• by Amy , March 24, 2005

More than a third of national marketers are not actively involved in branded entertainment initiatives, according to results of a member survey released Wednesday by the Association of National Advertisers.

The survey of 118 marketers, released during the ANA's 2005 Television Advertising Forum in New York, found that only 63 percent had participated in branded entertainment during the past year.

The study also found that despite Madison Avenue's focus on television, marketers are also actively involved in developing branded content deals with other media, especially magazines. More than a third of the respondents (34 percent) said they have cut such deals with magazine publishers, while 31 percent cited movies and 24 percent said they were involved with video game projects. TV, however, dominated the results, being cited by 85 percent of respondents who said they participated in branded entertainment deals.

The vast majority (82 percent) of such deals were funded by shifting money from other marketing budgets, the respondents said, while 18 percent of branded entertainment deals represented incremental spending. During an interview at the ANA forum on Wednesday, Viacom's and CBS' Leslie Moonves said the network was open to structuring such deals either as part of conventional advertising buys or as cash deals, but he said a bigger issue looms as an array of players begin pitching advertisers on such projects, including producers, agents and networks.

"Who gets the money?," he asked a roomful of national advertising executives gathered at the Grand Hyatt hotel in New York. "These are new deals that need to be worked out."