased quality of it as well.

We used a combination of paid media, social media, and live events to draw the audience to the content. Tune-in teasers and tickets aired on a well-known network for each episode, ads across a well-known website and mobile site drew people in, as well as promotional communications through Facebook and Twitter. We also debuted the first episode at the Nantucket Film Festival and showed other episodes at 2 special parties in the Hamptons.

The results were as inspiring as the series itself. Through all distribution outlets, the videos saw over 1m views from a very narrow target audience, and across all platforms, they took in almost 73m impressions. These efforts helped lift the favourable perception of the car among its audience by 17%. As Business Insider noted, “BMW [drove] to [the] upscale niche market with [their] branded video series”. Autoweek got our message loud and clear and echoed our strategy by saying, “the films tell the stories of the celebrities and the dichotomy of their public and private personas, showing that there is more to them than meets the eye. This message also applies to the 6-series, in that below its stylish exterior is an abundance of power and advanced technology”. The target audience found the content inspiring and the car spectacular. 2 of the people we profiled, Donna Karen and David Yurman, both placed pre-orders for the car that day. The period between the launch of the first episode and the last episode saw the biggest sales spike of the 6 series since its launch in 2003 with over 1,000 units sold.