There's a genius post at Re-Imagineering about the multiple perils of sponsorship, branded content and all that guff.
They talk about the earlier days at Disney, when guest satisfaction was priority number one and, though they accepted sponsorship, they didn't let the sponsor's message get in the way of the experience/story. A balance a lot of channels are trying to strike these days (including me).
But then they talk about the dark days when they lost site of that priority and built Test Track at Epcott for GM - a kind of World Of General Motors.
I think I've been to this, and the description rings a bell - an unconvincing, headache inducing reconstruction of a testing facility followed by an uncanny simulcrum of the experience of 'driving along a road'.
This is the perfect archtype of so many branded experiences. They succeed in accurately re-creating the genuine brand experience and in doing so reveal that the brand is deeply tedious and un-inspiring. This is one of the great advantage of television advertising, it can make your brand seem more interesting than it is. It's much harder to do this, convincingly, with something as extended as a ride. Or a website. The growth in this kind of marketing will accelerate the thinning of the brand herd, removing the unremarkable ones and revealing horrible lose-lose-lose situations like this, where Disney get a dull ride, GM remind everyone they've got nothing to say and actual people waste time queuing for something rubbish.
Actually, maybe that's another good way of determining the inherent interestingness of your brand. If it was a ride at Disney - would anyone go? And if you want to get more refined, which Mr Men would go with you?
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