BCMA Celebrates Landmark 20th Anniversary Year
Branded content has continued to be the dominant multi-billion-dollar marketing discipline of the 21st century.
The Branded Content Marketing Association (BCMA) has been at the forefront of this continually evolving sector of marketing communications for the past twenty years.
Established in Soho, London in 2003, it was the forum for brands to meet producers. Thanks to its passionate and diverse membership base, it has grown to become the leading global member association promoting the value of branded content and influencer marketing. BCMA continues to lead the debate on what makes great branded content and influencer marketing, how brands, producers, agencies, platforms, media owners, publishers and content creators can engage audiences for maximum benefit and payback.
More recently the BCMA has focused on the extraordinary growth of Influencer Marketing that is now reaching critical mass, and continues to prove the effectiveness and promote the value of branded content and influencer marketing, through best practice and shared learning.
We look forward to celebrating our landmark 20-year anniversary with you, our wondeful Members.
Branded Content Trends: Meaningful Branded Content
There is a growing trend in brand activism and purpose-driven marketing, with consumers increasingly expecting brands to speak out about important social issues. Recent examples include Nike’s ‘Just Don’t Do It’ campaign, Bodyform’s ‘Womb Stories’ and Brewdog’s Forest, where they will plant one million trees becoming the first carbon-negative global beer business.
The BCMA are committed to producing the best practice guide to Meaningful Branded Content, a manifesto of principles that members adhere to in pursuit of creating and producing the most meaningful experiences in branded content.
We spoke to Jez Jowett, Managing Partner, Content and Partnerships North America and Global Director, Media Creativity at Havas Media Group and BCMA USA Advisory Board member, about the importance of Meaningful Branded Content.
Series 5, Episode 14
Top Metaverse Influencer Unveils What The Metaverse Really Is
Sharad Agarwal is the Chief Metaverse Officer of Cyber Gear. He started the first digital agency in the Middle East, Cyber Gear at cyber-gear.com in 1996. In 2010, Cyber Gear started offering AI, Big data and other Fourth Industrial revolution technologies at cyber-gear.ai. In 2019, Sharad launched ONLYwebinars.com, which hosts corporate and community webinars and podcasts (ONLYpodcasts.io) for a global audience. Cyber Gear entered the metaverse space in 2021 and is offering solutions in the areas of Web3 and NFTs at cyber-gear.io. Sharad’s latest ventures are Meta Shapers community at meta-shapers.com, and Meet the Metapreneur. Sharad has interviewed impact leaders, Vishen Lakhiani, Founder of Mindvalley and Dalia Feldheim, author of ‘Dare To Lead Like A Girl’ at impactleaders.io. Sharad joined the World's Top 200 Business & Technology Innovators Powerlist announced by engatica. Sharad is also a Speaker at many international conferences on topics related to Metaverse and Web3.
Beer Masters: The Search For Europe's Next Great Beer
Award-winning branded content production company, Electric Robin (part of Banijay) has created Beer Masters. The show is funded by Anheuser-Busch InBev (ABInBev), the world's largest brewer.
Presented by James Blunt and Jaega Wise the homebrewing competition sees Europe's best home brewers go head-to-head across five challenges brewing popular beer styles and taking on creative and technical challenges.
Each episode the beers are judged by top brewmasters and beer lovers with only one team being crowned Beer Masters!
We've spoken to Adam Kaczmarski, Creative Producer at Electric Robin about the hit series, how it came about, how they sold it to the client and what advice he'd give to brands wanting to create entertaining branded content.
Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Branded Content
BCMA Global research partners, Ipsos have published their latest case studies from the proprietary effectiveness developed in partnership with the BCMA. Referred to as the Branded Content Suite, the measurement tool has three key stages that must be integrated into the management of branded content camaigns; 1) Create; 2) Test & Learn and 3) Measure & Improve.
We've developed the tool to create benchmarks for branded content success. We believe it is imperative that we can offer BCMA members this tool to ensure we evaluate campaigns a homogeneous way.
Thanks to using the same methodology throughout the process, we can achieve consistency in evaluating branded content campaigns. More specifically we can: a) Follow content development through the process; b) Refine the content, optimise it; c) Apply learnings across brands with similar goals.
Branding With Purpose: Interview With Jonny Madderson
Jonny Madderson is the Co-Founder and Filmmaker at JustSo, an award-winning content studio based in London, and a certified B Corporation® agency. is launching a new media property that is dedicated to branded entertainment, longer narratives and engaging storytelling.
Since 2007 they’ve been at the forefront of strategic-led storytelling and new entertainment partnerships.
Working with leading brands, such as Red Bull, Diageo, Toyota, Netflix, Adidas and O2, they are creating powerful branded entertainment in a sustainable and meaningful way.
We spent time with Jonny and the team at JustSo to discuss the topic of how they instill the 'Branding With Purpose' message across the agency and translate this into the client briefs and resulting content they produce.
The Ultimate Best Practice Guide to Celebrity Brand Ambassadorships
We have partnered with BCMA members, Pickstar to bring your our latest Best Practice Guide. Pickstar lets you choose from thousands of sports stars, celebrities and personalities. Enter your budget, brief and shortlist then stars apply and communicate directly to you through our online platform.
Brand ambassadors have become increasingly important in the digital age where trust is harder to gain. Effective brand ambassadors add credibility to a business and can positively shift the perception of a brand.
Having a brand ambassador as the face of your organisation is an effective way to build
credibility and tell a brand story. Brands harness the passionate followings of well-known
celebrities and sports stars to drive awareness and sales and create real talking points.
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