Before Hailey Gates made her Sundance-winning feature film “Atropia,” The young filmmaker tried to make a short film“Shako Mako”, based on the real military educational village that she stopped portraying in the function. The fashion brand Miu Miu, as part of her women’s tales’ Makers series, helped make it happen. The brand provided clothing, some financing and other resources, but-to all-hand-off with the creative.
An Afghanistan -War Attire may not seem to be a particularly relevant brand association for an exclusive model line, but for Miu Miu, just being in Gates’ Orbit makes an impact. Jett Stieger, who produced “Atropia” via Banner Ways & Means, said that it is about brands trying to find authentic ways to get involved with consumers: to make content that their customers would like to look at, sending cool female filmmakers to parties and using these connections to drive good PR.
Miu Miu had no official ties to the “Atropia” feature, but having so short in its portfolio turned out to be a valuable sales tool for the producers when it was time to get Co-Star Callum Turner on board. For Miu Miu? The brand can boast that Gates is only one more in a growing list of emerging female filmmakers that it has supported, although most consumers will never create the relationship between “Atropia” and the clothing brand.
“I feel that it creates this cultural halo effect so that when it comes to someone in the store that puts down their card, they have been affected in a way they are not even aware of,” said Stieger.
There is no shortage of brand -sponsored or backed movies as a premiere at festivals or online, all of which have eyebrow -breeding connections. Did you know that Wetranser helped make Riz Ahmed’s Oscar-winning short “The Long Goodbye”? Or that “Emilia Pérez” was bank rolled by Yves Saint Laurent and that the brand has Another project with Pedro Almodóvar?
But while paid ads or Blastant product placement have become too transparent for most audiences, more brands wake up to the idea of invest in Narrative feature films and series, whether on larger studio projects or smaller Indians. Some even go a step further than Miu Miu or Saint Laurent and want to be creative partners. For some Hollywood creators, they are also willing to welcome their creative input – and especially their dollars.
Rick Parkhill of Brand Storytelling said that brands 10 years ago wanted to get the next viral hit, such as creating “Uncle Drew” or videos with Racer Jeff Gordon as undercover -drivers to sell Pepsi. Today, they are looking for a return beyond just marketing. They want to be an investor in projects. “All the brands say, we have one ‘Barbie“Moment itself? What kind of IP can we take advantage of?,” Parkhill said.
In some cases, brands try to come in front of the stories as others tell If them. The film genre “Founder” has exploded in recent years with films such as “Air”, “Tetris”, “Flamin ‘Hot!”, “Unfroste” or quite literally “The Founder”, which tells the story of a brand in a dramatic story. In these cases, the brand was not involved or in some cases even conscious.
But for movies such as “Barbie”, “The Lego Movie”, or the just announced film about the founder of Hershey’s that was put into developmentThe brand is involved and may be protective of their history and values. Enter Starbucks, Crocs or Chik-Fil-A, all of which have launched their own production banners. And if you think we are not far from Seth Rogen’s character in “The Studio” Green Lighting a “Kool -Aid Man” movieYou are not alone.
Parkhill says that brands today want to be what people are looking for, not what interrupts their attention. The best latest example happened by mistake, when Mike White filmed the first season of “The White Lotus” at an empty Four Seasons Resort under Pandemic Lockdowns. Now Four Seasons is all over the series, although the show has no paid brand or takes any creative input from the brand itself.
“People book trips because they see it. There are no four seasons brand, but where the hell is it? Oh, it’s four seasons Thailand. Let’s go there. It’s not unnoticed in the travel industry,” Parkhill said. He wonders when the Viking Cruise Ships can sponsor a new recording of “The Love Boat.”
Michael Sugar, long -lasting director of Steven Soderbergh, and his company Sugar23 are trying to “make the accident.” He has seen how the “Queen’s Gambit” increased interest in chess, how “sideways” refueled the sale of Merlot and how “drives to survive” accelerated the popularity of Formula 1.
He wonders why Adidas or Nike may not have been the one who came with “Ted Lasso”, although athletic shoes were not necessarily integrated into the content? The hit show was originally based on an NBC Sports sketch, so it is only a matter of time before another company manages to develop its own IP that becomes a hit.
“Lebron James doesn’t scream” Buy Bitcoin “every time he takes a free throw just because Crypto.com names the arena he plays in,” said Sugar. “The same can be true with content: If you deliver something fantastic, and the audience knows it comes from you, the brand, the brand will get a value prop for it.”
While companies believe that they cannot have their own “Barbie” moment because they sell shoes instead of dolls, sugar is trying to make them realize brands themselves are IP. The problem is Hollywood and the corporate marketing world have long been disconnected, and when trademarks are contacted to be sponsors or financiers, they are generally the last to the table and do not necessarily see these opportunities in line with their values.
Through entertainment, they want to evoke a sense of how a customer responds to their brand.
“Brands do not want to be treated as banks, they want to be treated as advertisers who are partners in the creative process,” Sugar said. “We hear from brands that we get many projects from Hollywood, the problem is that they are not right (for them). The reason why they are not right is most producers in Hollywood does not have the institutional knowledge we have worked hard to acquire what would solve for a brand.
Together with Jae Goodman’s Super Conductor Company, Sugar23 is one of the largest juggernauts trying to bridge the gap between the advertisement and Hollywood. They connect them to direct and write talent that the creative marketing agencies normally do not have access to, and they beat them on the idea that brands have enough their own history and values to develop something from the beginning.
Not only do they find that brands are willing to participate if they are involved in the vision, if a studio manager is presented with something they would buy anyway, it means less that a brand is involved.
Sugar was recently worth what he called The road refronts; Instead of Upfronts, where studios present their TV slate for advertisers, producers and creators produced their early ideas for advertisers with money to invest, and aim to build a market where brands can match creators who share their values. Of importance: Sugar told them not to bring the “broken toys” that have been shopping around and could not find other buyers, but new ideas that will have a lot of interest.
People like Scarlett Johansson, John Legend, Tom Brady and Elizabeth Banks showed up all, “a lot of money was moved”, and Sugar23, who want to position themselves as a creative market between brands and Hollywood, intends to host a new round soon.
Brian Newman, the former Tribeca manager who now runs brand consultant sub-genre, said that brands have always wanted to be involved early in the creative process, but it is only because of projects that “Barbie” is increasingly getting involved on larger budgeted, greater risk of Hollywood style.
Some of the early adoptors to this space that count among their customers were outdoor brands such as Patagonia, North Face and Rei. Rei especially supported Kyra Sedgwick movie “Space Oddity” and Netflix -Drama “Frybread Face & Me” about two domestic boys. None of the film’s story is explicit in its brand, but the induced themes for climate change and land rights that are important for Rei’s values.
The films even created some more concrete returns on Reis’s investment. Newman said, while these partnerships can lead to more sales in the store or online, there are other returns: it increases awareness of the brand without having to send an annoying 30-second place, and it even helps with employees’ holdings, especially for GEN-Z employees who want to know that the company they work for shares for shares. Some people think even later than that.
“Smart brands think one step ahead of the others,” Newman said. “Rei knows if they don’t get people outdoors and from their butts, they will not have customers in ten years. Being associated in your customers’ minds with certain values and aesthetics, it will feel better to shop for it if you know they have done these things.”
A studio manager who works with brands told IndieWire that although there are a handful of script studio functions in the works, the reality is that it is still too risky for most brands to perform a great function. But it is these .5 percent of brands that are willing to experiment and take the risks that will win.
In addition, an agent who worked in the brand space said that historically, brands were willing to spend millions on such projects, but the distribution pipe was not yet there. Ever since the streamers like Netflix began to introduce advertisingThese walls have come down, and Streamers are looking for new ways to make money on content on their platform.
When it comes to what comes next, the agent said he spoke with a number of food brands with character mascots, kicks around ideas with companies like M & MS and Lucky Charms, to name just a couple.
For anyone who does not want a brand somewhere close to their art, it is quite understandable. But Parkhill spins in this way: if you only took 10 percent of the trillion dollars spent on signs, 30-second TV places and internet marketing and instead put it against the bank roll creativity in people like Almodóvar, “We will live in a better world full of better media to consume.”
“We will give them something that they will really enjoy, and it will increase our brand more than buying signs, radio ads and TV advertising. That’s where things are on the way,” Parkhill said. “In addition, Hollywood needs the money.”
