The brands have found in the series a reef to gain visibility and notoriety. And platforms like Netflix or HBO have seen an additional source of income in the merchandising business . That is, everyone wins.
Fast food chains, department stores, fashion or sports firms ... have found in the series a new business opportunity. Fans not only eagerly await the premiere of each season, they also look for products related to their favorite characters.
To give just one example, on the dates before the launch of the last Game of Thrones season, there were many brands that chose the popular series as a source of inspiration. Oreo put cookies from the seven kingdoms on the market and even posted a video on YouTube where he recreated with the universe of the HBO series.
Cosmetics firm Urban Decay also launched a limited collection with lipstick, blushes and shadows ...
" Merchandising is a fairly effective tool for companies to position their brand in the markets and among their customers, generating a fluid and constant communication," says Montse Mansilla, head of Marketing at IEBS, Innovation & Entrepreneurship Business School.
But this is not the only formula with which brands relate to series. The 'product placement' or product placement is another way of advertising, which consists of strategically inserting commercial products in the sequences of films or series.
This technique has become popular in recent years due to the loss of effectiveness of traditional advertising, zapping and audience segmentation with the emergence of digital platforms. Well done, experts explain, it generates value in a double direction: the producers or platforms obtain an additional source of income and the brands gain visibility and notoriety. Now, if it is not used correctly and in a subtle way it can cause rejection in the viewer who sees how they try to strain it with advertising shoe in their favorite series.
"In the last five years, digital distribution has experienced a remarkable increase. This has led brands to migrate from traditional television to digital media players to publicize their products. An estimated 84% of millennials ( those born between 1981 and 1995), according to a recent study by the McCarthy Group, do not rely on conventional advertising.The public is paying to avoid the ads and the investment in the most common means so far has been losing its impact. he says that the series broadcast on streaming have audience peaks, these are used by both digital platforms and companies in order to achieve more brand recognition, "adds Mansilla.
In the opinion of Franc Carreras, professor of Digital Marketing at Esade, "there is no better strategy than another." "It's about testing whether merchandising or product placement is better and see what works and what doesn't." "The emergence of digital platforms has opened many possibilities to advertising," he adds, "but leaving behind an audiovisual model as centralized as one or a few channels also means that now it costs more than a campaign to have a great impact and succeed. , the great success was very great because everyone saw the same thing. Today the success generates less return. That is why, when you have a success, you have to take full advantage of the opportunity and monetize it because it is now or never, "he says.
Therefore, he recommends doing this type of campaigns with series that have a lot of reach, notoriety and visibility and not with niche series. "If not," he says, "it will be a failure and products will be made that will not be sold later."
The brands are clear where they should focus their efforts and are betting on insurance. 'Game of Thrones', 'Stranger Things' or 'The House of Paper' are clear examples of series that are not only triumphing on the screen, but also in the commercial world. This is the case of the popular Spanish series. The fashion company Diesel launched on the occasion of the premiere of its third season a capsule collection with models inspired by the band of 'The Professor'. The agreement between the Italian brand and Netflix also included the manufacture of the series costumes and the raffle of 150 original monkeys. "When everyone is following the rules, we dress those who do not," said the brand in a statement announcing their new clothes.
No one doubts that the success of Netflix, Amazon Prime Video or HBO has revolutionized the film and series industry, but some experts believe that this bubble will end up exploding. "The saturation of platforms predicts a bubble that could leave many of these projects along the way ... because people are not willing to subscribe to so many services," says Mansilla.
However, this expert clarifies, "according to a report prepared by IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau, 78% of users would be willing to see advertising in exchange for being able to enjoy these visual contents for free. Therefore, it could be said that Advertisers will always adapt to the media in which the target audience is located. " And the advertising mutates but always accompanies us.
'Stranger Things', the most desired
The third season of the popular Netflix series has become an object of desire for brands, which have wanted to add to the eighties nostalgia. More than 100 have participated and about 45 different types of products have been cast in one of the chapters, according to an analysis by the British company Concave Brand Tracking.
According to this study, each chapter of the third season had about nine minutes of associated product placement, although the streaming content platform has denied charging for the appearance of these products. However, according to estimates of Concave Brand Tracking, brands have achieved with this exhibition a similar scope to an expenditure of 15 million dollars in advertising.
Coca Cola, for example, has integrated one of its products in the plot of the series. The protagonists drink New Coke , one of the releases that the popular soda brand launched in 1985. In addition to the product coming out in the series, the company has announced that it will release a limited edition of these cans, which in its day They were a fiasco and now many fans of the series want to try.
The H&M fashion chain has designed an exclusive collection inspired by the universe of the series and Burger King will offer for a limited time the Wopper UpsideDown menu, which refers to the other dimension that appears in fiction. Other brands such as Çadillac, Chevrolet, Casio, 7 Eleven, Sharp, Adidas, Pentax or Reebook have also participated.
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