The event, to be held on Tuesday, is expected to bring together about 35 marketers and a dozen content creators. The marketers are to include blue-chip names like Clorox, FedEx, Lowe’s, McDonald’s, J. C. Penney, Pepsico, State Farm and Wells Fargo.

The content creators are to include Awesomeness TV, part of DreamWorks Animation SKG; BabyFirstTV; Maker Studios; Revolt TV, from Sean Combs; and Viacom.

The event is being sponsored by OMD, part of the Omnicom Media Group division of the Omnicom Group, and its marketer clients are to attend. OMD executives have given the event the puckish name of the Final Front, playing on the names for the advance sales of commercial time on television and online, known as the upfronts and the Digital Content NewFronts.

Although “the name is meant to be a little tongue-in-cheek,” said Claudia Cahill, chief content officer at OMD, the goal of the event is serious, “to give our clients a broad swath of opportunities, and some tangible concepts, to go into the market with in 2014.”

Branded content, also called branded entertainment and content marketing, is growing in popularity as advertisers seek ways to work around consumers’ penchant for zipping through or zapping most traditional types of pitches like TV commercials. But branded content usually requires more planning and effort to develop and produce than a 30-second spot, and the long lead times often work against such projects.

The Final Front event is intended to help ease that bottleneck, Ms. Cahill said, because “too often, these clients don’t get to make a decision on big creative ideas.”

The event, being held at the DreamWorks Animation SKG office in Glendale, Calif., is being styled like an auction. After each content creator makes a 15-minute presentation of potential projects, the marketers in the room can hold up a paddle marked “Plan,” signaling a willingness to plan a project with that company, or a paddle marked “Brief,” signaling a lack of enthusiasm for what was presented but a desire to brief that company to come up with another idea.

(Or the marketers could hold up no paddles at all. At least there is a luncheon scheduled after the presentations, along with cocktails later on.)

“I’m excited about this, and here’s why: It’s difficult to put the right message in front of the right consumer,” said Tim Van Hoof, assistant vice president for marketing communications at State Farm.

“The opportunities to bring brands naturally into the content, with no interruption to the consumer, are a great way to deliver content,” he added.

In the 1950s and 1960s, State Farm was among many marketers that sponsored branded content on television; some viewers can still remember how the company’s sales spiels during “The Jack Benny Program” on CBS were seamlessly stitched into episodes of the show. That was enabled by season-long sponsorships of series, which gave the marketers sufficient time to come up with the branded content and work it out with executives at the networks and the writers and stars of the shows.

“If we can plan with media venues and content creators, we can support with our dollars unique content that consumes will find value in,” Mr. Van Hoof said.

Brian Robbins, chief executive at Awesomeness TV, a YouTube channel for teenagers and preteens that DreamWorks Animation SKG recently acquired, described the OMD Final Front event as “unique,” an assessment he offered, he said, as someone who has been “part of upfront presentations for years and part of the YouTube upfront presentation.”

“I like the idea they’re calling it the Final Front, before the next NewFronts,” he added, laughing.

Being able to have “a direct conversation” with major marketers “is pretty cool,” Mr. Robbins said, adding that he has been pleased with the results of the branded content projects that Awesomeness TV has already created for products like Clearasil.

“We try to do it in a way so it will feel like content, not like an ad,” Mr. Robbins said. Critics complain that many branded content efforts blur the line between editorial content and advertising.

OMD’s participation in the event will involve several units of the agency, including Content Collective, Ignition Factory, the mobile-marketing arm Airwave and Word, which specializes in social media.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/10/business/media/media-agency-to-host-event-for-branded-content.html?partner=rss&emc=rss