Branded content is among the most misunderstood of all content tactics.
While it’s a distinct approach, it’s easy to confuse it with other paid campaign tactics like native advertising, influencer marketing, or social media ads.
Its non-salesy approach, marked by deeply immersive, entertaining, and educational stories, makes it one of the best vehicles to bridge the gap between awareness and ongoing affinity.
And though it’s often used for brand-building goals like brand awareness, audience engagement, or demand generation, some of the most successful examples make little or no direct mention of the brand or its products and services.
Branded content may not mean what you think it means. But once you understand what it’s all about, you’ll see its significant marketing advantages.
What is branded content?
To understand what branded content entails, let’s start with a summary of the definition offered by the internet’s default dictionary, Wikipedia:
“Branded content is the practice of marketing via the creation of content funded or outright produced by an advertiser… (it is) designed to build awareness by associating (the brand) with content that shares its values.”
As definitions go, it’s a good start. Still, it doesn’t explain what distinguishes branded content from other paid content promotions. And it ignores the tactic’s contribution to lower-funnel marketing goals.
For the record, CMI subscribes to the detailed explanation Robert Rose outlined (based on The Definitive Guide to Strategic Content Marketing):
“Branded content is a content creation tactic, typically produced through a sponsored or paid partnership between the brand and the media, that encourages audiences to engage with the brand based on its entertainment, information, and/or educational value.”
A look at some hallmarks of properly executed branded content campaigns illuminates best practices for the technique and its place in your content marketing mix. The best-branded content campaigns:
- Take an immersive, sensory-driven approach to storytelling. Branded content typically uses rich multimedia (video and audio) formats and can include interactive features. These features enable a more immersive and emotionally resonant experience than text or static images alone.
- Build audience connections through mutual interests and shared values, not sales goals. Great branded content balances entertainment and informational value, making it an ideal format for establishing thought leadership and enhancing brand perception. By exploring issues and ideas about topics of audience interest, branded efforts are more likely to be viewed as trust- and attention-worthy, compared to product- and pitch-driven formats like digital ads.
- Impact marketing goals across multiple funnel stages. These stories can expand reach and capture new audiences’ interest. Yet, they can also drive lower-funnel goals. Research from Advertiser Perceptions found that 31% of brands use the technique to increase product consideration, and 29% use it to drive sales.
- Enable on-the-go engagement. Marketers typically publish branded campaigns across multiple social networks, third-party media properties, and other external platforms. This broad-reaching approach makes it easy for consumers to discover and access the content while engaging in their usual online activities. And the audio and video components make them well-suited to mobile consumption.
- Involve a sponsored or paid media partnership. Brands collaborate with media partners to create and promote content customized to the target media platform’s audience. Co-producing stories with relevant publishers can help your brand’s messages gain traction. It also gives both partners a vested interest in ensuring the content succeeds — a benefit that may not exist with native advertising or when working with paid influencers.
A custom blend of creative appeal and commercial impact
Great branded campaigns create marketing experiences on par with the quality of non-branded content from film studios, TV networks, streaming services, and media outlets.
For instance, the branded content movie Barbie delighted audiences, created a news media frenzy, and generated over $1 billion in revenue worldwide as a traditional feature film. Its emotional resonance, empowering messages, and high-profile promotional partnerships helped relaunch the iconic toy brand for a new generation of prospective customers. Following the film’s success, the brand’s value rose to $720 million, according to Statista data (account required).
Branded content can have a similar impact on B2B consumers. Consider Murder in HR — a fictional true-crime podcast co-produced by Caspian Studios and corporate wellness services provider Gympass (now Wellhub). The series satirizes popular podcasts (Serial, Dr. Death, etc.) with a custom-scripted story about a newly hired HR executive who investigates the death of a co-worker during their corporate retreat.
The brand is subtly and organically integrated into the narrative through the characters’ reflections on the Gympass services employed by the company. A cast of A-list voice talent (including Kate Mara and Brett Gelman, shown in the promo image above) and a storyline designed to resonate with HR professionals elevate the show’s potential to engage Gympass’ target audience.
Content outstanding in your brand’s field
Of course, not all branded campaigns are created alike. Production quality, brand transparency, and consumer appeal vary. The additional time and expense required can make this promotional format unattainable.
Budget and logistics aren’t the only potential barriers to success. You’ll also need to make thoughtful decisions about what brand story to tell, which media to partner with, and whether the potential benefits make it worth the effort.
These carefully crafted campaigns exemplify how to make this technique pay off. While they don’t all follow the official definition to the letter, each strikes a balance between powerful media positioning and compellingly persuasive brand content.
Honda’s Battle of the Bands
Companies often develop branded content around causes and issues that align with their values. For example, Honda Battle of the Bands (HBOB) showcases a celebrated example of the culture at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The campaign is part of the brand’s 30+ year commitment to supporting HBCUs’ legacy of academic excellence.
HBOB is a multifaceted sponsorship highlighting the talents and achievements of HBCU students. Its live performances, which many consider the marching band homecoming event of the year, are hosted on the HBOB stage and broadcast to virtual viewers.
To deepen community reach and engagement before, during, and after the live show, Honda teamed up with the VIVA Creative agency to produce dynamic online content. For the 2023 event, that content included a microsite detailing the annual Honda Campus All-Star Challenge and the brand’s partnership with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, plus 100+ graphic, motion, and video assets for social media.
The brand also collaboratively produced a four-part docuseries in which HBCU marching band members and program leaders share their perspectives on the HBOB experience. Each episode revolves around one of the program’s central themes: home, band, culture, and unity.
In this unity-themed video, for example, Dr. William Hudson Jr., Florida A&M University VP for student affairs and enrollment management, describes the feelings of belonging students experience when seeing someone wearing a shirt from another HBCU. Students from Florida A&M and other HBCUs add their views of the personal, social, and academic benefits they receive from this community.
Lenovo Late Night I.T.
Tech brand thought leadership content is typically text-centric and jargon-heavy. But computer electronics manufacturer Lenovo delivered something different with Late Night I.T., a comedy news program published on industry media site CIO.com and available on YouTube.
The videos cover many of the same topics that Lenovo’s competitors do (data management, blockchain technology, cybersecurity, sustainability, and worker burnout).
But Late Night I.T. stands out for the irreverent, unfiltered spin host Baratunde Thurston and his guests put on these conversations. This approach makes for a more entertaining, accessible, and relatable experience for tech decision-makers.
Viewers can tell immediately that this show provides a fresh take on tech. An episode on mental health in the workplace sets the tone with a no-holds-barred title: Mental Health: Generation Burnt-the-F-Out. The teaser copy doubles down by posing a refreshingly forthright (and valid) question: “Is wellness woven into your digital transformation strategy? Or did you deploy a self-help app and call it a day?”
According to Lenovo’s creative partner StudioNorth, the latest season of Lenovo Late Night I.T. became a cult favorite among customers and garnered praise across the press. Even better: Bloomberg TV picked up the show for an additional two months of airtime.
Knorr Yummy Ks
With the right combination of online and in-person promotions, branded content initiatives can have a tantalizing impact on consumers — and their taste buds.
Consider this example from Unilever-owned food and beverage brand Knorr, which had found itself on the edge of a relevance crisis. Known for its bouillon cubes, dips, sauces, and other recipe-starter ingredients, it struggled to compete in the fast-food, delivery-centric culture embraced by today’s on-the-go young consumers.
This audience may be cash-strapped and time-constrained, yet Knorr recognized they strongly desired uncomplicated and yummy food. In fact, 81% of Gen Z consumers say they have made recipes they discovered on social media. This insight grew into the brand’s 360-degree effort to convince Canadian consumers to trade fast food for “good food, made fast with Knorr.”
Together with Edelman Canada, the brand transformed a home into Yummy Ks — a first-of-its-kind takeout joint and digital delivery service. It also enlisted the help of celebrity Canadian chef (and The Bear cast member) Matty Matheson to design a menu of simple yet delicious dishes inspired by popular TikTok recipes. Customers’ orders were packaged in Knorr-branded boxes with samples of the brand’s recipe ingredients to encourage them to recreate the meals in their kitchens.
A platform of branded online content, out-of-home ads, and social media promos featuring Matty drove the message home. Tik-Tok-style recipe videos and Yummy Ks promos leaned into Matty’s energetic, fast-talking foodie persona.
@mattymatheson I’M HERE AT YUMMY K’S WITH @KNORRCA AT 179 CRAWFORD STREET IN TORONTO AND WE’RE SERVING UP MY TASTE COMBOS! COME GET SOME BBQ CHOPPED CHICKEN SANDWICHES OR CHILLED CHILI SOBA THIS WEEKEND ONLY LET’S GO! #KNORRVSCOMBO #AD ♬ original sound – MATTY MATHESON
Salesforce Salesblazer
Not all branded content efforts conform to the standard, paid digital media approach. For its Salesblazer initiative, for example, Salesforce worked at the opposite end of the content spectrum: Rather than distributing its topically relevant content through a partnership with external media, it developed a distinct content brand that it operates as a media company.
Salesblazer is a multichannel sales career hub. While the platform is subtly Salesforce-branded, the content doesn’t directly promote (or necessarily even mention) the company’s products or service offerings. Instead, it gives sales professionals tools to learn new skills, connect with their peers, and grow more successful careers.
Salesblazer brings sellers together at in-person and virtual events and supports those relationships online with newsletters and website content organized by roles, industry verticals, and topics of interest.
As you can see from the microsite snapshot image below, the hub’s content includes trend-focused articles and expert advice. Community members can also access videos, training, certifications, and a network of industry experts.
Salesblazer embodies the brand’s philosophy that business can be a platform for change. Company representatives report that the program has become the default model for content marketing within Salesforce, helping refocus its efforts toward creating community-centric programs that cater to a specific audience’s needs.
A brand-building pitch audiences can’t wait to catch
These examples show how great branded content campaigns can help build rapport with new target audiences, expand businesses’ creative horizons, or simply entertain and engage the experience-loving masses.
Are you experimenting with this technique? I’d love to hear what it’s helping your brand achieve.
Updated from a September 2022 article.
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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute