How to Use Sponsored Films to Drive Brand Purpose?

What is brand purpose?

“You really need to have a brand purpose that an organization can buy into and believes in. Then from there, you take it to the marketplace in all the tactical ways that we know work, but you think about the tactical component not just being about you the company but about the world around you.”

-Sarah Colamarino
Former Vice President, Corporate Brand Equity and Partnerships
Johnson & Johnson

When brands leverage a familiar entertainment containers like a full-length documentary film, short films or TV shows, it allows audiences to experience through emotional stories the true essence of brand purpose or narrative as I’d like to call it.

As such brands transform their content from the interruptive 30-second commercial people often ignore to a meaningful entertainment content people seek.

To help me unpack this unique connection between brand-funded films and brand purpose, I had the great pleasure to speak with Sarah Colamarino, former a Vice President, Corporate Brand Equity and Partnerships at Johnson & Johnson.

After 30-year career at Johnson & Johnson – the largest pharmaceutical company in North America, Sarah has garnered deep expertise in brand transformation and master brand approaches. Her marketing strategies received multiple industry awards including a Cannes Lion Grand Prix.

Sarah has recently started her own consulting practice, SC Blueprint, to help brands and organizations build their purpose and bring it to life through business, talent, ESG and brand strategies. Sarah has a specialty in creating original content that tangibly demonstrates purpose in partnership with media and entertainment. This work has created strong engagement and brand advocacy with internal and external stakeholders.

It’s all in the latest episode of the Visual Storytelling Today podcast.

We talked about her impressive journey at J&J in various marketing communication roles, the backstory behind J&J’s brand purpose refresh she led, how she brought to life the brand with the award-winning 5B film, fresh lessons managing the brand during COVID, her top 3 tips – and much more. (see full topic list below).

Watch the full video recording of this interview:

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Topics we discussed:

Use the time stamp markers on the above video to easily navigate.

• 0:00 Introduction
• 2:08 What is your backstory?
• 3:35 Brand purpose and emotions
• 4:57 Brand purpose definition
• 5:47 ESG, brand purpose & marketing
• 6:43 Visual Storytelling definition
• 7:36 Clarifying base terms
• 12:09 Brand purpose process
• 16:00 Untapped themes
• 17:14 Uniqueness
• 18:25 Value polarity
• 19:52 Visual storytelling process
• 23:12 Challenges
• 24:18 5B
• 27:25 Brand as film producer
• 29:30 5B’s trailer
• 31:00 Emotional connection
• 31:53 Film’s promotion
  32:36 Success metrics
• 35:35 Common misconceptions
• 38:03 COVID’s impact
• 45:28 Top 3 tips

And here is the 5B official trailer we discussed