I read somewhere recently that simply mentioning Paris Hilton on a Web site or blog greatly increases the number of hits it gets. So I want to make it clear at the very outset of this article that Paris Hilton is not featured in any way in this article. While Paris Hilton may be appropriate for campy TV shows, there is simply no room for her—for Paris Hilton—in this article, because Paris Hilton simply has no bearing on my topic.

I mention Paris Hilton only to highlight the Google phenomenon and how marketers are using every possible means to be listed higher on this megalithic search engine, which in turn increases their visibility to prospective customers. Marketers pay lots of money to specialists who use a variety of tricks to maximize search engine optimization. Search engines, as we know, are judged on the quality of their searches and the degree of relevancy of the listings.

But there is one technique that many people seem to have ignored—namely, the art of actually being relevant in the first place. If you have something of real value on your site, bloggers will find it and post about it. The higher the value of the content, the more blogs will post and the more sites will link to it.

A case in point is a viral video campaign I worked on (and wrote about for this publication) in 2005, called "The Institute for Backup Trauma," starring John Cleese. Before the video launched, we Googled the term Backup Trauma and found only a couple thousand random links to hospital services. Today on Google, depending on whether "Backup Trauma" is in quotes or not, you get between 12,800 and 2,860,000 search results. The client didn't pay for search engine optimization; it just had a high-quality interactive video experience on its site that people wanted to see and share.

The Live Vault Backup Trauma video is part of a growing trend by marketers to use rich media content on their sites to engage customers with their brands and drive measurable results. It's no secret that consumers are tired of being "targeted" by marketing and as a result are taking evasive action. Skipping past commercials with TiVo is like watching the dying world of traditional advertising flash before your eyes. Many marketers have poured money into Web marketing, but they've been shocked by the skyrocketing cost of banner placement on popular Web sites.

So one part of the solution is to make customers reach for you, using entertaining Web-based content. Which prompts the question, "How do you make successful, entertaining Web content that delivers bottom line results?" Here are some tips.

Have fun

Deep down, most people don't want to work. They just want to bang on the drum all day. As a marketer, you can try to get around this fact, or you can embrace it in order to connect with your customers. People don't want to have their entertainment interrupted by your message. But they will choose to enjoy your marketing if it is entertaining all by itself.

Make the entertainment grow out of the brand

Some people confuse the concepts of brand-driven entertainment and "branded" entertainment. To me, branded entertainment means you've created something that's fun, then you put your brand on it, not unlike painting a logo on a racecar. This could work fine for sponsoring a race, but it doesn't make sense as an interactive Web experience; it's too obvious and superficial.

True brand-driven Web entertainment involves focusing on the core elements that define a brand, then designing the whole experience from scratch to reinforce the brand in fun yet subtle ways.

To do this right, boil down your brand essence to three or four key points, and use them as a kind of filter for all your creative brainstorming. Whether you are making an interactive quiz or video, a promotion, an e-card, or whatever else you dream up, ask yourself this question: After my customer has this experience, will the key attributes of my brand be reinforced in his/her mind? If the answer is no, keep at it until you find the right answer.

Here's a recent example for Dunkin' Donuts. Captains of Industry worked with Dunkin' to create a micro-site called the D Stop (www.dunkindonuts.com/dstop). The site contains a range of brand-driven entertainment content that's designed to engage customers. The Dunkin' Donuts brand is all about great coffee. Customers are understandably fanatical about Dunkin' Donuts coffee, to the point that they've formed a kind of tribe. The Dunkin' brand is a culture all its own, with coffee and other beverages and foods making up an important part of their customers' everyday rituals.

The Captains team visited Dunkin' Donuts stores and saw how people interacted with each other and with the counter staff (we also drank a lot of coffee and ate untold numbers of bagels). We talked with senior Dunkin' managers, and with many customers. This immersion in the Dunkin' brand and culture was the genesis for the Web content.

For example, we created 'Dunkinese' hand gestures, a fun, easy way for Dunkin' Donuts lovers to communicate with each other at a noisy construction site or across a sea of cubicles. One gesture, for example, involved pressing the palms of the hands together, which translates to "Thank goodness we're back in Dunkin' Donuts territory." It's used by coffee lovers who have been traveling outside of areas where there are Dunkin' stores, but have thankfully returned so they can enjoy a decent cup of coffee. The concept also works because every culture has its own unique ways of communicating. Now Dunkin' Donuts culture does, too.

Another good example of content growing out of the brand is the Norelco full-body shaver campaign (www.shaveeverywhere.com). A white-robed guy walks onscreen to talk about why the new Norelco shaver is ideal for men because it helps make a certain body part appear longer. While I haven't seen the product brand document, my guess is that it would read something like: "The cool, high quality 'all over' body shaver for young guys; fun, irreverent, edgy, sexy." Using bananas to talk about extended male genitalia would not exactly fly with the Dunkin' Donuts brand, but it's perfect for Norelco.

To be really engaging, it needs to be interactive

Just having a funny video on a Web site is not enough these days. If people want to watch funny video clips, they can find all they want at youtube.com or a thousand other sites with user-generated content.

Instead, you can use the latest version of Flash to combine the best of video motion pictures with clickable features. You can include branching storylines, "hot spots" within a video that trigger other content on the page, or other elements that put your customers truly in the driver's seat.

You need to recognize that your audience has complete control on the Web, something they really enjoy. Give people a chance to play with the brand, and they'll stick with you longer.

Tell stories

Every brand and product has a story. You need to tell it in fascinating ways, taking advantage of the Internet and broadband so that every desktop computer becomes your storytelling medium.

Perhaps your company has a mascot or icon that could become a lead character. Let's take Hush Puppy shoes, for example. Whenever I think of those shoes, that floppy-eared dog comes to mind. That dog could make for a great character in an online parody of American Idol, with different breeds of "singing" dogs. People could vote online for their favorite performance. Every song sung by the floppy-eared dog could link to a different kind of comfortable shoe, using different musical styles that correspond with shoe styles. This may be a dumb example, but you get the picture.