brand-e

By Simon Fuller. Sony, storytelling. Here’s another brand stepping out onto the red carpet and getting involved in showbiz. The Forest Guards – a documentary about a bunch of American home-schooled children who come up with an invention to speedily detect forest fires – was commissioned by Sony Europe, and has just had its premiere in London.
On production duty was London’s Between The Eyes, while film is the first branded entertainment offering from comms strategy group Naked Comms, which works with Sony on its environmental marketing.
“We felt that traditional advertising wasn’t really the way to talk about environmental issues,” says Naked strategist Victoria Brooks. “And that storytelling is, and that action is.”
For the documentary, the kids, from Northern California and all aged nine to 14, were filmed for eight months, as their idea, to install cameras around forests which, in the event of fire, feed warning images to computers, becomes reality. The invention comes to the attention of a head honcho at Sony R&D and soon they are working with the company’s engineers to develop a prototype for their design.
“The premiere went well,” says Brooks. “It had a good attendance; [I think] a lot of people thought that it sounded like a good story but thought maybe it would be a bit cheesy, but they were pleasantly surprised at the content. It has that Louis Theroux-style of ‘weird’ storytelling, and because the children are American, there’s a quirkiness to the human aspect.
“With environmental activity… obviously branded ads feel incredibly earnest, like [the brands are] trying desperately. It’s important for consumers to discover stories, to understand through different experiences what the company’s involvement is. It’s right for Sony as the Sony engineers have a genuine partnership with the [kids in the film]. The message is not pushed at you and consumers are comfortable with the medium… as they have got used to [it] through TV and film.”
And Naked is keen to stress the necessity of creating entertaining content.
“With the social media revolution, how people consume media [has changed] – content that is intrinsically entertaining is what people share,” says Matt Jagger, head of entertainment at Naked Comms. “Brands should embed their message in entertainment. And Naked Comms has always been a pioneer. Our philosophy is that everything communicates, [it’s] not just about pushing ads. [So] we want to offer clients entertainment solutions… branded entertainment is one of the possible futures of the macro business.”