Asia's first branded entertainment company challenges conventional branded communications

OCTTANE, Asia’s first Branded Entertainment company, officially launched today, offering a unique new communications vehicle that is set to challenge the entire concept of conventional branded communications

The brainchild of former Batey Singapore CEO, Nick Marrett and Lesley Campbell, former SVP Marketing, Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific, OCTTANE combines brand strategy, marketing, media expertise and content production with the purpose of engaging the audience in a fresh, new, entertaining way.

“This is not product placement or brand sponsorship. It is more fundamental. It involves the creation of an entertainment experience – for Film, TV or the Web – from the ground up based squarely on the values and philosophies of the client’s Brand. It’s as simple as creating a Brand asset in the form of entertainment which might involve, for example, producing a TV series conceived specifically as a vehicle for a commercial message. The entertainment is genuine and the brand is a natural but integral part of the story,” said Marrett, Chairman and CEO of OCTTANE.

In the United States and Europe, trends reveal that reaching an audience with a 30-second TV commercial is becoming more difficult in an increasingly cluttered media environment. Technology is also playing its part with more than a third of TV viewers regularly using a PC while watching television and, according to Forrester research, by 2007 personal video recorders (PVRs) and video on demand (VOD) – which allow you to record programming and skip through ads – will reach half of all American households. These trends are expected to be felt across Asia at a similar pace and timeframe.

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