It was 1982 when ET handed “Reese’s Pieces” to Elliot and sales of Hershey’s peanut butter candy increased by 80%.

Since that film, the concept of modern-day branded entertainment has been on the mind of every brand manager and marketing whiz.

With the explosion of American Idol’s “in-your-face” integration in the summer of 2003, the Branded Entertainment market has exploded 30.5% to $3.46 billion in 2004!

Integration of brands into entertainment properties is now becoming the norm.

Capitalizing on all these opportunities is challenging because the entertainment industry works on a different schedule than most of us in the marketing world. This has created a difficult route for brand managers trying to integrate a little bit of entertainment into their campaigns.