How often have your brand team and your sales team disagreed on the value of a marketing initiative? While you may see tremendous benefits in increasing your reach and creating positive association, how do you convert that into sales?

We talk about how brand communications influence audiences, particularly how roles in film and television affect your brand, in the product placement and brand integration sections of this site. How and why investing in your brand's image in the world effects your business is an entirely separate topic on its own.

But it is worthwhile discussing the relationship between brand communication and direct or sales communication. It is often said that brand work "rubs off on" direct and sales communications. Just as often, it is hard for businesses to quantify how a little glow from a brand hallo can influence sales.

In campaigns that are integrated with entertainment properties, however, the connection is more than a hallo. There is an obvious difference between an ordinary brand campaign (as valuable as it is) and product entertainment roles. People choose the entertainment content they consume. More than that, they are passionate about it. Further still, entertainment is the cultural center of their lives.

And with digital technology, suddenly your brand investment becomes hardwired to your sales function and audience impressions are converted into customer action:

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