Branded Entertainment in Germany is, compared to countries like the US, in its early stage of development. There are no explicit regulations for Branded Entertainment. However, if there is doubtful usage of advertising, a special institution investigates whether the campaign is acceptable or not.

With an annual spending of €60m, against an annual US spending of $3bn, Branded Entertainment is growing steadily, but slowly. One reason for this delayed progression is the reluctance of clients, as they do not perceive the benefits of Branded Entertainment.In Germany, campaigns focus mostly on the usage of paid media. Owned or earned media are considered ‘nice to have’, rather than being perceived as an integral part of a holistic campaign. Hence, the symbiosis of paid, owned and earned media is still not being exploited to its fullest.

Therefore, a truly integrated campaign structure, combining all 3 facets of Branded Entertainment, yielded ‘Sparkasse’: a great success.

The integration within various channels, where particularly the younger target group seeks their entertainment, resulted in high interaction levels between the brand and the target group, which would not have been possible without the exploitation of paid, owned and earned media.

The promotional idea was to let the young target group decide who the new brand ambassador should be. That’s why we created the world’s first celebrity testimonial competition.

We let Joko and Klaas, 2 popular German celebrities, compete with each other to determine who will become the brand’s next advertising superstar.

We created a web series of 5 entertaining films, in which Joko and Klaas had to master several tasks involving the benefits and services of the ‘Sparkasse Giro-Konto’. The users voted on whose performance they liked best and the overall voting determined the new face of the ‘Sparkasse Giro-Konto’.

The campaign was a huge success within the target group and set new standards in linking on- and offline advertising.The figures speak for themselves:- 3.3m site visits- 1.9m web film views- 1m+ votes- 136,000+ Facebook fans- 25,000+ posts & comments- Almost 210,000 sweepstakes registrations- 58% aided awareness spots- 84% allocation to the savings banks- Up to 60% increase in app downloads- Up to 21% increase in willingness to buy within the target group.