Mirriad, the virtual product placement technology company, is putting brands into music videos to reach more multicultural consumers and minority media businesses.
This month, Mirriad worked with L’Oreal’s Mugler fragrance brand to place a virtual billboard featuring spokesperson Hunter Schafer from the HBO show Euphoria in the new video for hip-hop star Coi Leray’s song Players.
Maria Teresa Hernandez, head of multicultural marketplace and senior VP, brand partnerships, North America for Mirriad, told Broadcasting+Cable that virtual product placement is an efficient way for marketers to spread their marketing message.
“Music videos also provide a new way of looking outside the box of traditional media, while being able to show up for the diverse media community,” she said.
Mirriad has created a diverse supply marketplace for virtual product placement to help advertisers achieve their inclusion goals.
Leray’s new music video offered the Mugler brand an opportunity to raise the profile of its campaign, which already featured Schafer, who is a trans activist.
“They said they would love to align with Coi,” Hernandez said, and Mirriad came up with the idea of inserting a billboard at the start of Leray’s video.
“She is one of the hottest artists out right now in the urban hip-hop genre,“ Hernandez said. “She’s young. She’s all about female empowerment.”
Hernandez said she worked with the director of the music video to leave a space open in the shot, and the Mugler billboard with Schafer was inserted digitally.
“It’s much more streamlined and clean,” Hernandez said. “You don’t need to be on set.” Mirriad enabled Mugler to “leverage its out-of-home creative in a music video. It really changes the game.”
The billboard is seen at the beginning of the video as Leray’s helicopter flies by and again when Leray is surrounded by paparazzi.
“I’m proud to use my platform and leverage innovative technology to move our culture and inclusivity forward. We hear so much hyperbole about AI, but this is a great example of AI empowering the stigmatized trans community to showcase all their beauty, front and center,” Leray said. “ ’Cause trans girls are players too.”
Hernandez declined to say how much it cost Mugler to be a part of Leray’s video.
In general, the cost is based on the artist’s star power. “We have emerging artists where we can work with advertisers with budgets as low as $40,000,“ she said. “And some artists are asking for half a million.”
A unique aspect of this campaign is that Mirriad is working with Kantar on a study to determine the effectiveness of this particular billboard campaign. Results of the study should be back in about five weeks.
“This is really changing the game by empowering diverse creators and diverse media owners, bringing revenue directly to their pocket.,” she said. “Often times, they don't have the sales team. They don't have the bandwidth in there often overlooked by advertisers.”
Hernandez said that in the first quarter, Mirriad will be making virtual product placement available programmatically.
“It’s going to be a huge game changer for us and the industry as well being able to dynamically serve creatives and be targeted based on the audience,” she said.
