Brands have long been integral to entertainment, ever since the early days of soap operas when soap manufacturers would directly fund programmes, giving the genre its name along the way.
Things have changed a lot since then, but nevertheless global brands are still key to TV, whether that’s indirectly via advertising and sponsorship or directly. It’s now well within the brief of a brand, or the media agencies that represent them, to develop much closer ties to the TV production community. In fact, this has been one of the big trends of format development over the past 10 years, as brands rethink the value of the traditional 30-second spot and see value in being more connected to the content itself.
Hence the Best Brand Driven Format category in the International Format Awards, which is organised by C21Media in association with FRAPA, EMC and MipFormats.
More than just a bit of product placement or brand integration, this category is about formats that owe their existence to a brand or advertiser that has played a crucial role in the format’s creation. The format could be anything from a studio-based gameshow to a factual entertainment chatshow, but the key thing is it was brought to television with the input of a brand.
Nominees in the category in this year’s Format Awards, which are to be presented online this month, surrounded by a series of digital initiatives that celebrate the best in creativity, include six formats from four continents, reflecting the international flavour of the format business these days.
From Europe come four shows: Supermarket Sweep, a refresh of the 55-year-old US format that was produced for ITV2 last year by Fremantle’s UK subsidiary Thames; The Food Inventors, from Finland’s Aito Media; Beat the Channel, from 
Florida Entertainment for Germany’s ProSieben; and Top Photo, from Warner Bros International Television Production in Spain for Movistar.
Supermarket Sweep is distributed by Fremantle, following its successful revival in the UK last year, hosted by Rylan Clark-Neal. The Food Inventors is a show about ethical and sustainable food that is produced for Discovery-owned Finnish channel TV5 and distributed by Aito and UK distributor Magnify Media.
Beat the Channel, meanwhile, has already been commissioned for a third season by the German broadcaster and is being distributed by Red Arrow Studios International. The company describes that show as “a riotous new entertainment gameshow” that gives two TV presenters the chance to win a 15-minute live broadcast slot. And Top Photo “is a zeitgeist format that rewrites the rules of photography,” according to Warner Bros International Television Production.
Representing Asia in this category is South Korean format Stars’ Top Recipe at Fun-Staurant, which aired on public broadcaster KBS2 last year and is distributed internationally by KBS Media. Producers claim the show “covers everything from recipe show, development, judging and competition – and you can actually try the winning food the very next day.”
And from Africa comes The Taste Master SA, a cookery show that Cape Town’s Cardova Trading produces for South African pubcaster SABC3. The format centres on “an individual of good taste that wants to share his or her creativity of food, style, places and a flair for entertaining,” according to Cardova, which is shopping the format internationally, following the show’s debut last November.
Watch out for the nominees in the Best Comedy Format tomorrow on C21media.net.
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