Global Branded Entertainment – America takes it's place

The Branded Content Marketing Association (BCMA) today announced that
it is establishing an American board to steer its activities in the
world’s most important entertainment market. The BCMA is the global
network of advertisers, agencies and entertainment producers
influencing the growth of the branded content industry around the
world.

Branded entertainment, where advertisers create or distribute
entertainment to communicate with their consumers, is increasingly
popular with advertisers struggling with traditional advertising
techniques in a fragmented media world.

The BCMA  was launched in London in 2003; now with a presence in
Australia, Germany, the Netherlands and America, it is connecting
global advertisers with the best of the world’s entertainment talent.

 With members from the world’s largest communication groups - WPP,
Omnicom and Interpublic – and leading advertisers including IBM,
Mastercard and Bacardi, the BCMA provides a forum for advertisers,
entertainment creators and distributors, agencies and regulators to
shape the future of branded entertainment.

A delegation from the BCMA UK including Mike Falconer head of Omnicom’s
UK content division, BCMA’s General Secretary Alison Knight, Cocojambo
CEO Claes Loberg and BCMA Chairman Mark Boyd of BBH will be in America
in November meeting with Hollywood studios, the TV networks, major
games publishers, advertisers and their agencies to find agreement for
who should sit on the board of the BCMA (USA).

As a founding member of BCMA UK, BCMA Australia and founder of Branded
Entertainment specialist Cocojambo, Claes has played a leading role in
the development of the branded entertainment industry in recent years:
“The entertainment industry is on a precipice, the interruption based
advertising industry is rolling downhill – branded entertainment is the
route back to the summit.”

Mark Boyd, Head of Content at BBH, the creative agency leading
inititives in branded content and Chairman of the BCMA (UK), said
“The media we consume and the model that used to subsidise it so well
is changing.  Brands are finding techology and changing consumer
behavior make consumers harder to interupt.  Digital technology will
continue to empower viewers, listeners and readers and make it harder
for brands to reach them.  Where we look for increasingly heighted
experiences, brand need to deliver on that.  We are learning to engage
consumers through branded content rather than shout at them for the
periphery"