‘Collaboration’ is the new buzzword in the ad world with agencies, brands and content creators sitting together to identify a point where their ideas converge.

Brands need relevant content that pushes beyond the ‘30-seconds’ to meaningfully engage with audience, says Kiran Antony, Executive Creative Director, Ogilvy&Mather India.

CONTENT DIVISION

“You can collaborate with a lot of people to create content,” said Antony, who was here recently to attend the annual Toonz Masters’ Summit. Speaking with BusinessLine , he said “Agencies are setting up content divisions or buying production houses. In earlier days, a client would come to an agency to do a campaign. The agency would come up with an idea and discuss it with him."

But this has changed now. “Brands want more than just a 30-second ad based on an idea. They want to engage consumers for longer." A 30-second ad can do only so much on a mobile phone screen. Hence the demand for content. And it can come from a collaborator, says Antony. He could be a YouTube influencer or a stand-up comedian.

FOLLOWERS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

A stand-up comedian offers a minimum guarantee - anyone in the top 10 league would have lakhs of followers. And if he's really popular, his followers would forward the content to even more. Or, one can create special characters and raise suitable content. The Vodafone ZooZoo is a wonderful example. One can do a telefilm or even a movie with ZooZoos, says Antony.

“Not too many brands have such a readily identifiable character. In fact, we have created three such - pugs, ZooZoos and the Dhananjayans”. “So we can afford to play around with them. Likewise, for a bike brand, I can create a content with a racer. I can ask him to make videos of his road trip from here to Ooty, for instance,” Antony said. “Or I can tie up with Narain Karthikeyan, and request him to do content based on road safety.”

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