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Far from being a dying medium, television is one of the key mediums where brands can capture the attention of an engaged audience. Rawkus Content CEO Rick Spence discusses the potential of long-form, TV-first content to position a brand exactly where it needs to be to drive sales.
Free-to-air television is well and truly alive and kicking. In fact, for brands, it’s the dawn of a new age. Now, like never before, it’s an opportunity to tell your story, engage your audience and, importantly, entice them down the ‘broadcast-to-basket funnel’.
When content becomes more than the kiss and the relationship; it’s the marriage
Let’s face it, long before content became king, it had been spruiked that advertising was the kiss and content the relationship. Content is the romantic side of advertising. It’s the sometimes cheeky, sometimes clever, always on, “I’m not really advertising” advertising. It’s where, as a brand, you can get your audience to engage, learn, be inspired, empathise and, of course, if you do it well, care about your brand.
The problem is there are three main challenges to effective branded content. The first is that brand storytelling of this nature is generally hard to do in a 30-second spot or an Instagram post. There simply isn’t enough time to create a meaningful and engaging story arc.
Secondly, content creation can be expensive and time-consuming.
Of course, it’s nice for consumers to care about your brand, but that won’t keep your doors open or the lights on. Put simply, branded content needs to sell products. Preferably your products, to your customers at a time that suits you.
Can content actually do that? Yes, through what I refer to as the ‘broadcast-to-basket funnel’.
What is the broadcast-to-basket funnel?
The broadcast-to-basket funnel is a multi-layered content strategy where specific content assets are used to inspire, inform, drive consideration and ultimately sales. It’s where platforms are used in unison to create a powerful consumer journey from vague interest, to product education, enquiry and purchase.
It starts with television (TV): the granddaddy platform of them all.
Why TV has the power
Branded TV programming is the perfect first platform for brands to use to engage their audience in a meaningful way.
Long-form content, done well, allows brands to craft their message into entertainment. And that is the gold. Effectively, when the brand’s narrative is bound up into meaningful inspiration, audiences will happily go along for the ride. Once you have them engaged, they will then begin their journey down your content paths to find out how, why and when to use what they have seen. That is when they buy your product.
And the good news is, where once brand-funded programming was the stalwart of weekend afternoons and digital channels, the networks are now more open to this form of content in prime time.
The broadcast-to-basket campaign-like approach
Here is an example of how this works in practice. Growing Home with Jamie Durie is a prime-time TV format that has had more than four million Australians engaged, inspired and buying products. The show focused on building Jamie Durie’s own family home – a home that was built without compromise and designed to be kinder to the planet. The program was completely brand-supported, with brand stories of more than 28 paying partners woven into the show in a meaningful, engaging and inspiring way.
The broadcast-to-basket funnel method takes an integrated and campaign-oriented approach, by working closely with brand partners to create a suite of individually tailored assets and creatives in advance of the TV show going to air. This enables a specific campaign to be created for every brand partner, including branded content pieces, social media campaign ideas, stills, articles, white papers and even bespoke events at Durie’s house on completion.
These activities were supported through Growing Home’s owned channels, Durie’s personal Instagram and websites, as well as paid and organic social media. This deep integration provides partners more engagement, more visibility and ultimately more enquiries and sales. As customers were inspired by what they saw on TV, they were served and directed to more direct information that led to direct brand-customer engagement.
In this case, partners reported uplifts in enquiries and sales, with one sustainable energy company receiving more than 455 enquiries.
And what’s the bottom line? The broadcast-to-basket funnel model works when you create engaging long-form brand stories that drive viewer engagement through other content channels to find out more.
Create content, save money and drive sales
The great kicker about building a broadcast-to-basket, TV-first content plan is that it creates huge efficiencies throughout the content production process. And if you are a retail business with suppliers, then it becomes a whole lot more affordable through the creation of supplier-funded content that ladders up to long form.
On top of that, long-form content can always be repurposed across multiple channels. Stills can be captured at the same time, and a TVC can be created using the same material to run alongside the program, allowing it to integrate seamlessly into the program and campaign narrative.
In the recently aired Growing Home with Jamie Durie TV show example, more than 900 pieces of bespoke content were created for partners to use across their channels. That is a lot of bespoke content to use to promote their involvement and their products.
Why a broadcast-to-basket funnel will work for your brand
I know what you’re thinking, ‘Yeah, I can see how it works for home reno but what about travel or finance?’ The good news is that this strategic, long-form-led content model works for all categories and all brands.
It’s about shining a light on your brand and the great things it is doing, all while delivering it in an entertaining and engaging way. The next easy step is to splice and dice this to create additional content that drives enquiries and sales.
That, in a nutshell, is the broadcast-to-basket funnel.
Rick Spence is the CEO of Rawkus Content.
Lead image of Rick Spence and Jamie Durie supplied.
