This is a rough edit that Ruzanna has been kind enough to share with the world, but look out for the finished version in 2012 and we wish her all the best in submitting this piece to some film festivals.

Via HustleGirl

When you look up Branded Entertainment (B.E.) on Wikipedia, you’ll get a huge entry, but this was the part that stood out the most, “Branded Entertainment is not simply product advertising or product placement – branded entertainment is a piece of entertainment that perfectly aligns with the brand attributes, and is a reflection of the advertiser’s brand personality.” Let’s not lie amigos, some brands do this horribly wrong. We won’t name names, but a certain rapper did a certain video for a certain shampoo that certainly…was not good. (Link here). In the 50′ and 60′s TV shows were outright ‘Sponsored’ by brands and the product was held in front of the camera all night. Progressively this went away as the 30 second spot came to life. But, with decreasing attention spans and more tools, like the internet, to distract people, brands needed to find another way to connect. But is it only online?

Most often, branded entertainment tends to live online in the form of a single video, a series, short film, etc. What a brand is trying to do is associate themselves with a particular event or lifestyle and viral videos tend to go a long way, at a better price. Sometimes, we see brands get behind artists to help them with funding for TV shows or even short films that start offline, but end up on the web later on. Absolut vodka is a great example of this. They got behind famous director Chris Milk (the genius behind several Kanye West videos), and let him create “I’m Here: A love Story in an Absolut World” The movie debuted at several film festivals and can now be found online. The brand was only mentioned in the title of the film, and wasn’t seen once during the 13 minute piece. Although not one bottle was not present, Absolut had still branded the entertainment (Get it?). We’ll get back to this Absolut example in our next post about the current state of B.E.

A few years back, we worked directly with Heavy.com (a teenage male focused lifestyle and entertainment site) in collaboration with Kokanee beer, to create the ‘Kokanee CrankWorx’ webisode series. We were to create videos highlighting the worlds largest Freestyle Downhill Mountain Biking event ‘CrankWorx’. Working with the brand, we were in charge of showing viewers what the event was all about by capturing the people, the parties and the lifestyle. We worked with a hostess to ask, somewhat, brand related questions to attendees and conducted lots of interviews with riders to get their take on the epicness that is CrankWorx. We created 7 webisodes that went on to receive over 1 million views. The brand had gained a huge amount of exposure and variality around the web, while reinforcing their alignment with outdoor sports in B.C. and showing that they are the beer of Whistler.

More Branded Entertainment here

This area of video production is rapidly changing and we hope to find and share as much info about it as possible. Next week we’ll take a more in depth look at the present direction of B.E. Do you have any good examples of B.E.?

In the words of Coolio “Aint no party like a West Coast Party cuz a West Coast party don’t stop!”

On November 12, 2011, 50 Countries across the world swapped nightlife once again for the Smirnoff NightLife Exchange Project. Canada was sent to Vietnam, and in the beautiful city of Vancouver, the Mad Ruk team experienced the streets of Vietnam, brought to life inside of the amazing Salt Building.

For the second year in a row, Smirnoff put on one of the craziest parties we’ve ever been to! This concept came to life last year, when 14 countries exchanged nightlife and changed the way the Smirnoff brand looks at partying. Now, 39,000 party people from around the world got to take part and experience another culture, while being taken in by an amazing branded event.

Taking a brand and bringing it to life in such a creative and multi-cultural way has helped separate the Smirnoff brand from the pack. Shooting events like these are very different from shooting a regular night in the city. There is a larger focus on the brand, on the experience of the party-goers and showing how months of hard work and creativity all come to life in one night.

To cap it off, we got to party with the one and only DJ A-Trak! (@ATtrak) He ripped the spot, and alongside DJ Jase from Vietnam, a true experience was had by all.

You can also check out the international teaser video that some of our shots made it into below. Were you there this or last year?

The Watch the Throne tour hit our city and did not disappoint. Hit, after hit, classic after classic pounded out of the gigantic speakers system and finding a person sitting down was an oddity. 2.5 hours after Jay Z and Kanye West stormed into the ACC, and gave one of the best performances we’ve ever seen, there was an energy filling the city that was like no other. This is by no means an over exaggeration of what happened in Toronto last night.  The freshest rhymes in the game were being heard not only from Jay and Ye, but they also came out of the mouths of every single person in the building! It was a show like no other.

As the superstars elevated above the crowd on 20 foot high platforms and opened the show with ‘Who Gon Stop Me!‘ really, no one could! We’re not even going to try and list off the song list, but you name it, they did it. It was like getting to watch three shows in one. Jigga Man gave us jewels from almost every album and even spit Pimp C’s verse, as a tribute, during ‘Big Pimpin!’ Kanye opened a few of his songs by sharing the original track that he sampled (of which two were Michale Jackson hits)  and showed us what he did with it; chopped it, flipped it, slowed it down or sped it up! He set out to go through every classic including hits from Late Registration all the way to Twisted Dark Fantasy.

Diamonds were in the sky, lighters were up and the smoke was in the air. We checked the clock and it said 11:30. Hova and Yeezy spit that ‘Ni***s in Paris‘ and made the entire stadium ‘Go Guerillas!’ So that was it, right? NAH SHUN! They came back out and dropped that phat beat one more again, and were they done? Nope, they dropped that phat beat one more again!!!! 3 TIMES!!!! The bass was pounding, everyone was screaming, people were losing their minds and nothing could have been better. Until we heard the horns, and the God MC blessed us with one of hip hops greatest outro songs ever, ‘Encore’ a Kanye West produced classic, that sent shivers down all of our spines one more time.

And then it was over. As the Louis Vuitton Don sported a brand new Blue Jays fitted, and Jay signed autographs, it was done, ova, finito! All you could hear anyone say was ‘$15 dollars for a beer? DANG MAN’ lol , kidding, only one word could define what happened last night ‘WOW!’

Congrats to our contest winner Jennifer Lachance; we hope you have a great time and enjoy the #recklesstalent that is Jay-Z and Kanye West!

Were you at the show? What did you think?

Peace

We’re giving away two tickets for you and a friend to go see the Jigga Man and Yeezy, November 24th, inside the ACC! Toronto stand up! All you have to do is check out our Facebook Page, Facebook.com/MadRukEnt to enter. If you’re a new Fan, give us a ‘LIKE’ and then enter your info. If you’re already a fan, hit the ‘Promotions‘ tab to enter. Contest closes November 21st y’all!