Peek Freans Lifestyle Selections cookies launched a new web-based soap opera called As the Cookie Crumbles last month, as recent research points to a growing number of women spending time online.

As part of its ‘More than Medication’ initiative, Pfizer Canada launched its first corporate viral film, Graffiti, last month. The 90-second film follows a teen graffiti artist who spray-paints a message in a dark urban alleyway, then comes home to his seriously ill younger sister and pulls back her curtains to reveal his tagged message of hope: ‘Be Brave.’

It ain’t your dad’s advertising. In an age of TiVos, PVRs, time-shifting IPTV and interactive VOD, the battle to keep viewers hooked during that 30-second ad break is no longer about buying consumer attention, but earning it. One way is to meld brand DNA into storylines – an effort that has often been a trivial pursuit as brands fall flat playing producer and starlet. It has, nonetheless, given way to more realistic content plans that marry the best of branded entertainment deals with online potential. ‘The Internet has changed a lot of things,’ says Jeff Spriet, founder of Chokolat, one of Canada’s first branded entertainment companies. ‘We have to start accepting how people are consuming media and find a way to get our message to them in the new reality.’