In Italy, Branded Entertainment has become fully legal since 2010, after legislative liberalization (the “Romani Law”). Since then it has become a more common communication practice among marketers, both on TV and online. Current regulation allows product placements in motion pictures for TV and cinema, TV series, sports and light entertainment programs. It is not allowed in shows for children. Digital branded entertainment series are currently less restrained by specific legal regulations.

Product placement must follow specific rules:

1- it should not compromise the responsibility and the editorial independence of the content;

2- it should not directly encourage the purchase of the products showcased;

3- it should not give undue prominence to the featured products. In order to prevent hidden advertising, promotional considerations must be added at the beginning, after every commercial break, and at the end of the program for TV shows, and in the closing credits for movies.

Given the continued economic pressures in Italy, this campaign had limited activation budget; so, we decided to leverage our most important asset within the content: Mara Maionchi. Mara is an Italian household name and former X-Factor judge, so we launched the content with an exclusive press event with her. Italy’s top mom bloggers were invited to be the first to view our new series and ask the ‘Queen of all Mothers in Law’ for advice.

In the peak of the campaign, daily social monitoring allowed us to target search, seeding efforts and social outreach to the moms most interested in the content.

The aim of this campaign was to increase engagement of our consumers with the Philips brand within the domestic appliances category – and we did just that.

Our webisodes became the most watched piece of branded content by women in Italy during the time of the campaign, gaining over 600,000 YouTube views and driving over 4.5 million social impressions for the Philips brand. Their interest and chatter led to a 63% average increase to Philips.it product pages.