Branded Content Marketing – O2 Smartsounds

Branded content marketing is the future. In an increasingly fractured media landscape branded content marketing is the best way to communicate messages that stick. Today’s digital natives live in a world where traditional ads, social media status updates, original content, fan made content and direct messages from friends all share the same timeline. Everything is so noisy all of the time. The way to stand out is to have consistent yet dynamic messages which can populate everywhere your audience is. What you pump out into the world has got to work everywhere.

Branded content marketing is one of the best ways of ensuring your message doesn’t get lost. At Scanarama we’ve been lucky enough to work on branded content marketing projects for one of Ireland’s biggest brands, O2. Tanya Townsend, who conceived O2 Smartsounds has amazing vision on how large firms can use branded content marketing for maximum effect. O2 have a deep understanding of how people behave on and off line and how their brand could reach out to people on their own terms. Scanarama have worked with O2 for over four years on their branded content marketing and we’ve built a deep trust over this time.

To quote Tanya: “Scanarama have been a fantastic asset to the O2 sponsorship team. They understand O2′s requirements and tailor their approach each and every time. They were very cost conscious, time sensitive and committed to making the projects happen.”

O2 Smartsounds was a concept originated by O2. It was a massive pop event for 13,000 people where entry could only be gained by buying a phone from O2 featuring Westlife, Pixie Lott, Royseven and Kanyu Tree. The event took place in The O2 in Dublin. Scanarama took O2′s concept and executed it, taking care of most of the details. We oversaw the design of the event from the concert production to the filming and live streaming, set design, lighting, direction, scripts, graphics and safety. Scanarama’s broad range of experience meant that O2 could promote this event themselves.

O2 Smartsounds was revolutionary branded content marketing in that Westlife’s set was entirely decided by requests. Scanarama oversaw the implementation of this live interaction between Westlife, their fans in The O2 and fans watching from all over the world. We had special software built by Coldplay’s touring techie genius Chris Plant which took comments that fans were posting live on Facebook as the gig was being streamed and built them into a graphics package which automatically showed Westlife on screen not only which songs were being requested but who requested them.

This branded content marketing was so seamless that there no commercial breaks during the live broadcast. The event was the branded content marketing itself. Scanarama’s knowledge and understanding of O2′s brand guidelines and behaviour meant that we were able to integrate their values into every aspect of the event. When you create branded marketing content you don’t have to worry about the viewer fast-forwarding through the commercial break.

O2 Smartsounds was a massive branded content marketing success and won a gaggle of wards including two golds and one silver at the An Post Marketing Awards, Best Social Media Campaign at the ICADs, Best Sales Initiative at the Social Media Awards and Best Online Entertainment plus a gold and a silver at the Digital Media Awards.

We’ll leave the last word on this to Tanya: “Scanarama know this industry inside out and I would be happy to recommend them to other parties.”

Get in touch with Scanarama to discuss your grand plans and visions and we’ll help you make them a reality.