I told ya it'd be back... Fredrik Carlstrom is a producer and founder of the production company Third Factory. He also heads up the (idea) republic, a New York based branded content agency.

Here's Fredrik:

If it’s true what they say, that markets are conversations, then it’s time for us who create entertainment to start being noteworthy. Our marketing needs to stop interrupting what people are interested in and become what people are interested in. Our content needs to be something people choose to spend time with, not what they are forced to run from.

Last night, on television, there were a hundred or so commercials. The people who weren’t skipping them over with their TiVo’s, might recall one or two. Even the cheapest and nastiest cost $100,000, just to produce. While, believe it or not, others cost $2,500,000.

This morning, tens of millions of people got emails with a link, or a film or an image. Sent to them from a trusted friend, millions looked at it, many will downloaded it to their computer to watch again and again. And pass it on, in turn, to some of their friends.

Technology is pioneering how people are getting (or avoid getting) information and entertainment. And as with every conversation, if you’re too dull, you won’t get invited back. Or, as in our example, by the press of a button, skipped over and ignored.

After having presented an idea to a client he insisted on testing it. We reluctantly agreed. The results were a disaster. 80% hated it. Some even found it offensive and the client wanted to kill it. How many liked it so much they would consider buying your product? we asked. Not many, only 15%, he answered. By how much do you want to increase your sales? we asked. Would, say 3% be good? That would be fantastic, the client replied. So why then, we asked, do you care what 80% think of it, when 15% love it? The idea was executed and worked wonders.

The problem with many of today’s marketing campaigns is that people get branding and democracy mixed up. They believe that, like in a democracy, the majority wins. But that isn’t true, not even in certain countries.

In October of last year, Gawker Media, an online publishing house with titles such as Gawker.com, Wonkette.com, Defamer.com and Gizmodo.com, wanted to establish their title Fleshbot.com, as the online magazine for unusual and witty, sex culture.

We licensed the right to the long lost film “Necromania”. An erotic film directed in 1971, by the famously bad director Ed Wood (portrayed by Johnny Depp in the Tim Burton film with the same) it had been lost for over 30 years. We designed, packaged and sold it on DVD under a sub-site to Fleshbot, named Fleshbot Films, becoming in a sense, a mini distributor.

By an integrated email and PR campaign, aimed at mainstream media as well as key people in the art house film world, we got press in publications and on sites all over the world. These included media outlets we knew we could never advertise in, even if we paid for it, including The New Yorker, BBC, CNN, Reuters and Yahoo!

By selling the DVD, the campaign ended up having no net cost; in fact, it created extra revenue for Gawker Media as well as attracting a million additional “unique visitors” to the site after the launch on October 18, 2004.

Unique visitors by month:
September 2004: 1,158,005 visitors
October 2004: 1,531,964 visitors (+373,959)
November 2004: 2,144,984 visitors (+631,020)
Total increase: 986,979