Brand Integration: Diageo Premix Cans. Yes, you can!

Want to pocket a swift £500 on a chill weekday evening? Turn on Geoff Lloyd's Hometime Show on Absolute Radio on a weekday evening and Geoff and Annabel will offer you 500 quid if you floor them with an interesting idea on what you'd do with the money. This one's courtesy a brand association with Diageo Premix Cans. No, I'm not hawking the show or the competition. What I'm leading to, though, is a possible brand integration for Diageo Premix Cans on the show, a tad more engaging.

Here goes... Absolute enjoys an audience of discerning radio listeners who know their music. Diageo wants to acquaint the 25-44 year old audience of Geoff's show with its lineup of Premix Cans as an accessible and convenient choice to wind up with after a long day. Take a stripped down version of a hit song and break it down into individual elements of the track, isolating the rhythm section, the percussion, the bass riff, the backing vocals and the lyric itself. Every hour on each evening show, feature one track in its dissected parts, playing a different element from that same track in each hour. Preferably, leave the lyric for the last hour, as it would be the dead giveaway. Invite listeners to identify the track if they can and get in touch with the show with their responses. Maybe you could beef up the stakes a bit. The earlier a listener cracks the track, the better the prize. A right answer and you earn the £500 and the track in all its mixed glory. Well earned like the simplicity and convenience of a Premix can. 

Unique brand fit into on-air campaign ✔
Engaging idea provoking listener interaction ✔
Brand recall ✔
Music experience ✔ 

500 quid for this concept. ✔??

Branded Content: Explore, don't exploit.

'Branded' and 'Content', two distinct terms that can be interpreted as just about anything when brought together. Especially when there's a propensity for clients to insist upon, and content creators to get carried away with branded content solutions that push beyond the boundary of consumer appeal, relevance and acceptance.

Just read a very interesting perspective on the Huffington Post by Joe Frydl of Indigenous, calling for a re-think on branded content, where he simply states "Instead of thinking about how to integrate brands into content, marketers need to be more disciplined about how to integrate the right kind of content into the brand's marketing mix to accomplish a specific objective."

How do we address the concept of branded content on radio? Without pushing the borders of permitted brand activity on radio, brands and radio stations can seek to explore certain avenues. Avenues which seek to weave a brand campaign into station on-air and/or online content, so long as it's done subtly and seamlessly.

Spark Plug: Heinz Tomato soup currently has a radio ad campaign which plays upon the premise of Heinz being accounted for 'one of your five a day'. Nice simple sell which plays upon a daily necessity. What if we were to take this forward in the form of a daily deals feature?

Create a daily deals/events advertorial which could run across relevant dayparts. The segment will feature a set of five current events and gigs, or deals and discounts currently available. One of these five will always be the brand plug for Heinz Tomato Soup as 'one of your five a day'. The feature accomplishes three differnet benefits.
1) It offers a brand extension to Heinz Tomato Soup, integrating the brand into station programming, without a commercial force-fit. It takes the brand beyond the plain commercial route.
2) It offers pertinent content of interest to the listener, without shoving the brand into your listening experience and builds brand recall for the Heinz campaign premise.
3) It creates an advertorial platform for the station to extend to other brands to highlight their offerings, be it any new products, or deals and discounts on the go. The four slots can be balanced out between commercial offerings and 'things you must do today'.

As always with branded content, don't exploit the license to spill over into the sacred space of  listener experience. But don't deter from exploring the possibilities of smart integration between brand and content. You never know where you might hit home.

Resounding Radio??

Resounding Radio is the space between the medium of radio and the creative and content radio activity by brands today. It’s an attempt to dissect, debate and potentially spark off new creative direction for brands and radio stations alike.

Resounding Radio dwells on campaigns, branding possibilities, cross-platform approaches and radio that’s, well, resounding across the UK, US and other global markets. It fronts the radio consultancy launched by Jardin Lobo, a content and creative specialist with nine years in radio across programming and creative sales roles.

Be it building radio station brands or brand experiences on stations, I've worked as a creative head, content manager, script writer, radio presenter and producer, with a few radio awards to boot. With over a decade of multi-platform experience across radio, digital, mobile, marketing and television, I offer the following creative services...

• Writing and producing radio commercials
• Branded content solutions
• Cross-platform approaches
• Brand integrations
• Digital campaigns

Leave a comment to spark off ideas on your radio campaigns.
Or give some of my work a sound-check.