Our US team have just launched the latest part of the partnership we have developed between our client Spring and the NBC phenomenon Heroes.
Having had Sprint customers choose new heroes earlier this year we're now producing 5 minute episodes around these new characters, which are available on Sprint phones (with some cool exclusives) and the NBC site. (If you're outside the US you can see it all on YouTube)
As well as the Sprint distribution and the extras, the involvement includes Sprint sponsorship and subtle product placement - but the big win is the brand affiliation; without Sprint this content would not exist. So its essentially brand curated content.
This type of spin off was pioneered by influential UK soap Brookside who created Soap Bubbles, where characters from the main soap featured in separate adventures. Mindshare pioneered the brand curated approach with the Rookie - a tie up between our client Unilever Axe and Fox's 24.
This has certainly been well-executed, and it's great how they leveraged the network to co-create the content.
What if a client like Sprint were to invest in a property that is both good for the brand and a strategic business asset?
(i.e. tying together branding investment and investment in economic complements)
(It being said that webisodic content is certainly a complement to a carrier; just that content isn't as scalable as a play for the network/platform itself. it feels more like a cost than an investment)
Switching media to music, I'd venture that the Pepsi Maxcast is closer, but still is built on top of another service. The brand is helping curate the content, which is definitely a worthwhile play.
Something like Pandora has a lot of value for users of broadband/wireless connections, but the service is perpetually on the brink because of the cost of licenses, etc.
It seems like investing "sponsoring" Pandora would a) have a huge positive effect on the brand b) increase usage of Sprint's core service c) grow the pie for the entire value chain.
I'm curious if you have any thoughts. Does Mindshare work with any of the M&A/venture investment units at the client?
Posted by: Ethan Bauley | November 12, 2008 at 05:20 PM
Its so fricken cheesy watching heroes now and every time someone pulls out a phone they make sure that the sprint icon is in clear view and keep the camera on it for 4 seconds.
Posted by: Brodo | February 18, 2009 at 05:21 AM