The development and consumption of branded entertainment has followed a formula. Advertisers provide funding, a media or entertainment entity with cultural equity creates and pushes out the content, and agencies supervise the process. Consumers are now used to seeing products or brands integrated into their entertainment of choice. This process has produced work that is usually well received en masse, though often publically critiqued.Change and evolution is necessary, especially as social media takes hold of pop culture consumption and consumers yearn for authenticity in their relationships with brands. Media companies now capitalise on the economics of branded entertainment via traditional advertising sales processes, and creativity within the attempt at ‘organic’ integration of brands has suffered. The future of branded entertainment is to create a highly relevant platform that is decidedly not product-focused yet in line with the advertiser’s DNA. Canon’s ‘Project Imagin8ion’ is an innovative example that forwards the agenda of branded entertainment. Canon’s audience of active content creators responded to the opportunity to inspire Ron Howard. His film did not feature Canon products or brand messaging, yet the platform fostered a conversation about a new approach to a creative process, elevating the brand’s equity via entertainment.

To best announce the campaign in May 2011, we portrayed Canon’s 'Project Imagin8ion' as the ultimate creative endeavour with an exclusive in The Los Angeles Times' 'Calendar'.Exclusives created pops throughout the program across the media landscape:• Bryce Dallas Howard (June) – Variety• Eight Winners (August) – TheHuffingtonPost.com• Behind the Scenes of Production (September) – Access Hollywood• Online Premiere (December) – Mashable.comWe optimised Ron Howard’s press days:• First Phone Interview Block: Ad Age, CNN.com, New York Post, EW.com• LA Production Day: G4 Attack of the Show, MovieWeb• NY Press Day (Three Exclusives): Today Show (Morning Show), On the Record with Greta (Business), Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (Late Night)• Red Carpet: E! News, CBS, TVGuide, OK!, People, NewYorker, NY1 etc.On a local level, we did press around the semi-finalists, finalists and the 8 contest winners: The Oklahoman, Palm Beach Post, KTUL-TV, WENY-TV, WLOS-TV etc.

Business Goals: - At launch, Canon’s unit share in the DSLR category was 31.6%, and by October it was 50.5%.- Canon had over 70% of share on Black Friday, making November the best month in their history, during the year’s biggest shopping weekend.- 19.1 point share change exceeded 5 point goal and re-established Canon’s #1 position (The NPD Group/Weekly Traffic Service)Communication Goals: - Secured 508,850,544 PR impressions - 'Parade' TV commercial trended on YouTube homepage with 771,973 views- Ron showcased enthusiasm to 188,257 Twitter followers - 4,000+ consumers engaged via social media (Mediacom & Alliance)-Vastly exceeded projections with 96,362 entries over 22 days, a world-record-shattering pace- Website garnered 600,000+ visits in the first 40 days, extending to 1.16m+ - Exclusive 2-day window for the online première received 74,025 views(CMS: 'submissions all' CSV data, Traffic Data/Google Analytics)- Final film being shot on Canon’s new Cinema EOS camera opened the doors to Hollywood.