5 Out-of-The-Box Examples of Entertainment Marketing

When it comes to entertainment marketing, the main idea is to remember that this type of advertising is focused on entertainer-specific media and contexts. In other words, entertainment marketing is integrated into the media rather than apart from it. Some examples include campaigns within movies, music, and video games, as well as collaborations between brands, celebrities, or social media influencers.

Unlike traditional marketing, entertainment marketing revolves around a partnership, a collaboration in which one party introduces its audience to the other. It’s a beneficiary relationship, which is easier to introduce in mainstream media, as you can’t classify it as an ad. If you want to read more about this alternative form of advertising, here are five out-of-the-box examples of entertainment marketing.

1.   Product Integration

The most popular form of entertainment is product placement. Nowadays, you can find it in almost every single form of entertainment. Millions of people see celebrity endorsements in movies and music videos, with some campaigns even going into pop culture, like the famous Coca-Cola celebrities’ campaign from the early 2000s.

Even though product placement is quite mainstream, that doesn’t mean it cannot be done in a unique and iconic way. Keeping the same Coca-Cola example, their most recent campaign for Stranger Things shows how brands can incorporate their products without looking too blunt. The Coke bottle is designed in the old 80s style and appears as an everyday item for that period. In the famous Eleven mind-bending scene, she uses a coke bottle to prove her powers. It’s iconic and exciting, and customers do not feel they are being sold.

2.   Social Media Account Takeover

You’re probably familiar with accounts takeover, especially if you use Twitter. It has been popular recently to let your audience know you have a collaboration by letting them have control over your business account for one day. Most campaigns will use hashtags and frequent posts during that time to drive more revenue to their business.

Collaborating with other brands, influencers, or celebrities is the best option if you decide to go for a social media account takeover. They bring their audience to your brand naturally and humorously. Creating a bond between the community and the company increases your chances of becoming loyal customers.

3.   Gamification

This marketing strategy was created to enhance services, organizations, and activities by creating similar experiences for video game players. The point is to transform severe and complex information into an easily digestible form of content that can reach everyday citizens. Examples include safety training, long processes for specific programs, and compliance training.

The most famous campaign that became pop culture was the Trains Safety marketing campaign from Melbourne, Australia. The campaign took a severe and hardly marketable product, like safety prevention, and gamified it for its audience. Dumb Ways to Die has been the most shared PSA in the world, with around 1 million downloads of the game every week and 334 million views on Youtube.

4.   Create Content Around Trending Topics

Internet culture is different from other forms of media, especially cold-cutting toward corporate marketing. Since their attention is overstimulated by creators, content, news, and politics, it can be challenging to gather attention on your products in a genuine way. Trending topics are discussed on the internet authentically, so your marketing strategy should be carried out in the same way.

Let’s take, for example, the “trolling” campaign that Wendy’s, the fast food store, carried out on Twitter in the last few years. Their tweets and posts were focused on the current meme culture, where sarcasm and roasts are the forms in which most people communicate. Their replies became iconic, and many stores followed their example as laid-back, self-aware brands that communicate with their customers in informal ways.

5.   Guerilla Marketing

You probably heard of the term guerilla warfare, a military strategy that focuses on the element of surprise. In marketing, this tactic creates highly unconventional campaigns to catch people’s attention in their day-to-day lives. They can be indoors or outdoors, digital or physical, and are usually budget-friendly.

Guerilla campaigns have to be shareable and also memorable. They can be funny, ingenious, or ironic. A simple example was the giant poster floor for Frontline Flea and Tick spray, in which the people walking around the mall look like insects. It was a famous design that is a clear example of entertainment marketing today. There are endless possibilities to this, from complex urban artwork to just shocking ads that make your product stand out.