What is Branded Content? One of the strategies used in native Marketing, it involves creating content that promotes a specific brand. It’s often confused with Content Marketing, but today we’re going to show, once and for all, that they are two very different things.
In the following article, learn how this strategy works, why it matters for retail, and how it differs from Content Marketing. Enjoy the read!
What is Branded Content?
No digital campaign is complete without content production. After all, content is one of the main resources campaigns have for building relationships with consumers and delivering messages. Branded Content is one of the types of content a brand can create to promote itself, and its main characteristic is that customers immediately associate it with a company.
This suggests, then, that Branded Content, by definition, makes consumers think of a particular business. But that is basically the role of advertising, so this definition may fall short in some situations.
Because of this, some institutions, such as Forrester, define Branded Content as content that differs from the traditional kind. It can simultaneously generate emotional reactions, like the ones we have when watching TV or going to the movies, while being distributed on a larger scale thanks to its digital nature. So, according to this definition, Branded Content is about reaching customers emotionally and interactively.
There is also a third way to characterize it. This one equates it with all promotional initiatives that change the definition of editorial content. In other words, initiatives that are not a type of traditional advertising, or recognized as such.
Each of the classifications above approaches Branded Content in a different way, which can make it hard for companies to tell whether investing in it is a good deal. That’s why we believe the best way to understand it is to see how it works in practice and get to know some of the biggest success stories involving this strategy.
How does Branded Content work?
We can point to three cases that fully embody the definition of Branded Content, and they will be essential for understanding the benefits of this type of content. For this, we chose three recent and very different campaigns — from Netflix, Honda, and Dove.
Netflix
Branded Content was one of the approaches Netflix chose to promote its original series Orange Is The New Black. The show, which portrays the daily lives of inmates at the Litchfield federal prison in the US, is both a comedy and a drama. That’s why the company chose to promote it through an article in The New York Times.
The Branded Content piece created breaks away from the Content Marketing mold and moves into investigative journalism. Titled “Women Inmates: Why the Male Model Doesn’t Work”, the article published to promote the show’s new season is a long, fascinating editorial, packed with relevant information and including a comprehensive video on the reality of women in prison.
While embracing everything the Netflix brand and the Orange Is The New Black sub-brand stand for, the content gives readers valuable data and prompts reflection. That’s why it fits the Branded Content category, automatically bringing that particular series to consumers’ minds.
Honda
Honda, on the other hand, took a different approach to promote its unicycle, the UNI-CUB. By inviting the band OK Go, known for its imaginative videos, to feature the product in the music video for I Won’t Let You Down, the brand gained exposure without having its name mentioned even once.
The video was viewed by at least 35 million people back in 2014 and was linked to a website that interactively showed how the Honda UNI-CUB worked. Here, then, the brand explores the second concept of Branded Content: creating unconventional pieces that generate an emotional reaction.
Dove
However, no Branded Content case is better known than Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty. After research revealed that only four out of every 100 women describe themselves as beautiful, the brand produced a series of videos showing the gap between perception and reality.
The best known of them shows an artist drawing women based solely on how they describe themselves or on the features mentioned by strangers. The discrepancy between the results showed that these women were far more beautiful than they imagined.
This approach fits the third concept we mentioned earlier. It isn’t traditional advertising or editorial content typically made to sell personal care products. Even so, it drew more than 170 million views on YouTube in its first year, ranking among the three most shared videos on social media and promoting the brand intensely.
How does Branded Content benefit retail?
Now that you understand what makes Branded Content different from Content Marketing, it’s time to learn about its benefits for retail. How can initiatives like these make a brand better known or help it sell more?
The first advantage we can credit to Branded Content is its cost-effectiveness. A business can be seriously hurt if it puts more money into advertising than it sees in returns. However, when it builds a Branded Content campaign that takes into account its consumers’ profile and expectations, it can generate buzz.
This buzz leads to organic sharing on social media and more mentions of a brand — which is definitely a plus.
Another benefit has to do with competition. Standing out is much harder today, and Branded Content can help. It delivers more value than traditional advertising and makes people associate a company with more than just what it sells.
Finally, it’s interactive, not intrusive. Unlike pay-per-click advertising, it reaches customers when they show interest in receiving it. And that makes it very welcome.
Branded Content is an innovation that can help brands achieve better results. But what these types of campaigns will do best for a business is elevate how customers perceive it. In the long run, this will pay off not only in the form of leads, but also in engagement and loyalty.
Did you enjoy learning what Branded Content is? Contact AliceWonders right now and discover how interactivity and creativity can work in a business’s favor!
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