Five takeaways from Playback Marketing Summit

By Jordan Pinto and Julianna Cummins

Playback's inaugural Marketing Summit took place on Thursday, with attendees from the production and marketing industries on hand to hear insights from marketing professionals on how to best build buzz for upcoming projects (as well as how to do it on a budget). Here are some of the key takeaways from the day's talks.

1. Attention spans are dwindling. Grab your audience and then build the relevance of your product to them. Attention, said Laura Henderson, global head of content and media monetization at Mondelez International (the global snack and foods division of what was formerly Kraft Foods), is the single biggest problem faced by marketers today. Henderson cited a study in 2000 which found the average human's attention span is 12 seconds - today, that number has tumbled to just eight. This has presented a challenge for advertisers, who not only face a myriad of challenges in getting their ads seen (PVRs and online ad blockers, chiefly) but to get them to resonate at all in such a cluttered landscape. That has seen Mondelez reshape its approach to advertising and striving to develop and own original IP based on its brands. The unique aspect of their strategy - which broadly can be called content marketing - is to not only engage consumers but to build new revenue streams for the company. In short - they want to make content good enough that people will pay for it. And Henderson said on that front, they are open for business with production partners, who are ideally poised to create that level of quality content. Get those cookie ideas baking, producers!

2. Be savvy with your influencer strategy Communications agency North Strategic co-founder Mia Pearson discussed the increasingly robust opportunities for partnering with online influencers, but said the time has passed for a simple "please mention my product" strategy. She emphasized:

- Quality over quantity: strive to create an organic, genuinely entertaining/engaging content and promotion plan. - Embrace collaboration: the new breed of online content creators expects to be in the driver's seat. Bring influencers in early, engage them in the process and trust that they know their audience better than you do! - Invest in those relationships and extend the dialogue: One-off partnerships are not the way to go, and engaging with creators before, during and after a project hits the market is the best way to make a successful relationship.

3. Bake marketing into your TV show or film's DNA Marketing, which used to be the job of the broadcaster, is now the content creator's role too. Marblemedia's Mark Bishop insisted series must be conceived from the very start as "full 360 degree projects." Using marblemedia's Open Heart as an example, Bishop discussed how both TV and digi teams were part of the entire process (complete with a digital producer in the writers room), allowing them to simultaneously launch a sophisticated online/mobile strategy alongside the series airing. Even more impressively, that strategy had to match the series' day and date broadcast with both U.S. and Canadian broadcasters. Bishop said the company was surprised at the end to see that the SMS aspect of the strategy - which saw fans receive text messages at the same time the character on screen did - was the most successful from an engagement standpoint and happily, was also the most economical.

4. Take a tip from Buzzfeed

During a session about how to create buzz on a budget, creative director and consultant Robin Heisey said producers could learn from Buzzfeed. The website is particularly good at creating highly shareable video that leverages the company's brand, while also tapping into issues people care about or are interested in. For example, a 2014 marketing campaign for The Walking Dead capitalized on people's broad interests in zombies by placing a "rotting finger countdown" display at Toronto's Union Station. A "rotting finger" was removed from the display each day leading up to the premiere of a new season of The Walking Dead. People were then invited to share photos of themselves with the display for a chance to win one of the rotting fingers. As such, he urged producers to think of creative ways they can leverage the storylines of their projects into marketing initiatives."The story in your marketing and the story on your screen is part of the same franchise," Heisey said.

5. Think as a brand - not a channel

Comedy Central CMO Walter Levitt, the day's closing keynote speaker, said the company decided a few years ago it would not see itself as a TV network. Rather, it has positioned itself as a comedy brand focused on a millennial audience, with content deployed across multiple platforms. "We are a comedy brand...everything we do is about taking that lens and applying it," Levitt said, adding that the network no longer refers to its "viewers" but rather its "fans." To target these millennial audiences, Levitt said Comedy Central gave its marketing strategy a relative overhaul with a focus on zoning in on specific audiences rather than mass marketing campaigns. For example, if a user accessed a particular series on Comedy Central's digital properties, the company would then try to target that consumer when a new season of that series is released.

"That is the amazing part about marketing in the entertainment business now. It's not cheaper necessarily, but you can get so specific and granular, but it should be way more effective," Levitt said.

Closing Keynote

Don't miss this closing keynote from Comedy Central's...

Walter Levitt

Chief Marketing Officer

Walter Levitt

Chief Marketing Officer

Comedy Central

Christina Jennings

Chairman & CEO

Shaftesbury

The Chief Marketing Officer at Viacom's Comedy Central, Walter Levitt joins Christina Jennings, Chairman & CEO Shaftesbury in a conversation about promoting one of America's biggest comedy brands through one of marketing's most disruptive periods.

Under Levitt, Comedy Central embraced shareability as central to its content-promotion strategy early on and enjoyed runaway success using original digital content to boost linear audiences. The strategy helped build what would go on to be major Comedy Central brands, like Key and Peele, Tosh.0 and Workaholics while continuing to cultivate one of TV's most fantastical fanbases for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

With the number of platforms exploding, Comedy Central's marketing strategy now includes Snapchat, which it used to help launch Trevor Noah as its newest personality, and keeping breakout Inside Amy Schumer's star rising by feeding the internet's endless appetite for all things Amy. After all, keeping Comedy Central front of mind with comedy seekers is Levitt's MO daily.

View the full agenda to see everything that Playback Marketing Summit has to offer.

Where do we go from here?

From the minds behind Canada's most ambitious projects Purposeful, strategic branding and marketing can take you to exciting, unexpected places. Mark Bishop, Co-CEO and Executive Producer at marblemedia and Denise Darroch, Brand Manager at Kimberly-Clark Canada unpack how a clear brand vision and savvy strategy helped turn the seemingly impossible into a success - and weigh in on some of the under-utilized opportunities in the entertainment marketing space.

Mark Bishop

Co-CEO and Executive Producer

marblemedia

Denise Darroch

Brand Manager, U by Kotex®

Kimberly-Clark Canada

View the full agenda to see what Playback Marketing Summit has to offer.

Strategic Partnerships

When 1+1 equals more than 2 Innovative partnerships can exponentially further a marketing goal when both parties are aligned. Entertainment marketing has a long history of collaborating with brands to maximise promotional reach, but there's bigger payoff potential in building strategic content programs with partners who share your target audience. From media to music, explore how to develop big-picture audience-building alliances.

Julius Comia

Director, Marketing & Promotions

Entertainment One

Howard Lichtman

President

The Lightning Group

View the full agenda to see what Playback Marketing Summit has to offer.

Dissecting data

A marketing plan's most powerful tool Using data to make informed marketing decisions can stretch the effectiveness of any budget. From some of Canada's top marketing minds, learn how data is used to pinpoint your target and shape sophisticated marketing plans.

Fab Dolan

Head of Large Advertiser & Agency Marketing

Google Canada

Mark Tomblin

Chief Strategy Officer

TAXI

View the full agenda to see what Playback Marketing Summit has to offer.

Dive deep with a CMO

Sharing the latest marketing tools and trends for film and TV producers.

Mark Childs

Chief Marketing Officer

Samsung Canada

One of Canada's top CMOs shares the process behind developing campaign strategies: audience identification, using customer insights, translating truths into compelling positioning, audience engagement and identifying "reasons to believe" that can help drive message breakthrough. Samsung's Mark Childs champions innovation and adopting a start-up mentality, and will show how to build marketing programs that break through.

View the full agenda to see what Playback Marketing Summit has to offer.

Pitch Your Plan

Pitch Your Plan and you could win services from the top agencies in the country!

Playback Marketing Summit is offering three producers the opportunity to pitch their marketing plan to a panel of judges at our Oct. 29 event for the chance to win consultations with some of Canada's top marketing minds.

All you have to do is send us a short overview of your project and a brief summary of how you plan to market it (under 500 words). Please submit your document, and all relevant contact/business details to mflury@brunico.com.

Learn from the CMOs

Audiences are changing, the market is changing and media is changing – so your marketing should be changing too. With so much content to compete against and an altered TV landscape ahead, it's more important than ever to stand out.

Playback Marketing Summit gives you the chance to learn from Canadian brands and their marketing tool kits. Come steal some ideas from Canada's chief marketing officers to power up your go-to-market strategy.