A New Breed of Branded Entertainment

Honeyshed aims to attract top companies with an innovative plan to painlessly combine online advertising and entertainment

by Helen Walters

With attention having been firmly focused on the digital space of late —first Google (GOOG) snapping up DoubleClick, then Yahoo! (YHOO) buying Right Media—the pressure has been mounting on other players to come up with some news of their own.

The time is now for Microsoft (MSFT), which is currently hosting its annual client summit in Seattle, bringing together its key advertisers. Amid rumors swirling of potential takeovers of the likes of 24/7 Media or aQuantive, three major players in the world of advertising took the stage on May 8 to make an announcement of their own.

Maurice Lévy, chairman and chief executive of Publicis Groupe (PUB); David Droga, creative chairman of New York City-based creative shop Droga5; and David Kenny, CEO of Digitas (both subsidiary companies of Publicis); were out West to talk up the launch of Honeyshed, a new Web site aimed specifically at providing only branded content. And though official word said that Microsoft wasn't doing anything but acting as host for the announcement, it's unlikely that its interest in the proposal is merely an act of selfless generosity.

"Life of the Party"

Honeyshed intends to erase the line between branding and entertainment altogether. But its content won't be traditional online advertising. No banners. No rollovers. No 30-second spots. Instead, it will provide a mix of live programming and character-driven sketch shows paid for by—and promoting—sponsors, which will collaborate with Honeyshed to come up with suitably entertaining concepts aimed at the ever-capricious but nonetheless influential demographic of 18- to 35-year-olds. According to sources, content partners already associated with Honeyshed include video production company Smuggler, as well as executives from Viacom (VIA), Condé Nast, and Microsoft.

"Honeyshed is a broadband destination that celebrates the sell," says Andrew Essex, CEO of Droga5, who was left to field calls in the agency's offices in New York City and who describes the venture as "MTV meets QVC." "There's a lot of so-called branded content out there, but it doesn't have many places to live," he says. "It gets lost on YouTube or it's like bud.tv, a brand in isolation. In contrast, this is totally transparent and completely entertaining. It's overt advertising based on the idea that people love brands. They just don't necessarily love it when brands interrupt or deceive them. This will make brands the life of the party rather than the uninvited guest."

So far, Publicis, Droga5, and Digitas have invested between $5 million and $10 million in developing the project, which they hope will allow them to tap into the projected $19.5 billion that will be spent on online ads this year, according to an eMarketer report from February, 2007.

Living in the Real World

The biggest conundrum, of course, is whether consumers really do love brands as much as those working for brands and their agencies do. And even though transparency has been a buzzword in marketing for a while, will viewers really choose to navigate to a site with such blatant consumerism at its core? Unlike sites such as eBay (EBAY) or craigslist, this still seems like something of a one-sided deal.