Chapter 3
Shows for Invented (and Reinvented) Media

Anything can become a medium for show business. In some cases, show business invents new media out of ordinary objects (swimming pools, sandals, and splash guards). In other cases, by giving ordinary communication tools (documentary films, web sites, annual reports, novels) an unexpected and creative new use, media are reinvented to engage customers in their day-to-day lives.

One of the most successful independent films of 2002 was a sleeper hit called Dogtown and Z-Boys. This 90-minute documentary details the origins of skateboarding among a small group of California misfits in the 1970s who eventually became celebrities in this new alternative sport. The film was directed by Stacey Peralta, one of the original Z-Boys, and won several prestigious awards at major independent film festivals such as the Sundance Film Festival. What started as a limited initial release in three U.S. cities spread into a major phenomenon with the help of heavy and doting coverage in mainstream press like MTV and National Public Radio.

But except for one article in the business section of The New York Times, no one seemed to notice that this film was entirely financed (to the tune of $650,000) by Vans, the sneaker company whose shoes are the footwear of choice for the skateboarding subculture. This may sound like a lot to throw behind sponsorship of an independent artistic product, but Vans knew Mr. Peralta was a hero to their customers and saw his film as an opportunity to connect to them and their lifestyle by doing something less direct, less suspect, and much more valuable than a traditional media campaign.

In fact, Vans keeps a suitably low profile in Dogtown, which avoids making it seem crassly commercial. Their role as producers (Vans Off The Wall Productions) is mentioned only in the credits, and the product name appears only once in the film's dialogue. Instead, the camera does the talking, showing Vans on the feet of almost everyone onscreen in the entire movie. As a result, the film has been able to avoid the kind of criticism that overt product placement would likely bring in the alternative culture of independent film. But the real audience for the brand, the avid skateboarders whose culture it documents, noticed who had made it possible for their story to reach the silver screen.

Where does a shoe company get the idea to enter movie making? "It wasn't that hard an idea," according to Jay Wilson, executive producer of the movie and Vice President of Global Marketing for Vans. "Teens go to movies, go to skateboarding events. It was a pretty obvious connection." The concept started with a long profile of Mr. Peralta in Spin magazine called "Lords of Dogtown." When Peralta couldn't sell the idea to film his story to Warner Brothers, Vans stepped in. Wilson convinced his CEO to put up $400,000 to start, and then $250,000 to finish and promote it as their excitement over the film grew. Peralta directed the project, which remained his baby, and Vans got 80 percent ownership. With box-office totals at $1.4 million by year's end, the film has grown from a marketing coup for Vans to a big profit-maker, with more revenue to come from overseas distribution, DVD, and television.

Wilson calls this an example of self-liquidating marketing. "A friend in J. Walter Thompson asked me how I thought of it, and I said, 'You guys invented it!' Thompson's clients used to own their own shows, like the Burma Shave hours, the Gillette hours." Vans has been so pleased with the results of its first movie that they have already filmed a reality TV show with the WB network, leased out their Pipemaster's surf competition for the film Blue Crush, and invested heavily in a cross-promotion of an action film whose superhero also does a lot of skateboarding in Vans shoes. Meanwhile, Vans's profits have grown 66% between 1999 and 2002, driven by steep increases in U.S. sales.

Show Business in Entertainment Media

In this chapter, we look at how show business invents and reinvents media. Show business can turn anything into a medium for communication: shoes, coins, even bicycle seats. Show business can also take familiar forms of communication and adapt them to powerfully communicate brand experiences.

The first place where show business reinvents familiar communications is our entertainment media: movies, TV, theater, novels. When brands become an integrated part of the entertainment that customers embrace and share with peers (i.e., a favorite TV show, not the 30-second advertisement that interrupts it) they can provide an experience that entertains and engages customers in the brand.

The boldest entertainment-media show businesses are producing content of their own—like Vans's film with Stacey Peralta, which celebrated and was celebrated by their core audience, the sports enthusiasts who use their products and serve as trendsetters for other customers.

In 2002, DaimlerChrysler's Dodge division teamed up with MTV to create a reality show called the Fast Enuff Challenge. The show began with casting calls and test drives in the summer to find 15 real-life drivers for a Dodge racing competition. The contestants were filmed as they trained in professional racing, lived together, learned together, and finally competed against each other and celebrities from MTV's other programs in a climactic racing showdown. The whole Dodge-centered story was then turned into a 1-hour reality TV show that aired at the end of the year.

BMW turned heads when it went into the movie-making business in 2001, producing The Hire, a series of short films with leading international directors—John Frankenheimer, Ang Lee, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Guy Ritchie, John Woo, and more. Each movie showed off the signature style of the director and featured major Hollywood stars (Gary Oldman, Don Cheadle, Madonna) and the recurring character of a driver behind the wheel of a BMW (played by Clive Owen). The movies were also unusual in that they could only be seen on BMW's website: a new form of advertising—and entertainment—for affluent target customers who weren't easily reached by television spots. Visitors online can watch the films, download the movies or wallpaper images to their desktop, order a DVD, read credits and plot synopses, or view trailers and shorts on the making of the films. This bold investment in online creative content has paid off in avid customer interest. More than 10 million films have been watched from BMW's website. More importantly, 2 million visitors have registered at the site, with 60 percent of those opting-in for continuing communication from BMW, and an amazing 94 percent making an online recommendation to a friend.⁹

In Dogtown, the Fast Enuff Challenge, and The Hire, Vans, Dodge and BMW took the lead to help create and produce original content that told a story with their brand in a central role. They were careful to partner with others with the knowledge or experience to help tell the story (Peralta, MTV, BMW's stable of Hollywood directors). Vans and Dodge also took the step of including the customers they were trying to reach in the process of making the story: Dogtown was a film for, of, and by the skateboarding community; Fast Enuff Challenge was a TV show made with and about the customers Dodge was trying to reach. This kind of show business collaboration brings close communication and bonding with customers.

Product Placement vs. Plot Placement

Not all entertainment-media shows require a company to step into the role of executive producer. Where TV and film used to offer only static product placement to companies, new creative approaches are verging into a practice that we call "plot placement." As media buyers develop more and more sophisticated quantification of the impact and value of product placements, companies are discovering that having a product appear in the background of a scene is one thing, but to become a central plot element (à la Butterfingers candy in one episode of Seinfeld) may be worth ten times the cost of running a commercial in that same program. This kind of integration of a brand or product into a significant and engaging role in a storyline is what we call plot placement. Other recent and upcoming examples include:

• Award-winning English novelist Fay Weldon's use of the Bulgari brand in her romantic satire, The Bulgari Connection, in exchange for a sponsorship from the Italian jeweler
• The first production at the new Ford Center for the Performing Arts in Times Square: the historical American musical Ragtime, a tremendous popular and critical success that happened to feature a prominent role for Henry Ford and his story
• A three-month plot line on the soap opera All My Children, involving the cosmetics brand Revlon and thrilling corporate espionage
• The movie The Italian Job, in which a Mini (BMW's sporty new miniature car) plays a central and elaborate role in the title heist
• Television variety and talks shows where sponsors place their logos on sets and their products and spokespeople in comedy sketches, including Fox's The Best Damn Sports Show Period and a planned variety show on the WB Network that will have no interruptions for traditional commercials

We also expect to see traditional product placement continue and even increase as new technology allows product placements to be added after the fact, boosting profits on sports footage (with extra logos crammed in digitally onto empty playing field space) and syndicated reruns (Mary Tyler Moore drank Vanilla Coke?). But really, one has to ask: how valuable is it to slap your logo on the last uncovered inch of Michael Schumacher's elbow as he steps into his Formula One racecar? Show business brands instead will look to integrate their brand into the plot and deliver something enjoyable in the process.

With TiVo and other intermediary viewing technologies looming, we might even be looking at a technological "end of advertising as we know it" (i.e., stand-alone TV spots). In that case TV will likely go back to integrating programming and advertising as in the early days of the medium. Not just Lucy and Desi commenting on the smoothness of their Phillip Morris cigarettes or the Beverly Hillbillies conspicuously downing their Kellogg's Cornflakes; but all the way back to the Burma Shave and Gillette hours.

The prospect may sound dreadful (so does a lot of current TV programming), but really it's a question of how it is handled. If corporate sponsorship has to rely on crassly commercial product placements, it will be even less effective than today's advertisements. But if it can find a way to become so integrated and entertaining that people don't mind, or better yet, actually enjoy the affiliation of a favorite brand with a favorite story, the show will go on.

Rabbits and Invented Media

Another way that companies are creating experiences that reach the hard-to-reach is by inventing new media for their messages—quirky little shows that catch customers' attention (and hopefully stir their laughter) by popping up bizarrely in a corner of life where they are least expected

We call this kind of invented media a rabbit. Rabbits are little surprises that are warm and fuzzy, or weird and funny. Our response to this is "Ah-ha!" or "How clever!" or "That's cute!" Like the rabbit that's pulled out of a magician's hat, a show business rabbit can be a pleasing, magical surprise.

The New York discount furniture retailer Basics Furniture used rabbits to help introduce its brand to a local audience when it opened its doors in the Chelsea neighborhood. They started by sprinkling 5,000 quarters around the streets of New York, the floors of taxicabs, and in the coin-return slots of pay phones. The quarters, which were real, were covered with stickers that had the store's phone number and the message, "Hi, Thrifty, we've got your furniture." The fiscally-conscious passerby who decided to retrieve the coin got a little "gotcha," but also a reward, and hopefully a smile, associated with the new brand in the neighborhood. At the same time, Basics was sending its customers home with shopping bags that read, "This is a shameless moving billboard for Basics Furniture," and included comical instructions on how to display it with correct posture. When Basic's newest tagline, "A cheap chair for your cheap ass," was introduced in both posters and on miniature signs on the back of messenger bicycles, the buzz began to spread. At one point, half the customers walking in the door said they had seen the "ass" ad, and several of the bike signs were reported stolen when customers became over-attached to the show.

"We find that the experience is exponentially increased when the right medium and the right creative work together," says Eddie Bamonte, co-creative director at STAIN nyc, who developed the Basics campaign. A good rabbit finds a medium that reinforces both the message (the bike seat) and the brand (quarters, for a "cheap, affordable furniture" company). Other creatively invented media seen recently include:

• A run-down public swimming pool outside London's Heathrow airport, repaired with support from Evian, who placed their brand on the pool's bottom, where it is visible to airplanes flying overhead
• Logos at the beach, including brand sand sculptures and a company that gave out free flip-flop sandals with raised logos on the soles—leaving the brand imprinted in the sand with every footstep
• An imaginary movie trailer for an action movie called Lucky Star, starring Benicio Del Toro and the new Mercedes SL sedan, which was shown in theaters across Britain even though the movie never existed
• A host of brand placement options from Manhattan's GoGorilla Media, including rolls of toilet paper, fortune cookies, and dollar bills (talk about circulation!); clients can spread their message on the wrappers of condoms distributed at night clubs, or reach a male-only audience with branded urinal splash guards (yikes!)

Figure 3-1. Rabbits appear in the unlikeliest of places. From the back of a quarter… Photo courtesy of STAIN nyc.

Of course, this can all get quickly out of hand. The danger of rabbits is that when they become too popular they become an intrusion, another instance of advertising noise and clutter that customers will feel a need to retreat from. Do you really need an advertisement when you go to the restroom? In the worst cases, companies have shown disrespect for public environments by leaving marketing graffiti on streets and buildings without concern for how to get it off. IBM ran afoul of the law in San Francisco when it painted the logo of its "Peace, Love, Linux" campaign on sidewalks. They had planned for it to be done in biodegradable chalk, but when things got out of hand, the company wound up with a large fine and an unattractive perception of its brand.

Figure 3-2. …to the back of a bike messenger. Photo courtesy of STAIN nyc.

The better cases of rabbits we've seen add actual value that the customer appreciates. Audi AG sent out teams to search the streets of Amsterdam and gave every parked Audi they could find a wash and a polish. The owners returned to find a sparkling finish and a note on the windshield, "Sorry, but we couldn't resist. Yours sincerely, Audi." In the case of Altoids, mysterious stickers advertising www.toohot.com didn't deliver their punch line until the audience participated and followed their lead, which added a nice element of interaction to a rabbit.

At a minimum, rabbits should genuinely entertain their target. Cleverness is of no use to a customer if it's not something relevant, and no use to a company if it doesn't generate customer interest in the brand. "Before it's even about the client, it has to be about the customer," says Bamonte. "If we don't catch their attention and bring them something that they like, then there's no point."

Reinventing Boring Media

Show business can also reach audiences by adding something creative and boundary-breaking to a familiar medium that audiences would normally not expect to find entertaining, let alone creative.

One standard medium that fairly begs for a show business reinvention is the annual report. To be sure, annual reports need to be informative and include technical information. But do they have to be boring and all look the same? Annual reports can be more than just financial documents that rattle off the same laundry list of strategic imperatives and core values: global, innovative, competitive. They don't have to include tacky images. By breaking boring conventions, they can express what's truly distinct about a company and communicate it with a much-needed spirit of fun.

One year Victoria's Secret's annual report came with a bra inside. Harley-Davidson's reports reflect the powerful brand community it shares with its customers, featuring pictures of the CEO in a leather jacket, an unpretentious look, black-and-white photography, and pull-out posters of their bikes of the year. One year the report included a recording of the distinctive "potato-potato-potato" sound of an idling Harley engine, which they were in the process of trying to patent.

The branding firm of Cahan & Associates has a specialty in these kinds of engaging, rule-breaking annual reports. Reports they've produced have read like a Boy Scout guide, a children's book, or—for a client that had received an inordinate amount of press that year—a newspaper, printed on newsprint. To explain the importance of Molecular Biosystems Inc.'s ultrasound imaging technology to investors, they produced a report that opened with full-page blurry photos and asked readers to identify what they saw. The story that unfolded helped readers understand the problem that MBI's technology solves for the medical profession, and not just what its current budget numbers were. This show business annual report generated 700 response cards, mostly from analysts and large investors (a skeptical audience).

"We break conventions, but never just for the sake of throwing away conventions," says Bill Cahan, the firm's founder and president. "Every concept has to come from a strategy that's signed off on by our client." Their work begins with research and interviews with everyone from senior management to factory-level workers to outsiders in the financial community, to get a full sense of the year's story for a company. They even use a Visual Rorschach Test^™ to calibrate just how much show business a client is looking for ("Do something different!" can mean a lot of things). In the end, the report should tell a story that engages many audiences. "An annual report can be a sales and marketing tool, a PR tool, an employee retention tool," says Cahan. "It's an opportunity to do something unique and express why you should care about a company."

Even a direct mailing can be given show business flair if companies find a way to break customer's expectations and deliver something that speaks more directly than a glossy brochure. When Canada's major news magazine McLean's was creating a campaign to reach advertisers, they needed to address a misconception of the size and growth of their readership. So they took 100,000 copies of the magazine, tore them, beat them up, spilled coffee on them, and sent them to media representatives. The battered issues came with a message about how much pass-around McLean's copies receive (between friends, in an office, at home)—with an estimated three million actual readers of each issue.

Show Business on the Web

With all this talk about invented media, what about the "new media?" Can the Internet be used to create an engaging experience for customers? Certainly the early attempts by companies were mostly failures: graphics-loaded sites that crashed dial-up users' computers and had little to say about the brand. As the dust settled after the Internet crash, most of the corporate sites that were still "sticky" (bringing customers back repeatedly) were ones that focused on valuable information and easy portals without a lot of frills—think of eBay, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble, or the best travel sites.

To find sites that really generate enthusiasm, interactivity, and community among consumers, it's best to look at sites that consumers have built themselves. Popular sites like televisionwithoutpity.com or the vastly popular slashdot.org have leaders who have organized the forum, but it is a large community of visitors who drive their content and direction. These are the kind of sites where you can find people connecting to each other more deeply via the Web.

One company we've seen tap into this kind of close-knit online community to add show business to their brand is the Swiss mobile phone company Orange. Orange discovered an existing graphic chat community that had been online for a long time, called Habbo Hotel. With a huge teen following, Habbo had grown from a web designer's pet project to a real online community by the time Orange offered to adopt it and sponsor the show.

The graphic design of the Habbo Hotel allows you to use an animated character to represent you as you move from room to room chatting with others from around the world, your instant-messaged words appearing as dialogue balloons as in a comic strip. Visitors dance or walk their way among the lobby, the Orange Cinema, and the game hall; walk up to other characters to meet and interact; or check into private hotel rooms to hang out with the friends they've already made. Visitors use the Hotel as an online messenger, email system, or chat room—which makes it a perfect compliment for Orange's brand and communication services. The Hotel is now linked from Orange's web site, and Orange customers can use SMS (mobile phone text messages) or Orange PrePay to buy their Habbo Credits—points used to decorate their hotel rooms and enjoy other perks. Orange not only gets to sell the site's premium services, but by tapping into an existing online community, it has extended its brand to a large and tech-savvy group of young mobile communicators. Just the kind of customers a mobile phone company's show should reach.

Lessons Learned

Show business can create new kinds of experiences for customers by inventing new media for communicating or by reinventing more familiar ones. When these boundary-breaking experiences entertain and engage, they add value for both customers and companies.

The models that we've seen include:

• Producing entertainment—like Dogtown and Z-Boys, BMW's online films, or the Fast Enuff Challenge—that delights your customers and grows out of their experiences with your brand
• Plot placement—like the Mini in The Italian Job or Bulgari jewelry in The Bulgari Connection—which integrates your brand or product into a significant and engaging role in a story-line
• Rabbits—like the Basics Furniture quarters or the Evian swimming pool—which invent new media that embody your brand and your message, and surprise and engage your customer
• Reinventing boring media—like Harley-Davidson's annual reports with bike centerfolds or the McLean's direct mailing of coffee-stained issues—to transform drudgery into entertaining experiences that convey what is unique about your business
• Web shows—like the Habbo Hotel—which foster real interaction with your customers by building on the communities they are already forming online

Each of these kinds of shows offers an ability to reach very targeted customer groups, and often at very low costs (or even a profit). But beware of low-customer involvement or the danger of being just more advertising noise rather than an alternative to it. To make sure your show really engages:

• Connect to strong customer communities by supporting their own creative initiatives or providing them resources to create a show or tell their own story.
• Discover opportunities to partner with customers or with experienced media producers.
• Don't plaster your brand on every square inch of viewing space—whether it's a football field or the sidewalks of San Francisco; mindless repetition is not going to make your brand mean something to people.
• Reinvent media as a way to add real value, not just to interject another piece of cleverness that you hope will "get past customers' defenses."
• Know your customers and aim your show to reach them where they already are: the TV shows they watch, the reports they read, the night clubs they visit, the web sites they love.

The best of these shows, like live shows and immersionary space shows, involve the customer in the experience, in its development, and in spreading the word about a company's brand. But how does that word get spread? Who spreads it? And where does that magical customer buzz come from? Shows that involve company and brand evangelists of all kinds, will be discussed next.