Brand Entertainment, a market for over half a billion and growing in 2021

A market for over half a billion, growing in 2021. This is the photograph taken on the branded content & entertainment sector during the Obe Summit 2021, a timely snapshot of the communication and marketing market, with a focus on BC&E, between emergency and restart. Active since 2013, OBE is the Association that in Italy represents all the companies that invest or produce BC&E and all the main stakeholders in the world of communication: radio and TV broadcasters, publishers, production companies, but also the world of creative agencies, both those with a more traditional cut, and the more vertical ones, and which operate on digital. “We all have a great desire to restart after this year and a half, we are aware that there will be a great discontinuity compared to the past”, says Laura Corbetta, OBE President and CEO of YAM112003. The 2021 appointment of Obe is linked to the claim Get Together: the message is “let’s work together. Brand Entertainment requires us to work together to achieve goals. With a good strategy, results can be significant”. “Today, doing a Brand Entertainment project on a single platform is not enough, it is necessary to embrace all media at a time when technology, use and consumption methods are changing”, adds Corbetta during the summit, now in its sixth. edition. “Half of the projects involve multiple mediums, with social media at the forefront. Influencers, in particular, play an important role. On TV, BE particularly matches entertainment programs and dramas or television series. Online, articles or editorial reports are fundamental. Digital projects have smaller budgets, TV calls for median investments of around 200 thousand euros “, explains Erik Rollini, Director of Obe and Managing Director Mediacom. “TV – he adds – absorbs about 40% of total investments, the variegated internet universe is worth 43%. The role of radio and podcasts is also relevant. Obe monitored 934 activities between 2020 and the first months of 2021. In the cake of the Brand Entertainment, 30% of the projects concern the Food and Beverage sector. 10% are the prerogative of Tlc and Tech “. Rollini then gives the numbers of a market which is expected to close in 2021 with a plus sign, as also highlighted by the annual OBE research ‘The Branded Entertainment market in Italy 2021’ carried out in collaboration with Nielsen and in partnership with RTI. “A year ago, a 9% drop in the overall market was estimated. Instead, 2020 closes at -4%: 526 million were spent on Brand Entertainment. The figure is even more significant if we consider that the decline of the advertising market was 11%. BE represents 7% of investments in Italy in 2020: in 2019 it reached 6%. For the next few months, companies, production houses and media homes expect an increase in investments: 2021 could mark a + 12% and therefore an overall market of 589 million “.” The evolution of BC&E, less and less communication lever and more and more strategic asset that generates value in the long term, is clear: our forecasts look to a 2021 full of projects and with digital constantly growing. Among the most interesting data, the flexibility of BC&E, with 45% of branded entertainment projects in Italy, which is born, that is, already designed to develop the narrative on several averages in a harmonious and coherent way you, based on the characteristics of the target audience and platforms used. And, while social platforms fly, especially thinking of TikTok, it is interesting to see how offline media always remain relevant, integrated to increase the visibility of projects “, Corbetta highlights.” This year we wanted the Summit to be, even more than past years, a window open to the future, a place where the industry can not only compare and share experiences and skills within it, but also find inspiration, visions and interpretative keys from related and collateral worlds “, says Anna Gavazzi, General Manager OBE. “As already for 2020 -he points out-, for the 2021 edition the Summit is also a platform open to all, a live streaming event for anyone who wants to deepen the characteristics and peculiarities of this market and of this now fundamental lever of many business strategies and plans. I am very happy with OBE’s ability to constantly open up also to the outside world and by now be a point of reference for the whole sector, as well as for its members “.