BAM is a UK entertainment marketing agency operating across the full entertainment ecosystem. BAM’s all-female team works with integrations, talent, licensing, and media amplification for brands like Klarna, Playtika, Abbott Nutrition, Olipop, and Eggland’s Best.
BAM founder and former lecturer in entertainment marketing Annie Bank sat down with MediaCat to talk about why brand integration is more popular with brands than ever before, how new media brands are being brought on board, and how the under-16s social media ban could be a boon for the sector.
How does one come to specialise in brand integration within marketing?
I started off in a more traditional advertising agency, and I think there was definitely a gap in how brands were looking to communicate with their audiences. Content and branded content was becoming a more prevalent thing around 10 years ago, and I think more and more as audiences are choosing to watch the content they love and choosing not to watch ads, integrating within content that people love has just become more and more relevant. So it’s really become like our focus and our bread and butter.
What do you think is driving that change in audiences?
I think it’s a change in how people consume entertainment. No longer are 50 million people watching the same program with the same ads. Now, people can choose where they watch: there’s so many different streaming platforms, so many different social platforms, creators that are creating their own content and there’s just a lot more choice and freedom.
How is working at a brand integration agency different from other, more traditional, forms of agency?
We’re much more focused on the content and the audience, rather than the brand creative.
At a traditional ad agency or media agency, the brand might come with a brief and you’ll spend weeks or months creating the ad and then thinking, okay, how do we place it? Where do we place it? And coming up with a strategy.
Whereas we’re very much audience-first. Who is your audience? Who are you looking to reach? What are they interested in? What are they engaging with? What are they consuming? And then we’ll work back from there to find the best places for the brand to show up authentically.
How’s the market for brand integrations at the moment?
I think it’s a bit of a perfect storm at the moment because you’ve got brands who are fighting for attention, finding it harder to sort of retain attention in the places that they traditionally would advertise, and audiences being more fragmented. There’s an opportunity there to help brands to show up in the content that their consumers are engaging with.
But then at the same time, you’ve got broadcasters and production companies who need more money. Their budgets aren’t what they used to be, they’re definitely more open to working with brands.
Are there defined levels or types of brand integration? If so, what are they?
For brands, it often depends on the results they’re looking for.
If they’re looking to achieve more awareness or more cultural relevance, it might be as simple as placing the brand within a big scripted show like Hacks or Heated Rivalry and just showing up as part of that content. Then you might measure it in terms of brand lift, brand recall.
But you have more performance-driven integrations as well, where it’s more about sales. In those cases, we might recommend a brand to be in daytime shows, like Good Morning America, where they can maybe have a QR code on screen and really measure the sales and uplift.
In terms of the actual integrations themselves and how we in the industry might evaluate them, there are also different levels. You have active integrations, like hands-on placements, where a character or a TV host might handle the product and talk about it or actively use it. Then you’ve got more passive integrations, where you might appear on a shelf in the background, or on someone’s football jersey or something like that. They sort of have different weights and values in terms of pricing and priority.
Why should brands spend money on integrations, rather than, say, ads or influencer partnerships?
I think a lot of what we do is in addition to other media. We as an agency focus on integrations at the core, how do we show up in the content, how do we get brands in front of their audiences, building a strategy around that.
For example, we did something with MasterChef [in the US] recently for an egg brand. We had a whole episode which was an eggs benedict challenge, and Gordon Ramsay was demonstrating how to make an eggs benedict with this egg product, talking about the benefits of the product. It was a really good integration. It was a whole episode. But then we used lots of other tools to sort of amplify the integration. We did a talent partnership with one of the judges on the show. We had a whole media buy around the show, with ads in the break. We had the IP deal so that the brand could use the MasterChef IP and do a sweepstakes.
What we find works best is to start with the most authentic way for the brand to show up in that specific TV show or property, and then build a campaign around it to amplify it.
But, if you’re going to ask me why brand integrations, if you had to do one thing and not the other, brand integrations are amazing because you’re allowing viewers to visually experience the reason that you would buy a product rather than being told why you should buy it.
You’re not being sold this chewing gum because it tastes amazing. You’re seeing Zendaya eat it and say how incredible it tastes.
The cultural equity and talent equity that you get through integration is potentially a lot more than you would get with ads.
The other nice thing is that it has longevity. People are rediscovering it for years to come. For example, we did something with Married at First Sight across a couple of seasons years ago, and the brand paid for the integrations because they thought it was going on Lifetime in the US. Years later it all went on Netflix as well. Even now people are watching older seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race or Emily in Paris and the brands that have integrated 10 years ago are still getting that exposure and love.
Do you have any research that demonstrates what business/marketing objectives brand integrations are particularly effective at achieving?
We don’t necessarily have research, but we have a lot of case studies. We do a lot of these partnerships and brands come back again and again and again.
It goes back to what I was saying earlier about what you’re looking to achieve. Some of the integrations are better for brand awareness, which is harder to measure. You can do studies on recall and brand perception and brand uplift but it is difficult to measure. You can’t really compare it to an ad in the break.
But there are also performance-driven integrations. We were the first agency to put a QR code in American Idol because we had an integration that we were doing for a gaming company and they wanted to be able to measure downloads. We put a QR code in each episode of American Idol and they could literally see when it was on air in New York, a massive spike, then in LA, massive spike.
Interesting that you mention QR codes: do you think that we’ll start to see more shoppable brand integrations in entertainment soon?
We do a lot of work in the US, and they’re a step ahead of the UK market. Audiences are more primed for integrations and shoppable content. If you watch Love Island in the US, you’ll see lower thirds or banners popping up with QR codes allowing you to shop ELF Beauty.
In the UK, we’re not quite there, but I think that will become inherent in content. I think it has to.
I think as the Netflixes and Disney Pluses of the world are moving to ad-free subscription models, they’re going to need to get brand money and the brands are going to want to show up in front of the audiences, and I think finding those creative ways to be in the content without disturbing the experience will definitely become more prevalent.
Why do you think there is such a difference between the US and the UK?
I think viewers are more accustomed to seeing product placement and brand integrations. We do a lot in Good Morning America and The View and all these big daytime shows that are technically news shows that, in the UK, you could never go near with a brand integration. You could never have Lorraine [Kelly] standing up and promoting a brand and telling people to go to the website and buy it. Whereas in the US, it’s just normal.
Viewers understand that it’s an ad, but they know that it’s there to enhance their viewing experience. Good Morning America aren’t going to promote a product that they don’t believe in editorially.
I think there’s a sort of understanding that, if something is appearing in a show, whether it’s Love Island or Good Morning America, it’s there for a reason and it’s there to enhance the viewer’s experience. Over here, maybe not so much.
I do think it’s still important that it’s subtle and not totally ruining the viewing experience, that maybe it’s a tiny little button that you click on rather than a massive half-page banner like you’ve got in markets like Germany.
I think that technology will evolve and I think it’s the future of what we’re doing.
How can brands identify the most appropriate media properties to be placed in?
They should start with the audience who they’re looking to reach and what content would make sense for them to be in and then work from there.
We have technology in-house to measure compatibility based on a few different scorecards. We’ll look at, okay, does the audience fit? If they’re looking to reach women over the age of 50, is that the audience that is watching this show? If they’re looking to do performance-driven integrations, they’re not going to want to be in Emily in Paris because you can’t have any sort of call to action there. So, we start with the audience, then we’ll go to the messaging: what are they looking to say, whether that’s actually possible within the content.
And then there’s logistics as well. A lot of it is about timing. They might really want to be in Emily in Paris, but if it starts filming tomorrow, logistically, we can’t get into it. We’re constantly selling to both sides: it’s only half the battle for us to convince a brand to be in a property. It’s an even bigger battle to convince the property to put the brand in. So often, we have brands coming to us and saying: “Oh, we’ve got enormous budgets to be in Heated Rivalry or Emily in Paris!” But the property or the showrunner doesn’t necessarily want the brand in there.
It’s normally not a matter of budget. It’s a matter of editorial integrity and authenticity. It’s really about finding that match where all the stars align.
When I hear product placement I think reality TV, big-budget romcoms, CW dramas. Are there categories of media where these products perform particularly well, or that are more open to product integrations?
I think now it’s really open to everyone. I think the biggest limitation is less which formats you can be in, but more that there are certain platforms that not only want an integration fee but they also want a big media spend commitment around it. I think that’s un-levelling the playing field in terms of how brands, especially smaller brands, can get into content.
Netflix, for example, have introduced these massive media requirements in order to get into a show, which didn’t used to exist a couple of years ago. That’s definitely made it more difficult to get into certain shows. When a brand comes to us and they tell us their budget and their objectives, we’ll be able to recommend shows based on that information. If they’ve got a pretty low budget, we wouldn’t recommend for them to be in a massive Netflix show, even if they could from a creative or editorial standpoint.
Animation is still a tough one. It’s pretty difficult to get into a show like Family Guy. But everything’s possible these days.
What impact is the under-16s social media ban going to have on product placements and entertainment marketing?
I think it’s an opportunity for product placement and entertainment marketing. I think brands or media agencies are going to lose one of their easiest routes to market with those younger audiences, and they’re going to have to find more creative ways.
With integration, you have to be creative. You have to be authentic. You’ve got to really think about how the brand can show up in a way that the audience will resonate with, rather than rebel against. And I think with the ban, we’re going to have to find ways to put brands into content in that way. So, I think it’s potentially a triumph for creativity.
Which entertainment properties do you see benefiting from this, and why?
I say it could lead to more of a focus on family viewing. Rather than targeting kids specifically, you might be targeting the content that families are viewing together, shows like Britain’s Got Talent, Gladiators. Potentially animated shows like Bluey.
I also think there’s a big opportunity potentially for licensing as well. We do a lot of licensing where we’ll help brands to connect with third-party IP. That could be a way of cutting through and engaging younger audiences without having to advertise within social content that they’re no longer watching.
Also, creators. It’s not entirely clear what kind of YouTube content will still be available to under-16s. I think if there are creators who are creating educational content, who are not restricted, then we’ll see a boom in that sort of content and brands investing more there, which should hopefully have a ripple effect in increasing the amount of ‘good content’ in inverted commas that younger audiences are seeing.
Was The Barbie Movie a boon for your sector, or did it set brands’ expectations way too high?
I think movies like Barbie are definitely a boon for the sector in the sense that consumers and marketers realise it’s not necessarily a negative thing to have a really heavily branded movie or piece of content. You know, if it works, it works.
In a lot of ways, Barbie was unique. It was an extraordinary case. Not every film or TV show lends itself to having 150 brands in it. Most don’t.
So from that perspective, it set some marketers expectations too high. One of the biggest battles we have is that, with integrations, money doesn’t always talk. You can’t just pay for the best spot.
I think one of the best examples in the Barbie movie was the Birkenstock integration, which actually wasn’t paid. It was written into the story. It was more like Barbie having a Birkenstock moment than Birkenstock having a Barbie moment.
I think everyone can relate to watching something and being really jarred by either the dialogue pausing briefly to explain a tech product, or noticing that the actor is paying more attention to holding the bag of crisps so you can see the label than actually acting. What do you think makes a really seamless product integration that doesn’t jar the audience like that?
I think it’s respecting the creativity and editorial integrity of the showrunners. As an agency, our job is to make sure that the brand is getting the messaging that they want to get across, across. We’ll look at the scripts and try to understand, are they saying the right thing, is it brand safe, but we’ll never try to compose or direct how a brand will show up and we make that quite clear to our clients.
We always explain that this is going to turn out best if you allow the showrunners to do what they do, which is making content. For example, we’re working on a big MrBeast integration at the moment, and we still don’t know exactly how the brand is going to show up in the content. We know roughly what the creative is going to look like, but we don’t know exactly the mechanics. I think the brand is really excited about that because they trust that MrBeast knows how to engage his 500 million subscribers and they’re excited about the idea of doing something that’s authentic to him.
If you show up in an Emily in Paris, I expect it’s going to be very different to how you’d show up in MasterChef, and that’s a good thing, because you’re allowing the showrunners to decide what works best.