It has been a rainy weekend in London, not a bad excuse to take Anna to the movies to watch 'Ninjago', the latest Lego film. While watching the movie, I couldn't stop asking myself
'How Lego - a brand that makes bricks for kids - became an entertainment house?' 'What are the benefits for brands to become media publishers? 'Is becoming media creators the new way for brands to connect with people?'
These are some of the questions I'll try to untangle with this post.
Every day consumers are exposed to hundreds of thousands of brands, markets are becoming more saturated and product differentiation is becoming harder to achieve. In this complex reality, brands need to fight tooth and nails to become top of mind for consumers. Companies have realised that traditional marketing formula of pushing information to people is becoming less effective. People aren't anymore passive receivers of information but they are actively browsing for the topics they care about.
Little by little brands are realising that to emotionally connect with consumers they should stop talking about themselves, and engage in conversations that help improve people’s life and inspire them to live differently.
Furthermore, entertainment is a great way for brands to reduce the possibility of people switching off with your content. It provides the opportunity for a brand to subconsciously influence viewers about products.
Another great benefit of creating entertainment from brands is the opportunity to construct imaginary worlds that allow marketers to bring brands to life. The level of rapport you can build with people through content - such as branded films - and console games - such as Lego Batman - is much higher than through a standard TV commercial.
Hereafter, brands like Lego and Red Bull understood that creating entertainment could help them to break the clutter and become top of mind in consumer's minds.
Red Bull is known for being a pioneer here. Back in 2008 Red Bull Media house was created as separate arm of the company to produce premium media for extreme sports' lovers and lifestyle, such as magazines, TV series, apps, music, games and so forth. Red Bull Media House is a profit centre which generates money out of advertising, licensing or co-production deals. Being a content powerhouse opened many new doors for the brand. Through these different channels, it now reaches a much wider audience, including the elusive young demographics, going beyond only selling an energy drink, and it helped them build strong partnerships with brands such as Shutter Stock, O'Neill and extreme sport influencers.
Lego is another brand that has done a magnificent job transforming into an entertainment power house and this way becoming top of mind for both parents & kids. In fact, the brand established a wonderful partnership with Warner Bros Studios to produce the box office film Lego Movie, Lego Batman and Ninjago. Also Lego is not shy of experimenting with different content formats, such as creating Lego console games, immersive Lego stores and apps that brings kids closer to the brand.
The examples mentioned above show that any brand can become a content producer and it doesn't matter what kind of product you sell, what matters is to produce content that stands by your brand ethos, that is inspiring and people cares about.
If you are able to do this for your brand, you will be able to differentiate from competitors and become a brand loved by people.
