As we rebuild trade bridges with the world after the covid pandemic, advertisers need content that enhance their brand values.
We’re navigating confusing times, so it was great to see so many Australian content producers and media executives exchanging progressive and creative ideas at the MIPCOM market in Cannes last month (the world's biggest content market) ... that creative journey will continue at MIP London in the New Year.
Subtitled “the mother of all entertainment content markets” MIPCOM is just that, with10,500 influential people from 110 countries. It is a precursor to the upfronts in Australia, as it has been for four decades.
This is where so many creative journeys begin each October. …and by next year our viewers and advertisers will be the beneficiaries…
The bleakness of recent times has given way to the Aussie fun of Bluey, Colin from Accounts and those Ladies in Black who promise to transport us back to the swinging sixties – and who doesn’t enjoy those simpler times at the Goodes Department Store? – and it doesn’t end there.
It was at MIPCOM, a few years ago, that a friend from the BBC, remarked that the daily dramas of families and the magic of their births, lives (and deaths) eternally resonate around the world defining community values.
Back then we were discussing evolving geo-political challenges across the Indo-Pacific region with Australia, Home and Away and Neighbours at its centre. Its soft power in its own way – and evidently the world’s migrants often learn the disarming Aussie phrase “no worries mate” as a safe first step towards assimilation.
The soft-power of entertainment that informs and educates cannot be understated. Others have analysed the best-sellers of Agatha Christie, Fleming, Le Carre and Shakespeare and maybe that’s why Death in Paradise has recently been transplanted from Saint Marie to our own Pacific shores as Return to Paradise.
…but hidden behind that sunny exterior, high quality media has the power to quietly deliver unprejudiced, unvarnished messaging free from bias. In these complicated times, we’re told that without that, the void can be filled with disinformation from hostile actors and propaganda, sowing division, even promoting military rule and planting suspicion.
So, in that positive spirit of enlightened entertainment what lies ahead?
New content from proven ideas – I for one can’t wait for the Bergerac reboot and I’m excited that a second series of The Night Manager is in production - it should have Le Carre turning in his grave. And amid all the usual Hollywood debate around global tastes, rumours are swirling that Ted Lasso is coming back soon. Watch out too, for Braun – a great docu-drama featuring Jensen Button’s historic win at the 2009 Formula 1 Melbourne Grand Prix.
Clawing back valuable ad. revenue - over the past five years broadcasters have been feeling the pain of fragmenting audiences. It’s been a double whammy as legacy platforms have lost control of viewer data and more importantly allowed a large proportion of the advertising revenue to flow to silicon valley and worse. So now, clever AI-powered AdTech is using technology to return advertising data and associated revenue back to the broadcasters.
Skewing older – SBS, the Special Broadcasting Service have recently announced a brave pivot, challenging free to air conventions by targeting the 40-plus age group. This is the big spending demographic now, less impacted by the cost-of-living crisis than younger cohorts. SBS says that the market is vastly different from Seven, Ten, Nine and Foxtel and SBS increasingly competes with global streamers such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, and Stan at home. The 35-64 demographic or 40+ are the new super consumers …offering growth in a space where broadcasters traditionally haven’t been playing”
Re-formatting for new platforms - In this spirit of rebooting the tried and the tested, ITV Studios’ talked about their digital strategy to take their vast library of classics to where the audiences have migrated; there’s 140 (and counting) social media and streaming platforms including TikTok and YouTube. Although viewers technology habits fragmented during the global pandemic, content experts see great opportunities ahead as quality material finds new outlets. Not only are chat-show clips nearly a decade old going viral with an audience seeking short-form entertainment but different platforms are discovering legacy content for the very first time leading to spin-off series’.
The next episode, featuring these smart creative minds will be at MIP London in February…
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