Money is Moving to Entertainment

The 2006 edition of the Communications Industry Forecast being released this week by Veronis Suhler Stevenson, states that branded entertainment, event marketing and experiential marketing - have emerged as the fastest growing segment of the media economy, outpacing advertising.

At Magnetic Alliance we see firsthand how marketers have changed their definition of media by expanding beyond traditional formats into branded content and product placement. Clearly more clients are seeing the benefits of aligning their brands with entertainment content in every media.

"A lot of the marketing services sectors in the new marketing area are really targeted toward the 18- to 34-year-old. That's where we see the growth in dollars really going forward," says Leo Kivijarv, vice president-research at PQ Media, which helped VSS compile the report. Kivijarv says the new "vehicles" include things like "guerilla marketing, word-of-mouth, experiential media, branded entertainment, product placement and some of the smaller things like mobile marketing and webisodes."