There are no particular local restrictions when it comes to Branded Content but the content, by its nature, should be non-interruptive and virtually brand-neutral, and communicate the brand without the brand being overtly present.

Many big (international) Dutch brands and pop culture phenomena like music channels use Branded Content & Entertainment to reach audiences.

The critical Dutch Internet citizen is hard to convince with content brought to them by brands and will knock down bad content immediately on scam blogs and video channels. However, when the concept and execution is good, one can reach positive feedback and many views.

The objective for Volkswagen with this making-of piece was to give some extra content to their faithful fan base on Facebook and create an extra period of rumour around the TV commercial ‘Das Hund’.

The biggest challenge was how to create a good mockumentary with the small budget we had.

Together with the director of the TV commercial, we cast a stand-up comedian whom we could brief on the broad strokes of the character he had to play. The advantage of working with a comedian was improvisation and the ability to act like a pain in the ass.

We had a second camera unit on the set of the TV commercial, constantly following the comedian as he played his role as the ‘real’ owner of the dog.

We didn’t tell most of the crew members that this man was an actor, and so their reactions to his annoying behaviour are pure.

Stand-up comedian Steef Cuijpers was hanging around on the set on all shoot days and therefore people were getting more and more annoyed by him.

Shortly after we released the popular (viral) commercial ‘Das Hund’ for Volkswagen, in which a dog thinks he is a Volkswagen, we released a mockumentary depicting the ‘real’ owner of this phenomenon.

Millions of people watched the commercial on YouTube, YouTube banners were placed underneath the commercial or a link to the mockumentary on top of the YouTube beam on the right.

Also, we had the most influential Dutch scam blogs pick it up.

The mockumentary was also released on the popular Dutch Volkswagen Facebook account.

This mockumentary was made for a low budget by a small camera crew + stand-up comedian on the set of the TV commercial.

It spread very well online and has reached over 350,000 views on YouTube and on scam blogs up till today (end of March 2013).

On the most popular Dutch scam blog, Dumpert.nl, the mockumentary became #2 in the daily top 5 of Internet meme video content.

Lots of media and viewers were discussing the mockumentary. Was this guy real or not?

The mockumentary generated a new wave of attention for the commercial and made it one of the most viewed and liked commercials of the year in The Netherlands.