As audiences increasingly lean forward into cross-platform content, advertisers need to lean slightly out of the picture to give consumers the control and comfort they covet from brands.

So said Paul Kemp-Robertson, the UK-based co-founder of the media trend-tracking Contagious magazine and website to a Rain 43 agency audience in Toronto.

“The brand doesn’t control content, the audience does,” in today’s evolving world of branded entertainment, he argued.

“The brand is leaning to the side,” Kemp-Robertson added.

The way the British pundit sees it, advertisers need to experiment more with offering consumers projects that tap into social and political causes, rather than offer 12-week buttoned-down ad campaigns that reflect more traditional media.

And he urged marketers to routinely put 5% of their ad budget into risky ventures that potentially punch through to cross-platform audiences.

“Lean out of the frame and give people content they like and can share,” Kemp-Robertson urged.

An example: Shoe seller Foot Locker launched through ad agency SapientNitro an online archive of sneakers entitled Sneakerpedia.

The website, modelled on Wikipedia, enables sneaker-obsessed consumers to search and add shoes, either their own or those of star athletes and entertainers, building up a database as the site evolves.

Foot Locker lets sneaker-freaks know it powers the community space, but not overtly, Kemp-Robertson argued.

“This is a space where the content is created by the audience, by fanatics,” he said.

In another example, South Africa’s low cost Kulula Airlines got into and out of hot water with FIFA during last year’s World Cup soccer tournament through a mock advertising campaign that included the tag-line “Unofficial National Carrier of the You-Know-What.”

FIFA, which guards its World Cup tightly, ordered the airline to halt its marketing campaign.

Responding, Kulula Airlines used traditional and social media to flout FIFA’s diktat, which garnered extensive South African press coverage and free publicity.

“It’s not about you. It’s about them,” Kemp-Robertson told advertisers.

“It’s about congregating around issues and passions and platforms of the audience,” he added, and insinuating a brand into a consumer’s busy life until they feel committed and comfortable with it.

Paul Kemp-Robertson will address the 2011 Future Flash conference in Toronto on Friday.