BDA Creative: “Entertainment is Constantly Changing”

Tim, Ben, you create campaigns and branding for Germany's biggest TV and streaming productions. How did you conquer the market?

Ben Kerneck: We love what we do and our clients notice that. Some customers have been with us from the very beginning. One example of this is Prime Video, then still Lovefilm. With them, we have grown from 12 to 47 employees. We co-launched many of the first German Prime Originals and a partnership naturally developed as a result. Another example is Disney. In 2014, the German Disney Channel wanted a new branding. The Americans got wind of it and then it became a global rebranding and every country in the world had our new design. That's a boost, of course. As long as you're on this wave – I'm not saying that it won't break at some point – people will come up to you and say: You make beautiful things, wouldn't you like to try it with us? There are also not many competitors in this rather specialized market that work in this area of advertising.

Your focus is on entertainment brands. What fascinates you about the entertainment industry?

Tim Finnamore: Entertainment is a huge and varied sector that never gets boring. It's in the nature of things that it changes: Culture is constantly changing, entertainment is constantly changing. It's also a very broad field: news, sport, entertainment programs, reality shows.

Ben: We immerse ourselves in pop culture every day and watch series, films and shows before everyone else does. We are also extremely visible. It's fun when you see our stuff out at the bus stop, on TV, in the movies or on social media. And the industry is constantly changing: it started with linear TV and on-air promotion and now it's become a huge entertainment bubble – including areas like games.

Tim: Technology is constantly making us change the way we work. That's what makes it interesting.

What has been the biggest change for you in recent years?

Tim: We are focusing more on individual content, such as shows, than on big channel rebrands. For a long time we worked exclusively at the channel level and now it's great fun to work with the streaming services and media brands at the program level.

Ben: Streaming in general is a big change. You might own a piece of content, but you're not the only one broadcasting it. There are many different channels and platforms, the market is very fragmented. So it's more about the marketing of a show, a series or a live event and not so much about the host.

BDA Creative: Strategy as the basis for good branding

In 2021, BDA Creative co-launched the rebranding of ZDF heute. What makes a perfect branding for you?

Tim: The best brands have a clear strategic vision that they can build on. The stronger the strategic idea, the better the design. So we start with the strategy and then we start with the design, which we derive into all areas of application, such as off- and online or on-air. The public broadcasters already have a strong strategic concept: they stand for impartial quality journalism. Our task at ZDF heute was to communicate this quality journalism as clearly and quickly as possible. So here it was the other way around: we already had a strategy and we were able to start with the applications and thus shape the new brand. We also had to bear in mind that the brand already existed in the minds of the audience and had been built up over decades. We made sure to respect the existing visual cornerstones and build on them. It would not have been good to throw away the entire heritage of the brand.

Your last campaign was all about the FIFA Women's World Cup on ARD. How can we imagine the development process for a project of this size? What stages does a campaign go through at your company?

Ben: There are two departments in our company: One is responsible for branding, the other for campaigns. Both follow almost the same rules: You start with a pitch, which you hope to win – in this case we won with our strategic idea “This World Cup is upside down” – you build a few look frames around it, and then the client says “yes” or “no”. If they say “yes”, you start to develop further and create all the assets. You need a trailer, social media layouts, key art. Then we go to the shoot and take photos. Then we start post-production and bring everything together: strategic considerations, motion design, editing, audio. But it's not a two-year job, like ZDF heute Rebrand, but rather a three-month job.

Which steps can you cover in-house and when do you call in outside support?

Tim: Pretty much all the steps. We do have an in-house film department and the necessary technology, so we can do simple shoots in-house. But to get the best product, you sometimes have to look outside. We sometimes have customized fonts for our customers, as we did recently for the SWR rebrand. In such a case, we turn to an expert. If you want to deliver the best, you have to get the best in.

Ben: We are actually a one-stop store. We have a lot of experts in-house for things that keep coming back: Designers, copywriters, producers, editors, but also project managers, account managers and sound. But there are things that don't come up often. That's where we get support, it's simply more efficient.

Tim Finnamore: Embrace new tools and have fun with them

Do you use AI technologies?

Tim: Yes, AI has recently become a really useful tool for us to use to sell our ideas. We can use it to visualize quickly and at a high level, for example to illustrate a concept for our customers. We also recently used AI on a job: We needed crowds and were looking for a way to make that happen on budget. We were able to create crowd scenes using AI without having problems with image approvals.

Friend or foe: How does the creative industry feel about the new tools?

Ben: We see AI as a friend, like any new technology. But they're still tools, right? They don't take over creativity. It takes a really good brief and a creative controller to get a result. But you end up having more time to create and explore.

Tim: I think the briefing is key. You have to make time for a good brief or the result will suffer. But you should embrace it and have fun with it.