Branded entertainment is an ever-evolving, emerging medium that will drive brand perceptions, stimulate relevant conversation, and organically accelerate brand demand into the 21st century. The combination of new technology (e.g. DVRs), new mediums and increasingly skeptical consumers has forced brands to integrate and activate their messaging strategy into both quality entertainment and digitally based content to better connect with coveted consumer segments. As consumers continue to become increasingly more difficult to be persuaded, brands have discovered that messages delivered through entertainment in the form of either a well-rounded story or an integrated digital experience resonate with consumers as they are viewed as being less “commercial” and, seemingly, make longer lasting impressions. As an emerging medium, at this time, this space is largely void of regulation. However, brands continue to be regulated by directives that dictate their efforts within traditional mediums. For example, as an alcohol product, all Smirnoff® brand messaging must be delivered to an age compliant audience in which 72% of the recipients are at least 21 years of age.

We created ‘connected experiences’ by coupling a leading brand with a leading cultural movement. Our show provided the ultimate virtual digital playground that leveraged cultural icons, a relevant network partner, connected contestants, relevant media, a hot mixologist, original content, popular music and a suite of compelling on-air and digital tools to create the ultimate consumer experience.Our cast and the network provided bigness. The contestants provided authenticity. The media provided credibility among the target audience, the original content provided access and the digital ecosystem provided the connective tissue for the consumer to engage within.

We gave consumers access and an opportunity to embrace the MOTM show in an authentic way and they chose to continually participate. Our show was not only exciting from an entertainment perspective, but we also created a place of cultural relevance that our audience respected. This translated directly into affinity for the Smirnoff brand and translated to results.Results:•Smirnoff has shown 3 consecutive months of Dollar Share growth (of Total Distilled Spirits) in IRI, for the first time in since April 2010 •+28% increase in Smirnoff’s ‘Distinctivity’ scores among the targeted 21-29 Y.O. African American consumer vs the same period last year and the first statistically significant increase in 3 years•Over 10.5m viewers for the season, over 1m per episode•MOTM organically trended nationally on Twitter twice •Connected with over 75,000 Facebook fans•More than 100K people viewed 5 hours of original video content exclusive of the show online•240,000 unique people participated in our custom contests•Over 400,000 unique people consumed more than 10m minutes of music from our I-Heart Station•Catalysed more than 1m MOTM tweets •Delivered over 409m digital impressions