The explosion of the entertainment marketing era
Jun
There are increasingly diverse channels of digital marketing, with various forms and activities; among them, the field of entertainment marketing is emerging with many successful business opportunities if you know how to grasp the appropriate data.
Summary of content
The significant impact of entertainment marketing
What are brands doing to enhance their entertainment marketing strategies?
How should brands prepare to transition to entertainment marketing?
Entertainment marketing helps increase success
Just a few years ago, in 2017, TikTok was still in its infancy, YouTube wasn’t strong enough to compel users to subscribe for a fee.
At this point, Facebook and Instagram (although Instagram’s user interface was only acceptable) dominate the world of online advertising, while online banner ads are a common offline marketing activity. TikTok is still underdeveloped, so there is little mention of entertainment marketing.
Just a year later, in 2018, TikTok launched globally and quickly evolved into its own social media “empire,” and now it practically dominates the world. To quantify its growth, TikTok has over 1.22 billion active users and is expected to reach 1.8 billion soon (with Vietnam ranking sixth with 62 million users). In contrast, Facebook had 1.4 billion active users in 2018 and has been active since 2004. According to Meta’s Q2/2023 financial report, Facebook’s daily active users (DAU) reached 2.06 billion. The monthly active users are 3.03 billion.
In a stroke of luck, TikTok’s development coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, social distancing regulations, and inadvertent lockdowns, which helped TikTok quickly become a platform where people spend hours every day discovering new creators, connecting, and seeking entertainment videos.
Witnessing the success of video posting on TikTok, other platforms like Instagram and Facebook followed suit, creating copycat features like IGTV and Facebook Watch. LinkedIn even launched a “creator” mode where users can easily upload their videos.
All of this shows that today’s audiences prefer watching videos over static images more than ever; they want to be entertained by short, authentic, and fun videos from celebrities or big brands. If you want to “catch the trend” and succeed, right now, you should quickly learn and follow suit, shifting the focus to entertainment marketing through video/clip formats.
Today’s audiences increasingly prefer watching videos over static images; they want to be entertained by short, authentic, and fun videos from celebrities or big brands.
The significant impact of entertainment marketing
TikTok is seen as the champion of entertainment marketing, mainly because TikTok viewers consider short video content as their primary form of entertainment, especially when facing inflation. Due to rising costs, customers are gradually abandoning paid TV subscriptions and movie theaters to watch free videos ranging from 30 seconds to 10 minutes. Some of these videos even have storylines like a short film.
Kate Kenner Archibald (Director of Marketing at Dash Hudson) supports this theory: “We are seeing some changes in the market. One change is the level of attention from people. Consumers no longer want to watch a 60-minute TV show or sit through commercials. Another change is about budgets. Inflation and high gas prices, coupled with traditional content platforms witnessing a significant decline in subscribers.”
“People are cutting costs, and that correlates with the rise of TikTok because of its free content. With 10-minute videos, you will see the surge of short-form content truly amazing. It’s not glamorous, but it has good content. To counter this, Netflix just announced they will launch user-generated content. Currently, we are in the golden age of content because there is too much content created every day.”
At a macro level, TikTok benefits entertainment marketing activities more than traditional advertising forms. This platform is set up for anyone to create and share engaging videos, and its growth depends on the audience’s engagement level when finding content.
Brands that understand the power of collaborating with creators to produce entertainment content will win. For example, with the Pepsi brand, the Super Bowl Halftime program directly used TikTok to attract attention and create entertainment video content.
The result was a campaign that surpassed 5 billion views and 31,000 video submissions. Pepsi and TikTok have shown how entertainment marketing can boost consumer and brand interaction.
Another example is Chipotle, considered the king of using influencers to create entertaining content on TikTok. They often rely on influencer partnerships to reach their customers.
For example, for the annual Boorito advertising campaign, they partnered with major influencers like Zach King, Josh Sadowski, and Avani Gregg to create entertaining content that consumers love.
Chipotle was one of the first brands to leverage the adorable “It’s corn” kid in its latest ads and garnered 3.8 million likes on TikTok, spreading like wildfire. Chipotle’s focus on influencer partnerships to produce entertainment content has made Chipotle the most followed food brand on TikTok, with over 1.8 million followers.
What are brands doing to enhance their entertainment marketing strategies?
The true potential of entertainment marketing has only been seen in the past few years. Considering that entertainment marketing on social media is still in its infancy, we cannot predict the high (or low) levels it will surpass in the years to come. However, nowadays, there is no doubt that creators are the ones taking entertainment marketing activities to new heights. Without creators, there would be no perfected entertainment marketing strategy.
Brands have recognized the potential that influencers and content creators hold as well as the impact they can make. This is probably why 93% of marketers are currently using influencer marketing to their advantage. “The influencer partnerships must be authentic. The key is finding partners who tell the story you want to tell. Our data shows that fair partnerships where you are helping each other will allow both sides to achieve value,” said Kenner Archibald.
Brands have also realized that regular photo shoots won’t lead anywhere. Measuring and predicting campaign performance requires taking another step and using solutions to understand how creators’ videos will work in the long run.
Kenner Archibald said: “We use the Entertainment Score to measure the effectiveness of influencer partnerships.” “Dash Hudson’s Entertainment Score, the first true standard for social media entertainment, provides insight into the entertainment value of TikTok content. For channels like Instagram and YouTube, Dash Hudson provides other exclusive tools and measurement capabilities to analyze the interaction rates and effectiveness of influencer partnerships.”
Big names like Harrods, P&G, Conde Nast, Apple, and Kraft are examples of brands using Dash Hudson’s top social entertainment toolkit in their industry to monitor and predict the success of their marketing efforts.
How should brands prepare to transition to entertainment marketing?
Below are some insights and advice from Kate Kenner Archibald for businesses and small brands on how to transition to entertainment marketing.
Always be authentic, entertaining, and data-driven
The most important thing for entertainment marketing is authenticity, especially on TikTok. This is because most people access the app to watch real, influencer-related content that is relevant to real products and services, rather than generic talk.
Partner with suitable creators
To maintain authenticity, only partner with creators who align with your product vision and have the ability to depict the stories you want to tell.
Focus on equal partnership relationships
Equal partnership relationships yield the best results for a healthy, sustainable relationship.
Track predictive performance metrics, understand what works on TikTok
