Branded Content and Entertainment in Advertising: A Theoretical and Empirical Study of Creative Advertising Practices 1032316411, 9781032316413

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1 A Theoretical Approach to Branded Content
Chapter 2 Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies
Chapter 3 Typologies and Formats of Branded Content
Chapter 4 Branded Entertainment Screenwriting: An Examination of Its Creative Writing Resources and Analysis of the Short Films Produced by Estrella Damm ‘Vale’ and ‘The Little Things’
Chapter 5 The Influence of Filmic Storytelling on Branded Entertainment Films
Chapter 6 Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study
Chapter 7 Professionals Involved in the Design, Writing, and Production Process of Branded Entertainment
Conclusions
Index

Citation preview

Branded Content and Entertainment in Advertising In recent years, branded content and entertainment have become standard practice for brands, advertising agencies, and production companies. This volume analyzes branded content through a theoretical and empirical study to examine the factors that have led to exponential growth and the adaptation of creative advertising processes in the creation of branded content. The book debates the suitability and acceptability of branded entertainment as an advertising practice, the different degrees of involvement of the brand in creating content, and the brands’ mastery of entertainment. It explores the implications that may underpin the practice and discusses the necessary creative elements involved in their successful execution, as well as the effects it has on consumers and audiences. This insightful book will be a valuable guide for academics and upper-level students across marketing disciplines, including advertising, brand management and communications, as well as screenwriting. María Rodríguez-Rabadán Benito, Ph.D., is the academic director of the Official Master’s Degree in Communications for Transmedia and Communication, and Communication and Visual Data at UNIR (International University of La Rioja), the leading online university for the Spanish-speaking market. She earned a Ph.D. in Communication and Media Research Studies specializing in Branded Entertainment with International Mention and Cum Laude from Carlos III University in 2019. Her academic career as a professor of branded content includes universities and business schools of international prestige, such as ESCP, IE University Business School, and UAL (University of the Arts London). Her research interests include Branded Content, Branded Entertainment, brand storytelling, advertising, and transmedia communications. María is a Branded Content Research Hub member based in the Media School at the London College of Communication. She is a named academic adviser for the Branded Content Governance Project, funded by ESRC and The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and part of the UK Research and Innovation Department. Professionally, she currently works as a creative producer of branded content at RB brand films (www​.rb​-brandfilms​.com). Before her current achievements, she studied Film, TV, and, New Media at UCLA. She served as CEO of Hero Pictures, a film development fund based in Hollywood, whose writers include Oscar Winner Ronald Bass and Adam Simon. She has worked as a development executive for more than ten years in the US and Spain. She combines her academic and research career with professional creative filmmaking and production expertise.

Routledge Studies in Marketing

This series welcomes proposals for original research projects that are either single or multi-authored or an edited collection from both established and emerging scholars working on any aspect of marketing theory and practice and provides an outlet for studies dealing with elements of marketing theory, thought, pedagogy and practice. It aims to reflect the evolving role of marketing and bring together the most innovative work across all aspects of the marketing ‘mix’—from product development, consumer behaviour, marketing analysis, branding, and customer relationships, to sustainability, ethics and the new opportunities and challenges presented by digital and online marketing. 27. Artificial Intelligence for Marketing Management Edited by Park Thaichon and Sara Quach 28. Sustainable Marketing and Customer Value Edited by Subrata Chattopadhyay, Sundeep Singh Sondhi and Arunava Dalal 29. Religion and Consumer Behaviour Influence of Religiosity and Culture on Consumption Edited by Gaurav Gupta, Mandakini Paruthi and Shivinder Nijjer 30. Corporate Social Responsibility and Marketing Ethics The Effects of Value-Based Marketing on Consumer Behaviour Honorata Howaniec 31. Ethnic Hospitality Marketing Authenticity and Quality Constructions in the Greek Food Industry Elena Chatzopoulou 32. Branded Content and Entertainment in Advertising A Theoretical and Empirical Study of Creative Advertising Practices María Rodríguez-Rabadán Benito For more information about this series, please visit: www​.routledge​.com​/ Routledge​-Studies​-in​-Marketing​/book​-series​/RMKT

Branded Content and Entertainment in Advertising A Theoretical and Empirical Study of Creative Advertising Practices

María Rodríguez-Rabadán Benito

First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 María Rodríguez-Rabadán Benito The right of María Rodríguez-Rabadán Benito to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-032-31641-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-31642-0 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-31068-6 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003310686 Typeset in Bembo by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

Contents

Acknowledgements

vi

Introduction

1

1 A Theoretical Approach to Branded Content

8

2 Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies

30

3 Typologies and Formats of Branded Content

61

4 Branded Entertainment Screenwriting: An Examination of Its Creative Writing Resources and Analysis of the Short Films Produced by Estrella Damm ‘Vale’ and ‘The Little Things’

84

5 The Influence of Filmic Storytelling on Branded Entertainment Films

97

6 Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study

116

7 Professionals Involved in the Design, Writing, and Production Process of Branded Entertainment

152

Conclusions

170

Index

179



Acknowledgements

To Juan Antonio, my wonderful husband, for always offering encouragement, help, and love throughout the writing process and everywhere else in my life. He is a kind person with a heart of gold. To Ines, Alejandro, Isabel, and Miriam, my four beautiful children, who inspire me every day to excel. I dedicate this book to you, which I have written in long evenings and is an example that dreams can come true with passion, work, and perseverance. To my parents and seven siblings who have given me the love and opportunities to be very happy.



Introduction

In recent years we have seen how the practice of branded content has established itself as an alternative to conventional forms of advertising, becoming a communication action with its own characteristics and identity. The global branded content market expects to reach $402 billion worldwide by 2025 (Getfluence 2021). Branded content has become standard practice for brands, agencies, and production companies. ). Its growth in both practice and theory has been exponential in the last decade. Proof of this is the evolution of the branded content award at the Cannes Lions advertising festival. In 2012, the festival created a new category to reward branded content. Campaigns gradually emerged, although there was a lack of mastery of the technique. In 2015, the branded entertainment category did not have a winner. According to Marke Fortner, the organization’s jury, the campaigns submitted did not show an integration of the brand or product with the story, or a natural association of the brand with the material (Grinta 2017). In 2016, the festival renamed the ‘branded content & entertainment’ category leaving only the term entertainment. Currently, the published shortlist has more than 60 campaigns that are candidates for the various awards in this category (Adobo Magazine 2022). The first publications on branded content started a decade ago. Since 2012, scientific publications have been emerging gradually as a result of factors such as digital transformation in the area of advertising and entertainment, which has motivated a boom in this practice: Regueira (2012), Nelli (2012), Moyano (2015), Bermejo-Berros (2015), Grinta (2017), Pereira (2018), and Hardy (2022) among others. These authors delve into the birth of branded content, its definitions, and general characteristics. In addition, researchers express their interest in continuing new studies on the contents that this technique proposes, how it presents brand values and how it can build an emotional bond with the viewer through entertainment, as indicated by Bermejo-Berros (2015). In the 21st century, in all its media and formats in both online and offline environments, advertising adopts a less intrusive, more natural, and involving philosophy with the consumer. Consumers are participants in the so-called convergence culture (Jenkins 2006) where all stories are told, brands are sold, and the consumer is courted DOI: 10.4324/9781003310686-1

2 Introduction

across multiple platforms. Convergence implies the merging of media industries and the migration of audiences from one screen to another in search of the content they want. This research undertakes convergence as the intersection of media and information technology systems that until now have been viewed autonomously. Watching television on the Internet, distributing the same content on different platforms, and experiencing transmedia universes connected through different media are some of the experiences of this so-called convergence (Scolari 2013). Convergence describes the technological change we have undergone in the last 30 years. Internet access and the free circulation of content have caused large media groups to lose control of broadcasting. The consumer becomes an active participant in creation. This technological change, in turn, gives rise to a cultural change in how viewers consume content and the way media and brands present information. For Jenkins (2006), consumers are part of the participatory culture creating a collective culture; we, as part of society, do not know everything, but we can share our knowledge and interact. The digital environment and mobile devices allow users to migrate from one channel to another and become prosumers. Today, any individual can create their own entertainment channel, produce their own movies, music, or video games, share them on social networks and be their distributor. Establishing a conversation with the audience uses this approach and the invitation to participate. Advertisers in this era must transform their strategies to encompass tactics that include various online and offline media and actions of differing kinds to convey a much more complex, but at the same time more exciting, message based on attraction and not intrusion. Thus, the digital revolution paradigm means integrating the two worlds; the analog and the digital. The Internet offers brands a high capacity for affinity and micro-segmentation, wide coverage, measurement tools to quantify the return on investment, and an infinite amount of data on the behaviour of Internet users on the network (Del Pino-Romero, Castelló-Martínez, and Ramos Soler 2013). These characteristics make the online environment an indispensable communication channel for advertisers, considering its superb flexibility of formats: ‘New media technologies have made it possible for the same content to flow through very different channels and assume very different forms at the point of reception’ (Jenkins 2006, p.22). Advertisers become content generators, transforming content according to viewing media and providing content accessible on all devices. The traditional narrative merges with the new form of content consumption. Advertisers change the way they interact with audiences through the option of content generation by the user, and innovation through new hybrids and content formats that can bring together different media such as transmedia narratives. It is not about offering a closed story but about opening doors to narrative universes: ‘Transmedia narratives are a particular narrative form that expands across different systems of signification (verbal, iconic, audio-visual, interactive, etc.)

Introduction  3

and media (cinema, comics, television, video games, theater, etc.)’ (Scolari 2013, p.24). Convergence represents the interdependence of communication systems, the option to access content from various platforms in an organic flow between the consumer and corporate media. This paradigm shift gives new power to the consumer who chooses, changes, and blocks the content he/she consumes. In convergence culture, the branded content formula allows a natural approach between advertiser and audience through entertainment. According to the PWC study (2013), Internet users expect to receive media and entertainment content on different mobile platforms where and when they want. The consumer is at the centre and demands relevant and interesting content that deserves their attention as they can avoid advertising due to the control they have over devices and content consumption. According to data from Scopen and BCMA Spain (2017), ‘digital is the medium most associated with branded content’ (p.22). The advertiser must be present in this new digital environment and gain the consumer’s interest through quality. Brands, participants in this convergence culture, do not necessarily need to buy space in the leading media to advertise their products, but, instead, organizations can generate and own their own media channel themselves, as Red Bull does, a company that has its television channel through its website, or the Nestlé TV channel with six thematic channels on television on demand (Nestlé 2009). This approach must be sufficiently attractive for the consumer to migrate from other content to the original content proposed by the brand. We currently live in an on-demand society and economy where mobile applications and multimedia environments are part of our lives and offer solutions to many of our needs. Consumer habits are evolving very rapidly. Internet platforms, such as Apple’s iTunes Store, Netflix, Google Play, or Amazon Prime, are finding ways to monetize their content. Consumers have, at their fingertips, the ability to block access to unwanted ads and banners and enjoy videos, articles, apps, music, and interaction for free. Advertising faces the challenge of awakening a receiver overloaded with information, saturated with messages, and alienated by the offer of objects (Eguizábal 2007); a question that is still valid as Chun (2018) warns about the dangers of information saturation in the consumer. The new habits of information obesity make it impossible to process the infinite amount of messages, which then leads to the indifference of the viewer. Advertisers must change their approach and the discourse they employ to get the attention of a new empowered user. Audiences have more information at their fingertips and are experts in coding advertising messages. Audiences are active: they participate in the information society through their opinions and generate content through blogs, social networks, videos, or podcasts. In addition, users are part of communities related to trends, hobbies, tastes, politics, or any other field, an aspect that generates a collective intelligence more democratic and as powerful as traditional media.

4 Introduction

The starting point for strategies is not the brand or the product; the protagonist is the end consumer. The user is no longer an option but an obligation. Convergence facilitates the accessible functions of new technologies, but the centre remains the consumer whose way of consuming content is multi-screen and interactive, present and multidimensional (Del Pino-Romero, CastellóMartínez, and Ramos Soler 2013). The dizzying pace of developed societies and the supply of available content focus agencies’ efforts in competing for the consumer’s attention. We are entering the era of the Attention Economy, ‘where some offer time and others demand it’ (Núñez 2007, p.63). Bassat (2004) summarized advertising as ‘the art of convincing consumers’ (p.33). However, first of all, in order to convince the consumer, brands must be able to capture the user’s attention. The most valuable asset is to get the audiences’ attention and keep their active interest (Martí 2010). According to the IAB trends report (2019), 6 out of 10 users consider that quality content brings a higher value than the platform on which they find it. Therefore, the present and future are not focused on producing more messages but on offering higher-quality ones. The new consumer is much more demanding and selective with their time. Therefore, brands must make an effort to establish medium- and long-term links with them by offering exciting and engaging content experiences. According to the IAB, the content marketing strategy gains importance and must be intelligent, creative, relevant, and immersive where the consumer is the centre of attention. For Scolari (2013), liquid audiences have become atomized, and viewers spread across different screens, in times and places according to the user’s convenience, where new forms of storytelling such as transmedia narratives can re-integrate audiences. Branded entertainment can use these new narratives to offer a universe of complementary content to the viewer, taking advantage of the possibilities offered by digital platforms. Large media organizations must reorganize their production and advertising space sales’ activities in a new way of understanding content. Under this new viewer behaviour, brands can transform their intrusive discourse into content adapted to this new way of consuming entertainment: ‘Broadcasting audiences were media-centered while now they have become narrative-centered’ (Scolari 2013, p.222). In this situation of information oversupply, brands face a selective consumer who is an expert in encoding advertising messages. The differentiating tool available to advertisers is not the product itself but the brand values associated with the product, the relationship brands can establish over time. The strategy revolves around addressing the message towards engagement (Aguilera and Baños 2016). According to recent data from IAB (2019), more than ever, content is gaining in importance and becoming the centre of marketing strategies. New professionals are undertaking the creation of branded content as specialists to provide value for the user and not so much to create an advertising message

Introduction  5

in itself. Specifically, this report places the branded content technique as a strength in the face of advertising saturation and consumer disinterest due to constant interruption: ‘Non-disruption is one of the great strengths of branded content’ (Content Scope 2018, p.5). Although companies must expand the resources needed to include professionals and restructure teams, it facilitates better brand building for the medium and long term. Pereira (2018) points out that investments in branded entertainment usually materialize between six months and two years, so this strategy becomes a medium- and long-term plan. This volume analyzes branded content from a theoretical and empirical study to tease out the factors that have led to the exponential growth of this practice in recent years and the adaptation of creative advertising processes to implement this type of action in the creation of branded content. This book addresses the main issues related to advertising theories and practices that directly affect branded content and, consequently, branded entertainment, specifically paying particular attention to the audio-visual fiction line. As shown by López (2015) and Sociograph (2021), branded content in its fiction format in series, television, and other audio-visual formats is best-valued by advertisers and agents. Research identifies some branded content advantages: it provides value, creates a link with the viewer, and generates entertainment. The first objective of this research is to offer a holistic view of branded entertainment, understood as a hybrid between the disciplines of Marketing understood as a ‘process by which companies create value for customers and build strong relationships with customers to obtain value from them in return’ (Kotler and Armstrong 2008, p.6) and Communication Sciences considering this discipline as the art of transmitting information, ideas, and attitudes from one person to another (using the techniques of Advertising and Audiovisual Communication). The volume starts from this new approach, a hybrid of two disciplines, to find the points that make this practice unique. This research presents branded content typologies, understanding them as those experiences that seek a specific purpose, grouped by shared characteristics depending on the use that brands make of them (Lorán and Cano 2018). Chapter 2 analyzes educational, informative, entertaining, and purposeful branded content. It also examines the platforms and formats available in the creation of such content. According to the platform created by BCMA, branded content formats are editorial, audio-visual, sound, experiential, and interactive digital formats (Foco 2022). Once a conceptual framework has been given, Chapter 3 explores a classification of branded content typologies and formats available such as novels, websites, short films, reality TV shows, radio music programmes, podcasts, exhibitions, virtual reality, social media threads, interactivities, video games, apps, and plays, among others. Chapter 4 examines the expressive resources of the script to see how brands present their essence as the axis of the story in a branded entertainment audiovisual narrative action.

6 Introduction

In Chapter 5, this volume presents a compendium of theory and practice that proposes how the brand is integrated with the narrative (theme, conflict, plot, characters, genre, and structure) to include the brand values. Chapter 6 empirically analyzes the results of a qualitative study conducted with experts on the process of writing branded entertainment. From the given bases, the chapter covers several international reference case studies to examine the brand’s behaviour in creating a branded content piece based on practical examples. Chapter 7 investigates the state of the art of multidisciplinary work teams involved in creating branded content in a changing work environment facing a new communication paradigm. What competencies must they acquire, what skills must a branded content expert demonstrate, and what type of company hires a branded content expert? This chapter opens the debate on the implications that may underlie this practice of branded entertainment in terms of the process of content creation and who are the agents in charge of the tasks of design, writing, production, and distribution of content. In summary, this work aims to provide value to understand the favourable context for adopting branded content and branded entertainment practices. It discusses the necessary creative elements, the main agents involved in the execution process of these campaigns, and the optimal methodologies in the ideation and creation of a branded entertainment campaign.

Bibliography Adobo Magazine. (2022). Retrieved from https://bit​.ly​/3hgK5yV. Aguilera, J., Baños, M., & Ramírez-Perdiguero, J. (2015a). Branded entertainment: Entertainment content as marketing communication tool. A study of its current situation in Spain. Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 70, 519–538. Recuperado el 1 de junio de 2019 de http://bit​.do​/e8cCt. Aguilera, J., & Baños, M. (2016). Branded entertainment. Cuando el branded content se convierte en entretenimiento. Pozuelo de Alarcón: ESIC. Bassat, L. (2004). El libro rojo de la publicidad. Barcelona: Plaza & Janés. Bermejo-Berros, J. (2015). A classification of branded entertainment based on psychological levels of processing. [Una clasificación del Branded Entertainment basada en los distintos procesos psicológicos]. En J. Martí, C. Ruiz-Mafe, & L. Scribner (Eds.), Engaging consumers through branded entertainment and convergent media. [Involucrando a los consumidores a través del Branded Entertainment y los Medios Convergentes]. (pp. 22–53) Hershey, PA: IGI Global. Del Pino-Romero, C., Castelló-Martínez, A., & Ramos-Soler, I. (2013). La comunicación en cambio constante: Branded content, community management, comunicación 2.0, Estrategia en Medios Sociales. Madrid: Editorial Fragua. Eguizábal, R. (2007). Teoría de la Publicidad. Madrid: Cátedra. Foco. (2022). Retrieved from https://foco​.bcma​.es​/plataforma​-de​-contenidos/. Getfluence. (2022). Retrieved from https://bit​.ly​/3Y4I3mf. Grinta, E. (2017). Branded entertainment. La rivoluziones del settore marcom inizia da qui. [Branded entertainment. La revolución del sector de las comunicaciones de marketing empieza aquí]. Milán: FrancoAngeli. Hardy. (2022). Branded content. The fateful merging of media and marketing. New York: Routledge.

Introduction  7 IAB. (2019). Top tendencias digitales 2018. Retrieved from http://bit​.do​/e8cGY. Jenkins, H. (2006). La cultura de la convergencia de los medios de comunicación. Convergence Culture. (Hermida, P., trad) Barcelona: Paidos. Kotler, Jr. P., & Armstrong, G. (2008). Principios de marketing (12th ed.). (Moreno López, Yago, Trad). Madrid: Pearson Educación. Loran Herrero, D., & Cano Gómez, P. (2018). La comunicación audiovisual en la empresa. Barcelona: UOC. Martí, J. (2010). Funny marketing. Consumidores, entretenimiento y comunicaciones de marketing en la era del branded entertainment. Madrid: Wolters Kluwer. Nelli, R. (2012). Branded content marketing. Un nuovo approccio alla creazione di valore. [Branded content marketing. Una nueva aproximación a la creación de valor]. Milan: Vita e Pensiero. Nestle. (2009). Recuperado del sitio. Retrieved from http://bit​.do​/e8g4Q. Núñez, A. (2007). ¡Será mejor que lo cuentes! Los relatos como herramientas de comunicación. Storytelling. Barcelona. Empresa Activa. Pereira, J. (2018). The art of branded entertainment. [El arte del Branded Entertainment]. Londres: Peter Owen. PWC. (2013). 2013 deal insights for the entertainment, media and communication industries. Recuperado el 1 de abril de 2019 del sitio Web de PWC: www​.pwc​.com​/ us​/deals. Regueira, J. (2012). El contenido como herramienta eficaz de comunicación de marca. Análisis teórico y empírico. Tesis doctoral. Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, España. Recuperado el 25 de octubre de 2013, del sitio Web de URJC: http://bit​.do​ /e8g5S. Scolari, C. (2013). Narrativas transmedia. Cuando todos los medios hablan. Barcelona: Centro Libros. Sociograph. Marketing science consulting (9 de abril, 2021). Branded Content Marketing Association. Retrieved from https://bit​.ly​/2ZWRzOO.

1

A Theoretical Approach to Branded Content

Towards a Definition of Branded Content It seems essential to make a journey through the most significant meanings referring to the term branded content in order to be able to construct a definition that responds to the object of study present in this research. Second, this study delimits the framework of branded content due to different interpretations and theories since there are several interpretations and theories on the subject. In Spain, the Branded Content Commission of IAB Spain (2022) defines this practice as: The creation of relevant, entertaining, or interesting content, with a nonadvertising aspect, generated by a brand to create an audience and connect with it. The content implicitly communicates the values associated with the brand, although the brand takes a back seat. Ortiz (2016, p.9) This author’s appreciations are relevant since he frames branded content within the scope of advertising but, simultaneously, with a ‘non-advertising aspect.’ This definition is broad and allows its application to different formats. Recently, the BCMA, based in the UK, decided to study with Oxford Brookes University and Ipsos MORI to present a precise and current definition of the branded content concept at an international level. This study by Asmussen et al. (2016) considers literature reviews and interviews with experts to develop a definition of branded content to clarify it for the industry. This concern responds to the need to seek consensus and approximation of using different nomenclatures (branded content or branded entertainment, mainly) that in some schools of thought respond to the same technique while others offer essential differences. As a result of the study, this study presents two approaches to the definition of branded content. First, from a holistic and global perspective, branded content is understood as ‘an external tangible or intangible manifestation associated with a particular brand in the eyes of the viewer’ (p.10). Following this definition, it underlines DOI: 10.4324/9781003310686-2

A Theoretical Approach to Branded Content  9

the particularity that the brand may or may not have control over during the creation and/or distribution of content related to that brand. Nelli (2012) agrees, pointing out his concern for those who see branded content as content that is not exclusively originated and created by the brand but may come from other sources. Under this premise, branded content producers could be not only brands but also brand insiders, consumers for or against the brand, or other external agents. Second, Asmussen et al. (2016) offer a definition applied to professional practice: From a managerial perspective, branded content is any output fully/partly funded or at least endorsed by the legal owner of the brand which promotes the owner’s brand values, and makes audiences choose to engage with the brand based on a pull logic due to its entertainment, information and/or educational value. Asmussen et al. (2016, p.34) From this practical point of view, the brand generally initiates this action; creates, finances, and owns the content. Therefore, this second theory departs from the holistic approach where brands indicate branded content actions. This theory does not mean that other agents outside the control of the brand could not create content collaboratively. However, such participation of agencies, production companies, and content distributors, among others, do not have the majority of control. Nelli (2012) agrees with this approach. The author describes a second ‘more restrictive’ current of thought (p.7), which considers branded content to be the content only produced in an original way by the company and according to the values of its brand, where the essence of the product takes on greater prominence. ‘This expression is adopted from French operators who tend to define it properly with the expression branded content to distinguish it from existing content with which the brand is associated’ (p.7). This volume undertakes the second approach where the brand controls and leads the creation, as it is the general rule in professional practice. On many occasions, the brand proposes branded content and offers the opportunity to other external agents and even audiences to participate in the creation of content around that action. In this way, the brand controls the values and the message that emerges from the main piece of branded content and content around it. Nelli (2012) classifies branded content as informative, educational, and entertainment-driven, ‘even though these typologies are the result of an original realization, or product integration within the delivery’ (p.6). These actions offer a strong association and integration with the brand values. Several authors offer a definition in this current thought; below is a table showing the various definitions.

10  A Theoretical Approach to Branded Content

Numerous concepts related to branded content include content marketing, branded entertainment, and product placement. This chapter tries to clarify the different statements and offer precision. There is some controversy around branded content taxonomy due to the diversity of points of view and novelty. The following is a list of the most relevant definitions of branded content and branded entertainment collected by Nelli (2012) since, according to the literature reviewed, he is one of the first theoreticians interested in correctly defining each statement.​ For Del Pino-Romero, Castelló-Martínez, and Ramos-Soler (2013), branded content encompasses all forms of communication as long as a story is used as a vehicle to convey the message: Branded content is a discipline integrated into all forms of communication. Brands can harness the power of stories and impact the consumer: by moving them to generate a desire but in a subtle, indirect way, changing the perception and managing, in many cases, to generate an emotional thread that is supposed to be the most valuable intangible that this advertising format has. Del Pino-Romero, Castelló-Martínez, and Ramos-Soler (2013, p.21) As a complement to this definition, Castelló-Martínez (2014) again mentions branded content in his scientific advances, where they separate branded content into two variants: informative or entertainment:

Table 1.1 Definitions of Branded Content and Branded Entertainment Concept

Definition

Source

Branded Also called branded content and Madison + Association of entertainment and Vine, it is the convergence of advertising National branded content. and the entertainment industry, where Advertisers the brand message is integrated into (2005). an appropriate context as part of the interaction. It is more than a product placement, where the product may be visually present, but not argued. Branded content and It is the creation, or organic integration, of Cannes Festival entertainment. original content by a brand. The goal is of Creativity to deliver brand messages to consumers (2012). engagingly via relevant content platforms rather than traditional advertising media. It could be done by creating original content or by naturally integrating the brand into existing programming resulting from a partnership with a publisher or media partner. From Nelli (2012, p.7).

A Theoretical Approach to Branded Content  11

branded content generally consists of information and/or entertainment pieces with audiovisual content in whose production the brand is behind. In other words, branded content actions are at the brand’s service from the moment of conception, although the brand does not always have an explicit presence. Castelló-Martínez (2014, p.7) The statements by Castelló-Martínez (2014) agree with Regueira (2014) in pointing out that there is branded content of an informative, educational, and entertainment nature, which seems essential as a basis for establishing the scope of this technique. However, the terminology content marketing and branded entertainment is misleading and open to interpretation. Valiquette (2013) refers to entertainment content omitting the informative or educational nature of branded content. Regueira offers a definition that summarizes the essence of the technique: branded content is “content generated from and around a brand,” and he specifies that he understands branded entertainment and its synonym advertainment as a ‘sub-form of branded content’ (Regueira (2014, pp.327–328). Regueira (2014) analyzes different conceptions of branded content from academic and professional sources, summarized below.​ Martí, Ruiz-Mafe, and Scribner (2015) argue that branded entertainment is used more frequently in the academic world, while the same practice is referred to as branded content in the professional environment. This study suggests that branded content can respond to broad action strategies, not necessarily entertainment, coinciding with the theory developed by Del Pino-Romero, Table 1.2 Definitions of Branded Content Concept

Definition

Branded Content.

Content can be entirely produced, financed and Tuomi (2010). controlled by a brand (…). Branded Content (branded entertainment) is a brand-based entertainment vehicle that becomes a significant, if not inherent, part of the output. This tool’s purpose is to provide relevant content, Duncan (2013). whether it is informative or entertaining. It attracts and maintains the attention of its target audiences, overcoming their natural resistance to advertising; under the premise that a positive experience with the content will generate positive feelings towards the brand that has made it possible. TV shows, series, or fiction films in which a drama, Valiquette comedy, or miniseries revolves around a product or (2013). brand.

Branded Content.

Branded Content.

From Regueira (2014, p.327–328).

Source

12  A Theoretical Approach to Branded Content Table 1.3 Branded Content Definitions Concept

Definition

Source

Branded Content. Branded Content. Branded Content.

Where advertisers create or distribute entertainment to communicate with their consumers. The integration of a product in an appropriate context.

BCMA (2005). ANA (2005).

Fusion of advertising and entertainment into a marketing Horrigan communication product that is integrated into the (2009). overall strategic plan of an organization, and it is distributed as high-quality entertainment content.

From Martí, Ruiz-Mafe, and Scribner (2015, pp.1–4) Chapter 1.

Castelló-Martínez, and Ramos-Soler (2013) and Regueira (2014). However, other academics such as Martí, Ruiz-Mafe, and Scribner (2015), do not go so far as to explicitly describe branded entertainment as a sub-form of branded content. For now, we focus on the term branded content and its definition, highlighting its different approaches and variations, but without deviating from our central focus of study on the search for a general definition of branded content. In the review of existing definitions of branded content created by Martí, Ruiz-Mafe, and Scribner (2015), it stands out that integrating the brand into the content is the central concept. This idea supports the theories and definitions by other authors cited in this work.​ In these definitions, branded entertainment terminology is more relevant than branded content. However, it does not seem to identify informative and educational distinctions as possible within a content strategy. According to Martí, Ruiz-Mafe, and Scribner (2015), it is essential to add that branded content offers a total integration between brand and content and is not partial to other techniques such as product placement analyzed in this research. Branded content arises from the brand, and it is the content that merges with the value, theme, or principles that the company wishes to highlight; therefore, brands should achieve an organic and natural integration rooted from the beginning to end in each element of the content. Aguilera, Baños and Ramírez-Perdiguero, (2015a) follows the thesis of Regueira (2014), who includes informative and entertainment content within the typologies of branded content. This author adds a new typology: education. ‘Branded content refers to all content generated by and around a brand whose content can be informative, educational and entertaining’ (p.523). Asmussen et al. (2016) also include the educational nature of this practice. Regarding the types of branded content, Moyano identifies branded content as ‘the denominator of the whole category; that is, the one in which the brand creates and produces its content’ (p.523).

A Theoretical Approach to Branded Content  13

Both Regueira (2014) and Moyano (2015a) call the category of branded content applied to informative and/or educational content—content marketing. The UK’s Branded Content Association BCMA replies to this controversy around this new association of branded content and content marketing. It seems that they respond to the same concept and are interchangeable ‘Branded content is the deliverable-the actual final asset that you’ve worked on—Content Marketing is the discipline, so, it’s the process of how you got the stage to deliver that content’ (Asmussen et al. 2016, p.18). This study follows BCMA’s theory in Asmussen et al. (2016) in the approach towards a definition of branded content, using the term content marketing for the discipline nomenclature and not as a specific tool. It seems relevant to distinguish each of the terms in-depth. For this reason, this volume dedicates a section to evaluating the different currents of thought around the term branded content and content marketing in academic and professional circles. In conclusion, after a chronological analysis of the leading international theories in Europe and North America on branded content, this research brings the following description given the latest findings in research and professional practices. Branded content is born as a non-traditional advertising communication strategy for creating informative, educational, entertainment, and purpose-driven content, mainly originated by the brand. Such content fully integrates the brand’s values and provides a relevant experience for the consumer without necessarily seeking an immediate purchase stimulus. Branded content is provided to consumers for free or a fee. It is delivered through traditional or digital channels in all forms of communication (text, images, videogame, audio, art, new technologies, or through a live experience). Hudson and Hudson (2006) place this technique in the branch of Advertising. These two authors are considered pioneers in distinguishing differences between product placement, other hybrid types of brand integration, and branded content, which is analyzed below. This project considers branded content mainly based on two pillars: Marketing and Communication Sciences. This research takes this new approach as a starting point, a hybrid of two different disciplines, to find the points that make this practice so unique. Branded content needs the knowledge of marketing, which is essential in the strategic development and branding for all phases of planning, execution, and measurement of branded content actions. The theoretical corpus considers the discipline of Advertising, Marketing, Branding, the narrative applied to branding, and the different expressive resources of the film script to argue the discourse.

14  A Theoretical Approach to Branded Content

Brands opt for branded content as an alternative to traditional advertising, as the phenomenon that generates branded content is to get the consumer to assimilate the brand and integrate it as part of their beliefs (Savar 2013). However, branded content is not persuasive and does not have the purpose of provoking the desire to purchase a product in a short-term period. The definition encompasses informational, educational, entertainment, and purpose-driven content. In this way, it follows the BCMA’s line of thought. It does not interfere with the definition provided by the North American CMA Content Marketing Association, which claims the definition of content marketing as a theoretical discipline of study and not a particular technique. The definition provided on this page tries to add two main characteristics that distinguish it from other more intrusive advertising strategies. Under this approach, providing valuable and built medium- and long-term links is relevant. Unlike other advertising techniques that seek an immediate reaction of value, Nelli (2012) stresses that ‘one cannot lose sight of the innovation that underlies the new concept of branded content marketing which is the creation of value’ (p.5). Finally, the goal of bringing a definition tries to shed light on how such content is delivered. This chapter examines numerous definitions that refer to entertainment or audio-visual formats. However, it is necessary to clarify that content can manifest itself in all communication formats, whether textual, visual, auditory, artistic, technological, experiential, or audio-visual. Attribution according to the classifications included in their texts by Martí (2010), Nelli (2012), and Grinta (2017). In the following pages, this research seeks to delimit the meaning of other definitions around the idea of branded content like content marketing and branded entertainment to place them in a coherent ecosystem and consider the different theories on which to base our thesis. The authors del Hoyo and Molano (2020, p.65) called branded content ‘a new advertising concept in the digital age, following a generalized discrediting of conventional advertising.’ Their study examines the current debate on the boundary between advertising and branded content. In their argument, the authors point out that progressively conventional advertising gave way to the technique of product placement until branded content emerged. Finally, this new multidisciplinary advertising sub-language has emerged with such force that it has detached itself from its matrix and become independent in its own right.

Branded Entertainment Martí (2010) describes branded entertainment as ‘cinema, radio, television, books (…) Internet, plays, musicals … there is no medium or genre of entertainment that cannot be used as a vehicle for branded entertainment’ (p.32).

A Theoretical Approach to Branded Content  15 Table 1.4 Branded Entertainment Definitions Concept

Definition

Branded Entertainment.

The insertion of a brand into an entertainment Moore (2006). property (e.g., product placement in a film, TV show, or video game). The integration of advertising within Hudson and entertainment content where brands Hudson participate in narratives of films, television (2006). programmes, and other entertainment media. Embed brand messages in media-oriented Wise et al., entertainment content. (2008).

Branded Entertainment. Branded Entertainment.

Source

From Martí, Ruiz-Mafe, and Scribner (2015, pp.1–4) Chapter 1.

Branded entertainment is intrinsic to the development of entertainment content and revolves around the parameters of branded content. Martí, Ruiz-Mafe, and Scribner (2015) gather some of the most significant definitions of branded entertainment since the beginning of interest in the subject and its first flourishing in the industry; between 2006 and 2008. In these presentations, branded entertainment seems to be identified only with entertainment content, leaving aside informative and/or educational content as a possibility within a branded content strategy. The following table summarizes the most relevant definitions.​ Branded entertainment is based on strategic alliances between advertisers and entertainment companies and follows the parameters of the content strategy of the branded content technique. The aim is to contextualize the brand image in such an attractive way that consumers will include this content as part of their interests (Spurgeon 2008). In this context, the Event Marketing Institute includes numerous formats as variants of branded entertainment: Strategic and programmatic use of relevant entertainment content as a primary focus to attract, engage and influence target groups. A well-executed branded entertainment program should include content in multiple formats to build lasting relationships with audiences, including TV shows, films, video games, web programming, mobile apps, and social media content. Event Marketing Institute (2009, p.5) Spanish researchers who have carried out more recent studies on branded entertainment, such as Regueira (2014) and Moyano (2015), agree in placing branded entertainment as a specialty within the branded content strategy dedicated to entertainment content.

16  A Theoretical Approach to Branded Content

This volume’s current of thought agrees with del Hoyo and Molano (2020), who, regarding branded entertainment, state: This concept combines two concepts: Advertising and Entertainment. The very hybridization of the term is a declaration of intent to highlight one of the main conclusions of this study: branded content is not a format in itself but a communication strategy and, as such, it can apply to all types of media: cinema, radio series, podcasts, tweets. Roger del Hoyo and Molano (2020, p.74) In conclusion, branded entertainment is the expression of branded content taken to the field of entertainment content in all types of communications, formats, and platforms.

Content Marketing and Branded Content The CMA defines content marketing as the discipline of creating quality branded content actions across all available media platforms and channels to build engagement with consumers, create value, and establish measures of success for brands (CMA 2013). This research starts from the basis of this definition as there is a great deal of confusion in the terminology used to differentiate the two practices. Asmussen et al. (2016) differentiate content marketing as the discipline that encompasses branded content and details six phases that make it up: Developing an understanding of the audience’s needs, wants, interests and/or passions. Developing an understanding of and being in line with the brand’s core values, reasons for being and positioning. Clarifying the (marketing) objectives that branded content should achieve for the brand’s legal owner and the subsequent strategy. Creating engaging branded content, for example, through high quality, transparency, interactivity and compelling narratives. Developing and implementing multi-channel distribution and promotion for branded content. Measuring and evaluating the success of branded content and content marketing. Asmussen et al. (2016, pp.20–24) This study supports the idea of identifying content marketing as a theoretical discipline. On the other side, branded content responds to a specific technique delivered in informative, educational, purpose-driven, and entertainment typologies. This approach is fundamental to talking about its nature and characteristics.

A Theoretical Approach to Branded Content  17

However, there are other approaches to the term content marketing that either try to eliminate the term branded content or equate the term content marketing or branded content, creating, in our opinion, confusion. The American Content Marketing Institute (CMI) founder, Pulizzi (2015), published a very controversial article in the industry. In his paper, he proposed eliminating the term branded content despite the widespread use of the term in industry and academia. Pulizzi argued that brands were taking advantage of the term, and under the guise of using narrative, they were still talking about themselves, using a saturated load of product placement and detracting from the use of editorial content relevant to the consumer. For Pulizzi (2011), content marketing means creating elaborate content for a target group of consumers, focusing on all phases of the buying process. According to this analysis, Pulizzi replaces the term branded content with content marketing. On the CMI website (2019), content marketing is defined as: Content marketing responds to a marketing strategy focused on creating and distributing relevant, valuable, and consistent content to attract and retain an identified audience and ultimately produce a consumer action that delivers value for money. CMI (2019) Under this analysis, this research highlights that theory and practice go hand in hand and offer no distinction in terminology between discipline and practice or differentiated typologies between informational, educational, or entertainment content as other sources indicate. Rahim and Clemens (2012) consider content marketing, branded content, and custom publishing as synonyms for the same concept. Regueira (2014) disagrees with this categorization as he relates custom publishing to content marketing but in no way equates it with branded content. Content Marketing is a modern and sophisticated version of Custom Publishing. At the same time, the latter is a specialty that deals with business publications (magazines, guides, books); traditionally printed, Content Marketing was created to deal with the multiplicity of new media and channels. Regueira (2014, p.336) Regueira (2014) includes in his definition variants of content that can help to situate branded content in its different typologies (informative, educational, and entertainment), but his definition, understood as a technique, equates the creation of informative branded content to the technique of content marketing without expressing a clear differentiation between theoretical discipline and advertising practice, as we quote below. Content marketing is a marketing technique consisting of the creation and distribution of relevant, valuable, and compelling content. Brands distribute it

18  A Theoretical Approach to Branded Content

through their own and earned media to attract, acquire, educate, and seduce customers and prospects. Content can be informative and/or educational, and, although it does not make any sales proposal or call to action, it aims to promote a beneficial action for the brand by the customer and/or prospect (Regueira 2014, p.333). Moyano (2015) seconds this line of thought in which he equates content marketing as informative or educational branded content and defines branded entertainment as amusement. From this division, Aguilera and Baños (2016) clarify that informative or educational branded content is usually broadcast in their own and/or earned media, while branded entertainment allows such content to be broadcast not only in their own and/or earned media, but also in third-party channels through direct or indirect payment. Aguilera and Baños (2016) identify content marketing as: • • • • •

it is content created/produced by the brand (therefore, a type of branded content) it is content of an informative and educational nature (it is not entertainment content but, in some cases, entertaining content) the subject matter of the content is about the product/service, the brand/ company, or the category/sector in which they compete it is primarily digital (except for a part of their activities, which are print and are recognized as custom publishing) it is produced in owned media, both online and offline, and in earned media, never in paid media (Aguilera and Baños 2016, p.223)

This theory is controversial since content marketing is not identified as a theoretical discipline but as a practical tool similar to branded content. Having explained the widespread confusion between different authors and the different approaches to the term content marketing, this chapter follows the more innovative UK BCMA’s definition of content marketing as a theoretical discipline of study. Content marketing encompasses not only informational and educational content but also entertainment-driven content disagreeing with authors like Regueira and Moyano. Therefore, this research places content marketing as the discipline on which the advertising technique of branded content in its different variants depends, with branded entertainment being the technique dedicated to entertainment content. This innovative vision is visualized in the following diagram according to the latest developments in the field:​

Differences between Branded Content and Product Placement Young (2011), one of the members of the branded entertainment summit at MIPTV-Cannes, shared a big concern about the need to clarify the terms branded content and product placement to achieve respect in the industry.

A Theoretical Approach to Branded Content  19

Figure 1.1 Content Marketing, Branded Content, and Branded Entertainment Ecosystem. Own elaboration. Table 1.5 Differences between Branded Content and Brand Placement Branded Content

Brand Placement

The brand is the driving force of the idea. Occasional and integrated presence in the narrative context. Segmentation. Massive outreach. Engagement. Non intrusive. Traditional advertising impact. Active brand presence in the content Passive presence. offered. Brand values are at the heart of the story. The logo or brand appears. From Del Pino-Romero, Castelló-Martínez, and Ramos-Soler (2013, pp.26–28).

This interest is still valid today, which is why this section tries to bring a reflection on defining the meaning of product placement and identifying the elements in common and the differences with branded content. Del Pino-Romero, Castelló-Martínez, and Ramos-Soler (2013) offer a theoretical approach that serves as a starting point. The authors use product placement or brand placement interchangeably to refer to the punctual and accessory or integrated presence of a brand in the spatial or narrative context of the fiction genre, ‘especially film and television’ (p.25). The authors present some general characteristics that differentiate brand placement from branded content.​

20  A Theoretical Approach to Branded Content

Martí (2010) points out the importance of product placement as a communication tool with a hybrid message, as it does not have a direct commercial benefit, but rather the viewer assimilates the content and associates the product placed, thus giving the product greater credibility. Brands consider product placement strategies because it allows products to be displayed in new contexts where the viewer does not expect their presence, thus achieving an indirect approach to the audience. The technique of brand placement, product placement, or brand integration, has evolved towards greater integration of the product in the narrative structure of the content in which it participates. Researchers Hudson and Hudson (2006) elaborated a study based on the following question: ‘Can branded entertainment be considered a new advertising technique or a new form within the framework of product placement?’ (p.489). This question is still topical today in business forums, conferences, and universities. The boundaries can become blurred due to the brand placement or product placement actions developed in the last decade. In these, a more active presence of the brand can be observed, a communication strategy more focused on segmented target groups, and greater coherence between narratives and values representing the brand. Integration that Lehu (2009) already pointed out in his approach to branded entertainment: the brand should represent an opportunity to write believable stories and thus not lose control of the integration of brand values in the content. An example of brand integration beyond a visual sign is the case of Starbucks in the film Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shot Me Down (Roach 1999), where for three minutes, the brand is present in almost every shot, and the characters interact both in dialogue and in the scene drinking a Starbucks drink. According to Martí (2010), in this type of case, the brand manages to enhance familiarity and generates high exposure in its target group. For Russell (2007) and Martí (2010), product placement undergoes a metamorphosis towards a higher level of integration of the brand or product with the content distinguishable in three categories. First, product placement where there is no integration; second, product integration where the product or brand interacts in the story in a particular scene; and finally, branded entertainment where the entire narrative is conceptualized and developed around the brand or product. Nelli (2011) establishes the fourth step in this degree of integration, where he adds the category of enhanced product placement (p.39) as an intermediate step between product placement and product integration or integrated product.​ According to Nelli (2011), branded entertainment would occupy the place of the highest level of integration of the brand in the story. The brand becomes the essence of the narrative, as one of the determining factors to distinguish it from traditional product placement or its more sophisticated and integrated versions. In this sense, branded content would offer brands a significant change in terms of creativity and content control. Therefore, product placement and branded entertainment are two different techniques.

A Theoretical Approach to Branded Content  21 Table 1.6 From Product Placement to Product Assimilation Category

Description

1. Product Placement 2. Enhanced Product Placement 3. Product Integration

Low level of integration with the plot of the content. Medium level of integration with the content’s storyline. There is a connection between the brand and the content. High level of integration with the storyline of the content. The company may even control part of the production; this is often the case for TV series. The brand becomes the protagonist of the story in such a way that the placement participates in the narrative development.

4. Product Assimilation

Own elaboration based on Nelli (2011, p.39).

Both product placement and branded content were practices that gradually germinated simultaneously throughout the 20th century (Aguilera and Baños 2016). In the following paragraphs, readers will find a summary of the evolution of these practices to ratify the reality of these two independent practices, which flourished independently of each other.

Branded Entertainment Origins The 1930s is a date that stands out in the emergence of branded content, both for Soap Operas and radio programmes and for audio-visual cinematographic works. In the quote below, Martí (2010) points to filmlets or short advertising films as a means of advertising products and services in which the brand is another element of the story: Chevrolet, for example, produced in the mid and late 1930s a series of high-quality cartoon filmlets focused on promoting its car models. Classic stories such as Cinderella were adapted in A Coach for Cinderella (1936) or A Ride for Cinderella (1937). Martí (2010, p.28) Chevrolet used the classic tale from traditional folklore of Cinderella to talk about its brand, where the pumpkin turned into a Chevrolet car. We find it interesting to relate the idea of this filmlet to the Volkswagen Group’s branded entertainment piece from 2017. The car brand Audi launched the animated short film branded entertainment under the title ‘Forever and Ever,’ reminiscent of princess tales, in which the pumpkin once again turns into a car: a red sports car in order to get to the palace ball. In this 2017 version, Audi, as the brand explains in an institutional publication, adapts the story to raise awareness of gender stereotypes in children’s stories (Audi 2017).

22  A Theoretical Approach to Branded Content Table 1.7 The Impact of Procter & Gamble in the History of Branded Entertainment. Own elaboration. Procter & Gamble’s Soap Operas. In an interview for the documentary History of Content Marketing, McCoy, Senior Archivist at Procter & Gamble, argues for the detergent and soap company’s success in content. The company decided to generate entertainment programming on television in the 1950s for the specific target of women homemakers with the sole objective of creating entertaining fictional stories for fun and relaxation. The company sought to connect with its audience in a playful format and create a medium- to long-term bond. To do so, it hired talented writers from Hollywood, such as Irna Phillips, a renowned name in the soap opera genre or since then called Soap Operas, even taking over the terminology of the genre it represents (CMI 2015).

According to Lehu (2009) and Martí (2010), Soap Operas and filmlets are precursors of today’s branded entertainment. Several authors point to the same brand regarding the impact of Soap Operas on the North American economic and social environment between the 1930s and 1960s. Martí, Ruiz-Mafe, and Scribner (2015) and CMI (2015) point to the impact of the content created by the soap company Procter & Gamble on both radio and television. The company launched The Gibson Family, an entertainment series in the musical comedy genre for radio with a $500,000 budget (Cox 2005). Procter & Gamble’s The Guiding Light ran for 15 seasons on radio and 57 seasons on television, making it the longest-running television drama in history: from 1937 to 1946 on NBC and from 1952 to 2009 on CBS.​ The novel The Bulgari Connection (2001), the video game ‘Pocket Bike Racer’ (2006), and the Internet-branded entertainment campaign ‘The Follow’ for the BMW brand (2001) are other examples of the emergence of branded entertainment in different formats (Martí, Ruiz-Mafe, and Scribner 2015). Aguilera and Baños (2016) date the first case of branded content of an editorial and informative nature to 1897 with the launch of the magazine  The Furrow, published by the cargo vehicle manufacturer John Deere, which is still in use today. This magazine was not about selling tractors but providing farmers with relevant information to help them in their farming operations. Another example of this type of content of interest provided by a tyre brand is the publication of the Michelin Guide, a reference as a showcase of world gastronomy, dating from 1900. However, the first relevant scientific studies and definitions of branded entertainment emerged at the dawn of the new millennium, after the success of BMW’s The Hire series in 2005: ‘It is so far the most mediatized and recognized branded content exercise.’ Del Pino-Romero, Castelló-Martínez, and RamosSoler (2013, p.28), Lehu (2009), Martí (2010), Nelli (2011), Bonsignore and Sassoon (2014), Martí, Ruiz-Mafe, and Scribner (2015), Aguilera and Baños

A Theoretical Approach to Branded Content  23

(2016), Grinta (2017), and Pereira (2018) agree in pointing to The Hire series as an important milestone in branded entertainment. BMW forever changed the way we understand entertainment and advertising. In 2001, the car brand produced five short films directed by acclaimed artists from the film industry, such as John Frankenheimer, Ang Lee, Alejandro González Iñárritu, David Fincher, and Guy Ritchie. Hollywood actor Clive Owen would star in all the films. The short films were broadcast on the Internet and a dedicated microsite for the series. In 2001, digital audiences were not as mature as they are today, but the campaign made a significant impact. Two million users registered on the website and 11 million views in the first four months. All the short films follow the same premise: a private driver drives unknown customers in his BMW car, which always responds in extreme driving situations. In 2002, BMW decided to produce three more short films after the previous success. One of the short films in The Hire 2 series directed by John Woo received the award for best action short film at the Los Angeles International Short Film Festival. This award demonstrates that the short film offered a natural integration between content and brand and met the quality standards of the film industry (Martí 2010). There are plenty of other international examples in various typologies of branded entertainment, such as Red Bull and its web TV channel, video games at the service of advertising such as Verbatim Championship launched in 2009, where more than 8 million users could create a robotic monster (Martí 2010). Branded entertainment presents an infinite number of opportunities where different platforms and media can be integrated into an ecosystem. An example is the Mexican food restaurant chain Chipotle in the US. In its 2014 campaign, ‘The Scarecrow,’ the company used a song, an app with a game, social networks, and an animated short film in its campaign to connect with an audience that migrates from screen to screen. With this campaign, Chipotle tried to highlight the natural qualities of its products (Weiss 2013). In terms of branded entertainment in Spain, the case of Campofrío stands out. Since 2011, this company has offered Christmas messages full of hope and humour for a society depressed by the economic crisis hitting the country. The campaign Cómicos (2011) highlighted the qualities of being Spanish and connected with the audience with unprecedented success: 4 million views on YouTube, 50,000 comments on social networks, and 3 million searches on Google (Del Pino-Romero, Castelló-Martínez, and RamosSoler 2013). Lorán Herrero (2017) includes other examples of brands committed to this new technique, such as Gas Natural Fenosa, producer of Cinergía, a series of short films committed to raising awareness of energy efficiency (Cinergía 2014–2017), and Estrella Damm with musical releases and the saga of short films extolling the Mediterranean way of life such as the campaigns Vale and Las Pequeñas Cosas, analyzed in this volume.

24  A Theoretical Approach to Branded Content

Product Placement Origins According to Hudson and Hudson (2006), product placement originated in the late 1890s when the Lever brothers included their soaps in some of the first films in the motion picture industry. The 1930s saw the germination of many such deals. In the 1940s, product placement was based on visual locations, although it gradually gained a presence in the audio-visual narrative, such as the moment in the film Soul in Suffering (Curtiz 1945) when Joan Crawford asks for a Jack Daniel’s instead of a whisky (Martí 2010). In the mid-1980s, numerous examples demonstrated the capacity of the brand to become involved in the story in such a way that the product interacted with the characters and took on meaning within the story. This approach left aside the traditional product placement concept to focus on brand integration, as mentioned above. An example of this evolution is the case of Reese’s Pieces candies. The American candy company Reese’s Pieces placed its product in the movie E.T. (Spielberg 1982). The company saw its sales increase by 65% after the film’s release. In the film’s plot, the main character uses candies as a lure to attract E.T.’s attention, including several close-up shots highlighting the importance of Reese’s Pieces in the story. The candies were advertised as E.T.’s candies (Martí 2010, p.40). This success led other brands to imitate the successful formula so that in the late 1980s, the level of influence of the product placement technique in films could be demonstrated, and the practice was revalued with new contract modalities (Hudson and Hudson 2006). After briefly outlining the beginnings of product placement and audio-visual branded entertainment, we can observe that the two techniques were born and coexisted independently, a point that leads us to develop a specific position on the matter and which we develop in the conclusive framework of this thesis.

Differences between Product Assimilation and Branded Entertainment This research distinguishes specific nuances regarding the level of involvement of the brand in the story, having analyzed the bases of product placement and branded entertainment in agreement with Hudson and Hudson (2006) and Nelli (2012). In the following lines, this volume analyzes the factors that differentiate a product placement action in its sophisticated version, or, in other words, with a high level of integration (product assimilation), from a branded entertainment action. Both Lehu (2009) and Nelli (2011) point out as an example of this practice the case of the film Cast Away (Robert Zemeckis 2000), released in Spain under the title Shipwrecked and starring Tom Hanks. In this film, the product plays an essential role in the story.​ According to Sheehan and Guo (2005), product assimilation occurs when the product becomes the storyline; ‘the product is the star of the show’ (p.82).

A Theoretical Approach to Branded Content  25

 OX 1.1  CASE OF BRAND INTEGRATION B IN THE FILM CAST AWAY Cast Away Case Study (Robert Zemeckis 2000)

Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) is a systems analyst working for the FedEx courier company. Noland is involved in a plane crash and manages to reach a Pacific island as the only survivor of the flight. The FedEx packages on board the plane are left floating near the shore. Noland uses several packages to invent objects to help him survive the conditions, although he leaves one unopened, a package that will give him hope of returning home. He also finds a Wilson Sporting Goods volleyball, which he paints a face on and uses as a companion. After four years on the island, he is rescued. Noland returns to his hometown, where everyone thought he was dead; FedEx welcomes him with joy. Unfortunately, Noland’s girlfriend has rebuilt her life. As a final point in the story, Noland delivers to its recipient the package he left unopened in his shipwreck, which helped him have hope for life. The discovery of new FedEx packages in the film continues the story, provides plot twists, and helps the character solve problems. According to the director himself in the DVD extras, there was no product placement in the film. According to Friedman (2004), the director of Global Brand Management, worked on the Cast Away project for two years and said that FedEx’s involvement went beyond product placement to become a character in the film. No fee was paid for using the FedEx logo, but the courier company provided flights, uniforms, trucks, and courier services during the film’s production. In addition, the company’s CEO, Fred Smith, invested in the film’s production. Beyond placing a product in a blockbuster, FedEx managed to offer brand values, where the company has been loyal to its worker Noland over the years, and where he is offered hope despite being a castaway full of broken dreams. Own elaboration Under this premise, it may seem that product assimilation and branded entertainment come to fulfil the same role. For this research, the assimilation category presents subtle differences from the theory of branded entertainment. After analyzing the meaning of product assimilation as qualified by Sheehan and Guo (2005) and Nelli (2011), several elements enable a distinction in comparison to branded entertainment. First, taking into account the previously described case of the film Cast Away (Robert Zemeckis 2000), the brand is not the driving force or original creator of the content but is invited to participate in it. From that moment on, a working relationship is generated in which the company’s branding managers

26  A Theoretical Approach to Branded Content

must work together to ensure the coherence of the brand values with the entertainment content. The leading producers of the film Cast Away were 20th Century Fox and Dreamworks. Because of their creative freedom and independence, they were able to invite two brands into the picture, such as the Wilson volleyball and FedEx packages. This type of practice is expected in a product placement action, being more difficult, but not impossible, to happen in a branded entertainment action. The reason is that the brand originates content with deeprooted brand values, and it is often difficult to find a content engagement partner that does not overshadow the interests of one of the brands. Second, the presence of the product is evident and repetitive for the duration of the film, whereas in a branded entertainment action, it is more important to associate the content with values representing the brand than to show the product on screen. In a very illustrative visual scheme, Nelli (2011) represents the differences between product placement and branded entertainment action.​ Table 1.8 From Product Placement to Branded Entertainment Characteristic

Product Placement Brand Integration

Branded Entertainment

Relationship of The brand entertainment insertion is content with inserted into the brand. a pre-existing script. The brand supports entertainment content.

The brand supports entertainment-driven content but is not the original creator. Brands can interact in the storyline but do not act as the leading producer nor have control.

Level of control of content by the company. Commercial nature of the message. Exclusivity of the brand presence.

Low.

Medium.

The script is conceived around the brand (brand storytelling). It is the entertainment content that supports the brand and not vice versa. High.

None.

None.

Evident.

Several brands can Several brands can be found The content coexist in the in the same content. revolves around same content. a single or several brands. Importance of the Secondary. Secondary. Primary. brand message within the content. Retrieved from Nelli (2011, p.98).

A Theoretical Approach to Branded Content  27

After this brief reflection, we can conclude that in product assimilation, the brand receives an invitation to participate in a piece of content; it is not the driving force behind it, nor does it control the ownership of the audio-visual piece as its content. In 2017, the chocolate brand Lacta was the cause of controversy because, in its branded entertainment From the Start campaign (Vardis Marinakis 2017) for Ogilvy, chocolate appeared on the scene on numerous occasions. The Cannes Lions jury doubted the content as it crossed the red line concerning the number of times chocolate was identified in the story and could be mistaken for product placement. In the end, the jury considered that although, on the one hand, the product appeared on screen, on the other hand, it was a component of the film, had an authentic role in the story, and added entertainment value to the film (Sjoenell and Xenopoulo 2018). Lacta chocolate won the Gold Lion and Silver Lion in 2017. This example raises new questions for the future of branded content. Questions such as: are there an appropriate number of times to see a product in a branded entertainment piece? Is it better not to have the presence of the product physically in the story so as not to incur intrusiveness and confusion with the product placement? In this sense, there is no correct answer; each brand might determine a specific number of visual impacts of their products or not even show them on the screen.

Bibliography Aguilera, J., Baños, M., & Ramírez-Perdiguero, J. (2015a). Branded entertainment: Entertainment content as marketing communication tool. A study of its current situation in Spain. Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 70, 519–538. Retrieved from http://bit​ .do​/e8cCt. Aguilera, J., & Baños, M. (2016). Branded entertainment. Cuando el branded content se convierte en entretenimiento. [Branded entertainment. When branded content becomes entertainment]. Pozuelo de Alarcón: ESIC. Asmussen, B., Wider, S., Williams, R., Stevenson, N., Whitehead, E., & Canter, A. (2016). Defining branded content for the digital age: The industry experts’ views on branded content as a new marketing communications concept. A collaborative research project commissioned by the BCMA and conducted by Oxford Brookes University and Ipsos MORI. Retrieved from http://bit​.do​/e8cCL. Audi. (2017, 18–12). Audi España presenta “Por Siempre Jamás”, un cortometraje que convierte a una joven en piloto de carreras. [Audi Spain presents “Forever and ever”, a short film that turns a young girl into a racing driver]. Retrieved from http://bit​.do​/e8cCz. BCMA Branded Content Marketing Association. (2005). Retrieved from https://bcma​.es/. Bonsignore, P., & Sassoon, J. (2014). La nuova frontiera della comunicazione d´impresa [The new frontier of business communication]. Milán: FrancoAngeli. Castelló-Martínez, A. (2014, Abril). II Jornada Día de Internet. Branded content: Contenidos que marcan. [II internet day conference. Branded content: Content that makes a difference]. Universidad de Alicante. Departamento de Comunicación y Psicología Social. Retrieved from http://bit​.do​/e8cDJ.

28  A Theoretical Approach to Branded Content Citado en Martí-Parreño, J., Ruiz-Mafe, C., & Scribner, L. (2015). Engaging consumers through branded entertainment and convergent media [Atrayendo a los consumidores a través del Branded Entertainment y los Medios en la Convergencia]. Hershey: IGI Global. CMA Content Marketing Association. (2013). What is content marketing. Retrieved from http://bit​.do​/e8cD4. CMI. (2015). The history of content: Rise of the new marketing. Retrieved from http:// bit​.do​/e8cEF. CMI. (2019). Content Marketing Institute CMI. Internet. Retrieved from http://bit​.do​/ e8cEv. Cox, J. (2005). The A to Z of American radio soap operas. [La A a la Z de las soap operas de la radio Americana]. Plymouth: Scarecrow Press. Duncan, T. (2012, de noviembre 28). Branding and content: Finding the right balance – A content marketing whitepaper. Studio One. Retrieved from http://bit​.do​/e8cF3 At, Regueira, J. (2012). Content as an effective brand communication tool. Theoretical and empirical analysis [El contenido como herramienta eficaz de comunicación de marca. Análisis teórico y empírico]. Doctoral thesis. Universidad Rey Juan Carlos. Madrid, España. Retrieved from http://bit​.do​/e8g5S. Del Pino-Romero, C., Castelló-Martínez, A., & Ramos-Soler, I. (2013). La comunicación en cambio constante: Branded content, community management, Comunicación 2.0, Estrategia en Medios Sociales. [Communication in constant change: Branded content, community management, communication 2.0, social media strategy]. Madrid: Editorial Fragua. Event Marketing Institute. (2009). EMI strategic insights report: Branded entertainment comes of age. At Nelli, R. (2012). Branded content marketing. Un nuovo approccio alla creazione di valore. [Branded content marketing. A new approach to value creation]. Milan: Vita e Pensiero, p. 97. Grinta, E. (2017). Branded entertainment. La rivoluziones del settore marcom inizia da qui. [Branded entertainment. The revolution in the marketing communications industry starts here]. Milán: FrancoAngeli. Horrigan, D. (2009). Branded content: A new model for driving tourism via film and branding strategies. Tourismos: An International Multidisciplinary Journal of Tourism, 4(3), 51–65. At Martí-Parreño, J., Ruiz-Mafe, C., & Scribner, L. (2015). Engaging consumers through branded entertainment and convergent media. EE.UU: IGI Global. Hudson, S., & Hudson, D. (2006). Branded entertainment: A new advertising techinique or product placement in disguise? Journal of Marketing Management, 22(5–6), 489–504. https://doi​.org​/10​.1362​/026725706777978703. IAB. (2022). Retrieved from https://iabspain​.es/. Lehu, Jr. J. M. (2009). Branded entertainment (2nd ed.). Londres, Reino Unido: Kogan Page Limited. Lorán Herrero, M. (2017). El uso del cortometraje como estrategia de branded content. [The use of short films as a branded content strategy]. Miguel Hernández Communication Journal, 8(5), 153–177. Martí, J. (2010). Funny marketing. Consumidores, entretenimiento y comunicaciones de marketing en la era del branded entertainment. [Funny marketing. Consumers, entertainment and marketing communications in the age of branded entertainment]. Madrid: Wolters Kluwer. Martí, J., Ruiz-Mafe, C., & Scribner, L. (2015). Engaging consumers through branded entertainment and convergent media. Hershey, PA: IGI Global. Moore, E.S. (2006). It´s child´s play: Advergaming and the online marketing of food to children. Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. At Martí, J., Ruiz-Mafe, C., Scribner, L. (2015). Engaging consumers through branded entertainment and convergent media. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, p. 4.

A Theoretical Approach to Branded Content  29 Nelli, R. (2011). L´evoluzione delle strategie di branded entertainment. [The evolution of branded entertainment strategies]. Milan: Vita e Pensiero. Nelli, R. (2012). Branded content marketing. Un nuovo approccio alla creazione di valore. [Branded content marketing. A new approach to value creation]. Milan: Vita e Pensiero. Ortiz, P. (2016). Guía legal para branded content y figuras publicitarias. [Legal guide for branded content and advertising figures]. IAB Spain Legal. Retrieved from http://bit​ .do​/e8g45. Pereira, J. (2018). The art of branded entertainment. London: Peter Owen. Pulizzi, J. (2011). Internet. The 7 business goals of content marketing: Inbound marketing isn’t enough. Content Marketing Institute. Retrieved from http://bit​.do​/e8g5D. Rahim, K., & Clemens, B. (2012). Organizational goals and performance measurement for content marketing. Journal of Communication and Computer, 9, 896–904. At Regueira, J. (2012). Content as an effective brand communication tool: Theoretical and empirical analysis [El contenido como herramienta eficaz de comunicación de marca. Análisis teórico y empírico]. Doctoral thesis. Universidad Rey Juan Carlos. Madrid, España. Retrieved from http:// bit​.do​/e8g5S. Regueira, J. (2012). Content as an effective brand communication tool. Theoretical and empirical analysis [El contenido como herramienta eficaz de comunicación de marca. Análisis teórico y empírico]. Doctoral thesis. Universidad Rey Juan Carlos. Madrid, España. Retrieved from http://bit​.do​/e8g5S. Rogel del Hoyo, C., & Marcos Molano, M. (2020). El branded content como estrategia (no) publicitaria. [Branded content as a (non) advertising strategy]. Pensar La Publicidad. Revista Internacional De Investigaciones Publicitarias, 14(1), 65–75. https://doi​.org​/10​.5209​ /pepu​.68369. Russell, C. A. (2007). Advertainment: Fusing advertising and entertainment. Retrieved from http://bit​.do​/fbifR. Savar, A. (2013). Content to commerce. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons. Sheehan, K. B., & Guo, A. (2005). Leaving o a (branded) jet plane: An exploration of audience attitudes towards product assimilation in televisión content. Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising, 27(1), 79–91. Spurgeon, C. (2008). Advertising and new media. New York: Routledge. Valiquette, M. (2013). The gap between ads and branded content. [El agujero entre la publicidad y el Branded Content]. Marketing Magazine. At Regueira, J. (2012). Content as an effective brand communication tool. Theoretical and empirical analysis [El contenido como herramienta eficaz de comunicación de marca. Análisis teórico y empírico]. Doctoral thesis. Universidad Rey Juan Carlos. Madrid, España. Retrieved from http://bit​.do​/e8g5S. Weiss, E. (2013, September 13). What does the Scarecrow tell us about Chipotle. The New Yorker. Retrieved from http://bit​.do​/e8g6X. Wise, K., Bolls, P. D., Kim, H., Venjataraman, A., & Meyer, R. (2008). Enjoyment of advergames and brand attitudes: The impact of thematic relevance. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 9(1), 27–36. 10.1080/15252019.2008.10722145. Young, M. (2011, Abril 5). Branded entertainment keynote, MIPTV Festival, Cannes. Retrieved from http://bit​.do​/e8g7h.

Filmography Roach, J. (1999). Austin powers 2: The spy who shagged me. USA. New Line Cinema. Zemeckis, R. (2000). Cast away. USA. 20th Century Fox, Playtone, Imavemovers. Dreamworks Pictures.

2

Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies

Theoretical Approach to Branded Content as an Advertising Technique The following chapter attempts to identify the main issues in advertising theory and practice that directly affect branded content and therefore branded entertainment. The following pages cite references that allude to this practice in the broad sense of branded content; these have been included as the knowledge they provide applies to both the general rule of branded content and the entertainment aspect of branded entertainment. The study of advertising is a vast field that has evolved unprecedentedly in the face of the new paradigm of communication. Its analysis and evolution give meaning to the emergence of the practice of branded entertainment, especially in the last decade. Questions such as the factors that have facilitated the rise of branded content in recent years and the analysis of the characteristics it shares with other advertising approaches are some of the objectives of the following pages. This research considers an extensive theoretical corpus that has been the subject of numerous essential studies in advertising. From this basis, the chapter establishes a foundation for the theory and practice of branded entertainment. In this work, some traditional sources in the research of advertising theory in the Spanish national territory, such as González Martín (1996), Eguizábal (1998, 2007), García-Uceda (2001), and Bassat (2001), and international reference sources such as Ogilvy (1983) and Mattelart (1991), are taken as examples of reference, the work of Italian authors such as Nelli (2011, 2012), Grinta (2017) and current manuals such as Moriarty, Mitchell, and Wells (2012) or Castelló-Martínez and Del Pino-Romero (2019) to cite some examples. In addition, this study considers reports, research articles, case studies, and conference proceedings. The procedure for consulting these sources is based on comparing general scientific theory on advertising with recent studies specific to the subject of branded entertainment, such as those by Lehu (2009), Martí (2010), Aguilera and Baños (2016), Pereira (2018), and Hardy (2022).

DOI: 10.4324/9781003310686-3

Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies  31

Advertising and Branded Entertainment in the Changing Media Environment As societies have incorporated new communication channels and technologies, advertising has evolved in its technique and discourse. Although traces of advertising practices can be found more than two thousand years ago, the truth is that the industry’s blossoming began in the West’s second half of the 20th century, especially in the US and Great Britain (Eguizábal 1998). The development of information technologies and the emergence of the Internet at the end of the 20th century opened new windows in the media and a period of significant challenges for the advertising industry, one of them being the fragmentation of audiences. On the other hand, at the end of the 20th century, the Internet was a commodity in many homes, and this development ushered in a new era in how we socialize and interact. Interactive multimedia has replaced the traditional mass media environment (television, radio, and print) with the Internet and the supply of intelligent mobile devices. Mainly, new technologies, the digital revolution, the fragmentation of audiences, and consumer empowerment are the determining factors in this new advertising paradigm of the 21st century, the post-advertising era (Rust and Oliver 1994). According to Hardy (2022), media and advertising integration is undoubtedly a new phenomenon, signifying one of the most important changes of the 21st century, with a new integration between media and advertising resulting in new formats. According to Hardy: Media and advertising integration is by no means a new phenomenon and has a long history across all media forms. Yet, arguably, the most profound change in the 21st century is that the commercial digital environment has brought increased pressures from marketers met with increased accommodation by media. The emergente relationship is integration without separation. The integration of media and advertising takes various forms, many with long histories, such as product placement, conterminous with the birth of cinema. However, the opportunities and challenges of convergence and digitalization, not least the struggles to finance the enormous expansion of media, has brought increased pressures from marketers and accommodation by media. Hardy (2022, p.8) Today we live in a society of so-called connected viewers, Savar (2013), where the consumer accesses information and entertainment through numerous devices such as television, tablet computers, computers, and smartphones. According to Google Research Insights (2012), 90% of consumers use several or all digital devices before completing a goal, search, or purchase. The IAB study (2018) states that: ‘Consumers are increasingly searching for information on smartphones and then making a purchase from the most convenient

32  Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies

channel in each case (online, call center or physical shop). The smartphone distributes digital activity to the channels’ (p.26). It is not so much a question of differentiating the online world and separating it from the offline world but instead of approaching the advertising reality in a coexistence of the two worlds, just as the user moves between digital and analogue, as Muñoz (2010) points out. The digital environment eliminates borders between brand and consumer and amplifies the relationship with customers in the purchasing process through information, education, and entertainment in online media and can offer continuity in customer loyalty (Savar 2013). This new approach raises opportunities where innovation, adaptation to new technologies, and user experience are fundamental to connecting with the consumer. ‘We, marketing and agency people, live the most profound reinvention of what we do in generations’ (Pereira 2018). This change of which the author speaks refers to the fact that new communications require advertising approaches to offer ubiquity and convenience, as also pointed out by Martí (2010), and that the advertising message should always bring value to the consumer. In line with the abovementioned approaches, Nelli (2011) underlines a new way of being the much more demanding and selective consumer. Therefore, brands must establish medium- and long-term ties with the latest consumer. Branded entertainment is seen as an exciting option to achieve some primary advertising objectives: to achieve repercussions in terms of generating credibility, being attractive and novel for the audience, and providing content that stands out from homogeneity (González Martín 1996). For the first time, brands are becoming generators of entertainment, audiovisual producers, publishers of printed and online content, online television channels, radio podcasts, and video game producers, among some of the variants of the entertainment sector. The important thing is that the content is quality, and the consumer accesses it when and where they want. According to Hardy (2018): Increasingly, both media and film produced by marketing departments, recognize themselves as part of the same business, concerned with selecting and delivering engaging content suitable for reaching target audiences in the most cost-effective way. Hardy (2018, p.117) The user can enjoy branded content in different formats, with a combination of advertisements, free or for a fee. The important thing is that the range offers quality and entertainment (Kendall 2012). Branded content attracts the individual’s attention without intruding and without interrupting the consumer’s free time; brands do not overemphasize the commercial dimension of the content, but neither is it disguised (Nelli 2011). In this culture of generosity, the branded entertainment technique offers

Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies  33

an attractive, non-intrusive communication vehicle to establish medium- and long-term links with a consumer profile trained to discern the truth about a brand’s discourse and scepticism regarding accepting good slogans. The brand’s attitude as a generator of exciting content for the consumer, responds to this new strategy of dialogue with the consumer with a coherent, transparent, and honest discourse.

Towards a Definition of Advertising It is relevant to dwell briefly on the meaning of advertising. The focus of this paper understands advertising as a form of communication financed by a company, organization, or entity that, making use of the possibilities of mass media, presents ideas, products, and services to persuade, influence, promote, or seek compensation concerning a specific economic, social, ideological, or political cause. Definition according to authors such as González Martín (1996), Kotler and Armstrong (2008), García-Uceda (2001), and Farrán (2013). Vizcaino (2016) summarizes advertising as the communication of a sender to a receiver with a persuasive purpose of modifying behaviour in the latter through the message. According to Vizcaino’s definition, branded entertainment shares part of this essence. Branded content approaches emerge as an advertising strategy. Still, it does not fully meet this traditional definition as brands do not distribute it in paid mass media but in owned, earned, shared, and sometimes paid media. Unlike other advertising techniques, branded entertainment does not seek an immediate sale and does not usually present products directly. Instead, the narrative serves as a natural medium to develop a brand’s values, offer lifestyles, and inspire the audience towards certain universal ideals. Branded entertainment is inclined to differentiate increasingly identical products by personalizing the brand that represents them. As González Martín (1996) described, the psychosocial advertising approach does not seek to convince with rational arguments by cultivating the user’s cognitive factors; on the contrary, it aims to delve deeper into the consumer’s motivations, and motivations make use of persuasive techniques. Under this premise, branded entertainment seems to respond to the desire for all well-done advertising. Rather than forcing the consumer, it is to conquer them through emotion, modifying their behaviour through the advertising message proposed.

Is Branded Content Advertising? Pablo Muñoz, executive vice-president of BMCA, classifies branded content as communication assets, avoiding the word advertising due to the confusion that the term itself can cause, and specifies that these contents get distribution outside the advertising circuit. For Muñoz, branded content responds to: communication assets produced or co-produced by a brand that, through formats that fulfil a role of entertainment, information and/or utility,

34  Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies

distributed outside the advertising space, connect with and/or create an audience that voluntarily devotes its attention, viewing, listening or participation, thanks to the relevance of the content; thus building an integrated communication territory with the potential for seriality, which strategically promotes the role and values of the brand. Muñoz (2021, p.24) Roger del Hoyo and Molano (2020) situate branded content as a ‘new advertising concept’ as an alternative to traditional advertising under the discipline of marketing. Also, IAB creates distance between conventional advertising and branded content: ‘While traditional advertising concept is all about the impact, branded content is born to provide value and always in a non-intrusive way’ (IAB 2022, p.7). This work offers a holistic vision of branded content understood as a new hybrid between the Marketing and Communication Sciences disciplines using the techniques of Advertising and Audiovisual Communication. Kotler and Armstrong (2008) define marketing as the process by which companies create value for customers and build strong relationships to obtain value from them. Communication Sciences is the art of transmitting information, ideas, and attitudes from one person to another. Is branded content advertising or not? In the face of this controversy, one could answer yes and no. Branded content is unconventional advertising, but it is not only advertising. It is much more than advertising; it is a new hybrid, a fusion of several disciplines in a unique ecosystem between brands, media, and audiences, and a tool available to the marketing department to disseminate integrated communication messages. According to the American Marketing Association, Integrated Marketing Communications (IMCs) are ‘a planning process designed to ensure that all brand contacts received by a current or prospective customer for a product, service or organization are relevant to the individual and consistent over time’’ (Kotler 2016, p.600). Thus, IMC aims for the brand to have a single voice by coordinating and integrating the different messages addressed to the target audience. The organization must use all the communication channels available to deliver a clear, coherent, and convincing message about what it is promoting. Today we live in an information-saturated society where capturing the receiver’s attention and remaining in their memory is essential. In an environment of ‘infoxication,’ advertisers try to connect with the consumer through new and more effective forms of communication, giving a coherent strategy to all communication messages according to specific objectives. The objectives of IMCs are geared towards developing an overall marketing communication strategy and creating a more personal link with the customer towards customer loyalty in two-way communication. Brands should abandon unidirectional concepts of traditional and transactional marketing to seek communication that allows feedback from the customer. (Ramón and Segovia 2016).

Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies  35

For this, in addition to traditional media, organizations have at their disposal innovative tools to encourage consumer immersion in the communication process. New marketing communication trends are integrated into both online and offline environments that connect with audiences for different communication objectives in addition to an organization’s classic marketing communication mix, such as advertising, public relations, personal selling, direct marketing, and promotional marketing. These new trends include word-ofmouth marketing, street marketing, mobile marketing, social media marketing, and branded content. This context is essential to situate the origin of branded content actions as part of a larger plan; they are a piece within the steps to be taken into account by an IMC as part of an overall strategic plan. In line with this approach in which branded content serves a strategic purpose, the BCMA (2022) has developed different practical tools to help professionals define the content and design branded content formats and typologies. Organizations’ communication models must adapt to reach people in a more relevant and meaningful way, find niche audiences, and offer quality content that delivers engagement and connect with their consumers’ fundamental interests and needs. Content is no longer about achieving notoriety but improving perception, consideration, and engagement.

The Evolution of Advertising up to Today Advertising has its origins thousands of years ago. Civilizations such as the Sumerians (2,700 BC), Assyrians (1,900 BC), and Persians (700 BC) used sound to capture the consumer’s attention (Vizcaino 2016). There are written records in ancient Egypt (between 3,000 and 2,000 BC) of a papyrus found in Thebes where whoever finds a runaway slave will receive a reward and refers to Hapu’s shop, where the most beautiful fabrics are woven, to grant the bonus. These records point to the beginning of advertising claims in tune with the use of trade as a livelihood. For millennia the exchange of information was based on a one-to-many model using Egyptian papyri, stone carvings from Classical Rome, or frescoes in the Middle Ages. Thanks to Gutenberg and the invention of the printing press, the medium of printed communication allowed a broader reach in society (Eguizábal 1998). The era of the beginnings of the printing press dates back to 1453; in the 15th century, advertising was able to achieve greater relevance in newspapers and almanacs; typography, illustration, and the technique of posters and murals, among others, were vehicles of expression for this new emergence. Back then, the brand image did not exist as such but functioned as a corporate signature to identify the origin of the products. This functionality of the brand was far from the importance it would gain in the coming centuries, especially during the Second Industrial Revolution (Eguizábal 1998; Moriarty, Mitchell, and Wells 2012). Mass production and macro-distribution through new means of transport gave rise to a new brand concept. The brand went from being a material

36  Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies

sign on a product to a meaning beyond the product itself, taking on a certain autonomy (González Martín 1996). At the beginning of the 19th century and thanks to the invention of fast printing presses, publishers could launch newspapers and mass-circulation publications; a new era in communications was opening up. The market led to the emergence of advertising agencies such as Volney Palmer’s American agency in 1864 in Philadelphia, USA (Moriarty, Mitchell, and Wells 2012). This flourishing facilitated interest in studying the discipline from a scientific angle, both by professionals and by studies endorsed by associations. The 19th century was also the era of advertisements full of promise. Advertisers’ messages in newspapers, billboards, and carriages tried to offer a direct and convincing message. Advertising in the 19th century adopted very rational statements, approaches that allude to the excellent sense of the consumer, ‘to his conviction by the objective properties of the product’ (González Martín 1996, p.321). Advertisers and agencies incorporated scientific research into consumer behaviour and advertising effectiveness measurement. Advertising developed its scientific side. In 1917, the American Association of Advertising Agencies emerged, an organization that would play an important role in redefining professional practices. In 1923, Hopkins published Scientific Advertising and Barton, Durstine, and Osborn Test Advertising Methods in 1932, books that were a prelude to research companies such as Nielsen created in the 1930s (Moriarty, Mitchell, and Wells 2012). In the 20th century, advertising evolved towards emotional arguments. Effective advertising ‘is conceived as generating, modifying or reinforcing images, attitudes and behaviors; a persuasive and creative process’ (González Martín 1996, p.322). Technological advances in the 20th century, radio in the 1930s, and television in the 1950s, exponentially increased the capacity of brands to reach a mass audience with the use of radio commercials, television spots, sponsorships of various kinds, and product placements in television programmes and cinema films. After World War II, the number of advertising agencies in the US increased considerably (Moriarty, Mitchell, and Wells 2012). Advertising was entering a golden age in which information control belonged to a small number of players: publishers, television channels, or radio stations. During this time, the advertising presence in these media guaranteed the advertising impact on audiences (Quesenberry 2016). The 1960s were the years of creativity, inspiration, and the resurgence of art. From the 1970s onwards, effectiveness became a keyword in the agency world. Companies put more resources into research, testing processes, and measurement systems. Advertisers wanted proof that their advertising investments would deliver a return on investment to achieve their objectives. The 1980s and the birth of the digital age brought about a change in communication strategy planning. Advertising actions had to be part of an overall marketing plan encompassing consistency. Under this prism, the technique

Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies  37

of IMC, Integrated Marketing Communications, emerged as a new way of understanding the conceptualization of advertising in modern society. The rise of more television channels in the 1980s, the accessibility of the Internet, cable television, and other types of media consumption led to a fragmentation of audiences, which caused a drop in profits in television advertising. In 1995, a US household had 40 television channels. In 2013, according to Nielsen data, a home received the signal of 189 television channels (Quesenberry 2016). Currently, as the Deloitte report (2019) points out, content from public television, pay, streaming, and social media coexist in households in new media convergence, as detailed later in this research. This more self-aware audience is beginning to flee from generalist media, offensive content, and over-saturated advertising. Advertisers themselves are sounding the alarm. Until now, obsessed with significant audience figures and lower and lower prices for advertising space, they understand, like any consumer, that cheap is always expensive and that they are paying the price in the discrediting of their messages and the ineffectiveness of their campaigns. And perhaps the way forward lies in personalized media and messages that are less exquisite but more focused on the customer’s benefit and the public’s utility. Eguizábal (1998, p.428) Audiences migrated to digital environments, YouTube, blogs, digital magazines, and social networks such as Facebook or Twitter, where the consumer had control over viewing the content that was of interest to him. In the 1960s, advertising agencies could reach 80% of American women with a single TV ad on CBS, NBC, and ABC. In 2000, a TV ad would have to run on 100 channels to reach a similar audience (Quesenberry 2016). Today we live in an era of infoxication, where the consumer cannot assimilate the large amount of information they receive (Aguaded 2014). These data demonstrate the fragmentation of audiences and the difficulty for advertisers to connect with consumers in the new media environment. Traditional media and digital platforms currently coexist in a dynamic, constantly changing, and innovative way. As Quesenberry (2016) summarized, we are moving from television to computer and, finally, on a third level, to a multi-screen society with three or four devices in the home, such as mobile phones or digital tablets ‘In the last decade, there has been a spectacular growth in domestic equipment, the number of devices, and the number of users with access to the Internet’ (Álvarez Monzoncillo 2011, p.62). Users change their habits and consume content where, how, and when they want; this new pattern impacts the way of conceiving technological devices, which are now seen as multitasking products capable of offering new features to ensure convergence and migration from one screen to another. This change characterizes a new media revolution that began flourishing in 2012–2015. In the second decade of the 21st century, banners and other advertising interruptions in digital content are seen as annoying and intrusive, negatively

38  Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies

impacting the effectiveness of advertising in a challenging media environment. The Deloitte report (2019) shows that 55% of US households subscribe to streaming video services. We are currently at a time of change in the content consumption model. A wide variety of cable TV providers offer video streaming services, such as Comcast in the US, which provides an Amazon Prime Video service, and where video content providers are also on social media such as Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. The rapid integration of technology brought a challenging and exciting scenario for innovation: the integration of smart TVs, the implementation of 5G technology, and the use of augmented reality are some of the challenges of television in the present and near future (Deloitte 2019). The consumption of content on these devices opens up new advertising possibilities in social networks, mobile apps, free editorial content, and entertainment channels via streaming. Consumers have the technology at their fingertips to create and participate in the content they consume, avoid intrusive content, and search for information. Against this backdrop, agencies feel the challenge of reconnecting with a lost audience across a wide range of content, platforms, and offline and online media. To this end, advertisers focus their energies on comprehensive IMC (Integrated Marketing Communication) services. A coordinated strategy that addresses all available marketing techniques is essential to deliver a coordinated plan of action to achieve the most significant possible impact. In this way, each step could benefit others in achieving the advertiser’s objectives, obtaining better performance, and being more effective.

The Social and Cultural Dimension of Advertising Advertising plays a fundamental role in society, not only from a mercantilist point of view but also as an axis of influence on the behaviour of developed societies. Mattelart states: ‘by coming out of its ghetto, the company and its values have permeated society as a whole. The logo has replaced the city’s coat of arms’ (1991, p.106). González Martín (1996) and Eguizábal (1998) agree in observing advertising as part of our lives and as a complex system of social communication linked to aspects of modernity throughout its ideological and cultural transformation. Advertising must be related to other manifestations that can influence it, such as technology, social and political changes, and other contemporary factors that can affect it. Advertising is a consequence of human emancipation from primary needs, the myth of consumer freedom, and the shaping of private life concerning public life. Therefore, its nature is economical and social, communicational and ideological, psychological and cultural, and only one of these approaches would not be enough to comprehend the full scope of its impact. González Martín (1996, p.8)

Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies  39

Already in the 18th century, we find some reference sources on advertising and its impact on the consumer and society. The 19th-century scholar Johnson (1837), already in his time, reflected in a pioneering way on the advertising phenomenon, where advertisers entertained the consumer with great promises, leaving aside ethics in a race for the consumer’s attention. In an advertisement, every man is allowed to speak well of himself, but I do not know why he assumes the privilege of criticizing his fellow man. The advertiser may proclaim his virtues and abilities, but he should not exclude others from the same claims. Every man who advertises his excellencies should write in the character of conscience which dares to attract the public’s attention. Johnson (1837, p.395) In 1910, The Associated Advertising Club of America emerged to clean up the advertising profession’s bad image, and in 1924 it published the first code of ethics for the job. In 1925, Great Britain followed this initiative to lay the foundations for professional ethics. In the 1970s, there was talk of establishing practices to improve the credibility of advertising by seeking greater truthfulness in messages in countries all over the world, such as Italy, South Africa, Switzerland, and Argentina. Both local bodies and the international organization IAA (International Advertising Association), founded in 1938, sought to self-regulate, monitor good practices, and train industry professionals to improve their quality. These examples illustrate the concern to lay new foundations for a new freedom of expression (Mattelart 1991). In the 1950s and 1960s, consumer society gradually emerged in the West. Businesses shifted their focus from production to creating consumer desire for products on the market ‘We have gone from a production society, through a consumer society, to a communication society where everything is organized and structured through messages’ (González Martín 1996, p.20). It was in the 1980s when advertising flourished to mark a territory of significant influence on how we see the world through advertising discourse. In Spain, the decade of the 80s and 90s was a world reference in creativity recognized at international festivals. The message model of most agencies revolved around the rational proposal of the Unique Selling Proposition. Examples of success in Spain and worldwide from this period were the campaign Aprende a ver la televisión for TVE (1986) and Monjas for Talens (1992), both of which won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Festival, the world’s leading advertising award (Farrán 2013). Advertising has evolved towards self-regulation, understanding the individual as a consumer but free in their decision making, and a much more relevant and enriching advertising discourse, as we will see in the following sections. On the other hand, we must never forget that advertising plays between the true and the false in a game where society must be alert to the approaches of the advertising discourse presented to it (Mattelart 1991).

40  Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies

Advertising, as well as encouraging consumption and changing attitudes, reflects the cultural values of an era, echoing a series of dominant stereotypes in force in contemporary society and culture (González Martín 1996). The advertiser, far from remaining with an informative message, tries to suggest and suggest through persuasive discourse in the shortest possible time. The media, such as cinema, video games, and advertising, influence the imitation of audience behaviour. Blumer (1993) detected the influence of cinema on viewers and lifestyle modifications. McNeal (1964) conducted an empirical study showing that children’s learning was based on observation, participation, and entertainment. Ward (1974) investigated the consumer socialization theory, where young people generated new attitudes and behaviours through various role models drawn from the media. These examples illustrate, with real force, the media’s responsibility in provoking interpersonal influence and new imitative behaviours of audiences. Advertising is responsible for truthfully conveying its message because of its broad reach and influence in society and its informative connotation (Pellicer 2011). The author conducted empirical research in which she analyzed numerous advertisements to determine their degree of truthfulness by analyzing the sales arguments. In conclusion, the study presented, as part of its most relevant results, the need to improve advertising from an ethical prism where the deontological framework suffers from several shortcomings and where the consumer must be protected. According to the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language, ethics is ‘the quality of the actions of individuals insofar as they have to do with how they exercise their responsibilities concerning values, principles and general rules.’ For Pellicer (2011), it is essential to ensure that advertising does not offer false expectations and that the symbolic universe does not alter the promised results by defrauding the consumer. This author and Pérez-Latre (2011) agree that alcoholic beverages are the primary conflict point in generating responsible advertising. On the contrary, branded content campaigns might offer a new attitude towards ethics. For example, Estrella Damm, one of the most famous Mediterranean beers, launched a series of short films dealing with the brand’s more truthful nature. From the story’s conception, the brand does not focus on directly persuading people to drink alcohol but rather on associating the values of Mediterranean culture and a way of life. The beer appears as an element of the story, not exaggerating its properties and without giving rise to deception. Traditional advertising faces the challenge of the new consumer, who is bored and shies away from intrusive advertising. In this sense, entertainment becomes a vehicle for approaching a much more demanding audience. Entertainment and advertising should not be opposing enemies but partners that go hand in hand, with the ability to connect with the viewer more authentically and responsibly. Monica Chun, head of PMK.BNC, a global firm specializing in marketing and entertainment, encourages the advantages of branded entertainment:

Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies  41

Don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone and use branded entertainment as a vehicle to connect with consumers and tell your story effectively and provocatively. Even the most straightforward idea can have a significant impact. If you get it right, you have the opportunity to be part of a culture, create it and give a valuable return on your investment that is incalculable. Chun (2018, p.64) Two examples are detailed below: Dove (2004) and Apple (2019), which deal with different themes and are separated in time by a 15-year time frame. This selection is an example of an advertisement that tries to reach the viewer with a more reasonable discourse associated with rising values and concerns in a society of different kinds. With more than 50 years of history, Unilever’s Dove brand has always used real women in its campaigns for facial cleansing beauty products. Dove’s revolution came with its Real Beauty campaign in a UK print advertisement in spring 2004, when Dove entered the body and hand lotion market. Dove used real women as models, unafraid to show wrinkles and imperfections. The brand celebrates women’s authentic beauty regardless of age, size, colour, and figure type. Dove challenged conventions about attractiveness in a way that got women’s attention and made a global impact (Drewninay and Jewler 2008). The campaign shows different models of women and calls for society to question the true beauty of human beings. ‘Wrinkles or gorgeous?’ asks the poster. The technology manufacturer Apple launched a commercial to present the resolution of the new iPhone XS smartphone. Under the slogan ‘Don’t mess with mother Earth,’ the video was broadcast on YouTube and television following the celebration of April 22, 2019, World Earth Day. The spot shows the fury, awe, and power of nature, landscapes, flora, and fauna in all their splendour, accompanied by the music of an electric guitar. The spot is a call by the Apple company to care for the planet in line with its sustainability policies. Apple has incorporated practices to recycle its products and prioritize environmental care (O’Brien 2019). There is currently a new trend where advertising is presented as the emissary of a new, fairer culture, sharing the values of change, closer to the consumer, and aware of its capacity to contribute to society. A new reality in this sense is the approach of the clothing brand Adolfo Domínguez. The brand presented the 2019 collection with the slogan ‘Think. Then buy.’ Naked women and men emulating the figure of Rodin’s thinker lie on a pile of clothes. It is a call for responsible textile consumption. Consumers must be aware of the need to raise awareness of our activity and consumption habits if we want to live on a sustainable planet. It is normal for a skirt to last ten years, not to buy a T-shirt to use and throw away. Mario Ávila, Concept Art Director of Adolfo Domínguez (2019) This change of attitude is also visible in branded entertainment campaigns such as Undress522, a campaign created by H&C Leo Burnett in Beirut for

42  Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies

the non-governmental organization Abaad in 2017. In Lebanon, sexual assaults on women are unfortunately common. Moreover, article 522 of the Lebanese penal code protects the rapist as if the aggressor marries his victim, and his crimes get absolved. The #Undress522 advertising campaign depicts the story of a rape. After being beaten and abused, she is wrapped in gauze, symbolically resembling a wedding dress. The video ends with the following text: ‘Article 522 of the Lebanese Penal Code exonerates rapists if they marry their victims. A white dress does not cover rape’. The campaign so shamed the Lebanese Parliament and had global repercussions that the law was repealed, and the victims had their rights protected (Chun 2018). Undress522 is a compelling storytelling lesson that served to raise awareness, empathize with the victims of these abuses, and visualize a movement that achieved its ultimate goal. The campaign made a global impact and increased awareness among all human beings, regardless of race, culture, and status, to bring about a change in the law of a country.

Branded Entertainment in Advertising Communication Strategies The advertising technique of branded content, derived from its specialty in branded entertainment, requires the knowledge of marketing in strategic development, branding, and specific methods of the marketing discipline for all phases of planning, execution, and measurement of branded content actions. In this communication modality, entertainment content creation techniques converge from the creative stage to its dissemination in a new hybrid between marketing and entertainment. As mentioned above, the advertising industry faces many multi-channel options; the proliferation of channels affects the advertising model and poses a new paradigm in conceptualizing an advertising campaign. Today, more than ever, advertising actions are developed harmoniously and synchronously as part of the Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) strategy. Advertising campaigns should connect to the overall communication strategy as it is part of it. According to Meitz and Zurstiege (2014), an advertising campaign pursues a specific goal in line with the overall communication strategy of the organizational entity. Such advertising seeks to achieve particular purposes, and the advertising investment should reach a return on investment and demonstrate effectiveness. The marketing strategy sets the market objectives that the company wants to reach, also called the target market, and through the Marketing Mix, design the actions to achieve these objectives (García-Uceda 2001). Marketing gained importance in the 20th century as the commercialization of products gained ground over mere production. As part of the marketing framework, advertising took on new dimensions beyond psychology: sociology, statistics, and business strategy. After World War II, American companies emerged with such strength that sales became their primary concern. In the mid-20th

Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies  43

century, advertising was an indispensable part of the marketing plan to connect with the consumer and achieve the company’s objectives. In the 1960s, practitioners and theorists published different marketing manuals. Forty years later, the industry has evolved to new sophisticated terminology like the marketing mix term promoted by McCarthy (2002). This concept revolves around the variables a company controls and puts together to satisfy a target group. This theory had a global impact on many marketing strategies. Nowadays, relevant organizations worldwide use the product, price, communication, and distribution variables to draw up a company’s marketing action plans. Within this work plan, the advertising strategy could follow two parameters. On the one hand, the more technical aspect is that the system seeks standardization measures to evaluate and monitor advertising planning, production, and distribution. On the other hand, a more creative part where a greater artistic licence is allowed, but always in the service of a commercial purpose and without forgetting the integration around a conceptual idea that unifies the various actions of the advertising strategy in conjunction with the communication strategy (Meitz and Zurstiege 2015). Today’s marketing needs a fifth element: the consumer. The technological revolution, free access to content, and the new expert consumer mean that the marketing of the present and future must focus on being relational, experiential, and co-creative, favouring pull strategies over push strategies, with the brand as the primary tool and engagement as the final objective (Aguilera and Baños 2016). Lehu (2009), Martí (2010), Nelli (2012), and Aguilera and Baños (2016) highlight branded content as a strategic action to transmit the values of a brand, generate a more direct relationship with the consumer, and, in the specific case of branded entertainment, generate a personal emotional dimension with the viewer. Nelli (2012) names the ‘branded content practice’ adding the term ‘marketing,’ highlighting its origin as part of the marketing strategy. Therefore, the brand’s value is an indispensable element in new communications, a value associated with entertainment or personalized experiences in which the consumer feels interested in the content (Aguilera and Baños 2016). Brands choose to carry out a branded content action as an alternative or complement to traditional advertising because the phenomenon that generates branded content is to achieve the assimilation of the brand by the consumer and become part of their beliefs (Savar 2013) but branded content is not persuasive. It does not directly provoke the desire to purchase a product. This particularity means that branded content actions have an effect in the medium and long term as part of a wide-ranging strategy. Branded content stimulates concrete actions consistent with the company’s commercial objectives and simultaneously offers possibilities in the positioning strategy. Through the information and entertainment provided in branded content, the viewer learns in a non-intrusive way elements that may incline

44  Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies

them towards a purchase in the medium or long term, even if the sale is not the immediate objective in the first place. The brand must know how to orchestrate a branded content action in conjunction with other activities depending on the communication objective it intends to give to the consumer. ‘Branded entertainment is usually more effective when the consumer knows the brand and the brand intends to deepen and expand the knowledge of the brand,’ says Dias and Harrach (2018). In this sense, branded content relates to experiential marketing and the brand experience: entertainment and information could trigger cognitive and emotional sensations towards the consumer. The results of the branded content campaigns collected over the last decade in various reports highlight the benefits of this tool and the reasons why a brand chooses this type of action. Thus, in one of the first studies on the subject conducted by The Content Council (2012) for the North American market, an increase in spending on branded content of 13% in marketing budgets was detected. The main reasons why organizations opted for this technique were to educate customers, increase brand loyalty, increase sales, and build customer loyalty. As demonstrated by another study dated in the same year by Yahoo Research (2012) for global brands, digital branded content actions compared to TV sponsorship were equally effective or even better at generating consumer value. In 2016, a study by IPG Media Lab, Forbes, and Newhouse School of Public Communications showed that branded content is superior to print advertising in terms of brand recall, brand perception, and brand consideration (Forbes 2016). In the latest report by Content Scope (2018), data from 2017 reveals that advertisers in Spain use branded content to provide coverage and engagement, not so much to generate direct sales. For Nelli (2012), branded content could pursue several objectives: increasing the notoriety of the company or the brand so that the content gives visibility to the brand; activating consumer behaviour in line with the company’s mediumor long-term objectives, maintaining dialogue and an affective connection, increasing the credibility of the brand and facilitating the opportunity to turn the consumer into a co-creator; and finally, building brand preference through content that specifies the characteristics that differentiate it from other products. Aguilera and Baños (2016) specify that the main objectives of branded content are to create a positive brand meaning and to connect and generate engagement through informative, educational, or entertainment strategies. The Content Scope report (2015) shows that for advertisers, the value of the brand image, engagement, and awareness are the main objectives to follow when developing a branded content action. The brand has to define the objectives, select the thematic areas of interest, and establish an evaluation system to verify the achievement of these goals. The complexity of the design of these actions focuses on combining commercial reasons with the ability to offer high-quality editorial or entertainment content in competition with other media groups.

Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies  45

Nelli (2012) points out that external companies specializing in branded entertainment, production companies, agencies, or television stations may intervene in creating a branded entertainment action, given its hybrid entertainment nature. The author also remembers that the action’s ideation and origin do not come from a media group but from a brand whose values must be the DNA of the proposed content. The brand must have the help of specialists in the creative process, in the production of the content pieces, and the choice of its own or mainly earned media. Unlike other entertainment proposals, branded entertainment does not use paid media for its dissemination but uses its media (brand-owned assets such as fan communities, websites, mobile apps, social networks, publications, or establishments as examples) or earned media (press releases, content embedded in digital environments, or any media outside the brand’s control) (Aguilera and Baños 2016). The data from Content Scope (2015) analyzing the Spanish market reveal that in 2013, only 81% of companies had heard of branded content, and 59% of them had taken action in this area. Fortunately, this data has grown considerably. In 2017, the same study revealed that 96.3% of companies know about branded content, and 88.3% have tried a campaign in this area and spend 11% of their annual communication budget on branded content actions. This data indicates that organizations increasingly consider branded content as an option in their strategies. It is essential to remain attentive to the organizational processes in the gestation and execution of branded content actions. In 2015, Content Scope highlighted that the marketing team is the most responsible for deciding on the creation of a branded content action, but 88.5% of the 104 interviewees acknowledged that they develop the activities with different interconnected teams. Finally, once a campaign is out, it is necessary to monitor and evaluate its effectiveness according to the objectives set. Industry players stress the importance of integrating forms of monitoring and measurement in the analysis of the impact of a brand, the effect on sales, and the reach of messages (PWC 2010).

Brand Storytelling Authors Woodside, Sood, and Miller (2008) and Woodside (2010) discuss why narratives are essential to humans. According to these researchers, memory has an episodic component, so the human brain thinks narratively. The retrieval capacity of stored memory is related to the stories that the individual identifies, as thoughts are connected. In addition, human beings need to recall stories for catharsis. In marketing, brands seek to make consumers relive an experience through a story and evoke certain sensations. Kotler and Armstrong (2008) define a brand as a promise through any vehicle that can convey such a message, including advertising. A brand can

46  Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies

be any distinctive that helps to identify a product or service, differentiate it from a competitor, and generate value. Therefore, advertising and branding are intrinsically related activities. From a theoretical approach, Krugman and Hayes (2012) state that all marketing and advertising efforts revolve around the brand from different complementary angles, such as the organization, the social environment, and the consumer. Farrán (2013) argues that storytelling in advertising has a strategic reason to gain attention and memory and awaken in viewers a sense of curiosity and recall. The author states that storytelling humanizes brands, bring them closer to the consumer, improves attitudes, and establishes bonds with the consumer in the medium and long term. Based on his research, the author proposes that brand storytelling arouses consumer interest, closeness, and emotion to generate brand preference and brand recall. In the last decade, the word storytelling has been introduced into the professional language of advertising practice and digital marketing as if it were a new formula. Storytelling practice is now beyond the skill of knowing how to tell a story; it must serve a specific purpose aligned with the organization’s marketing strategy. The popularity of brand storytelling began to boom due to the paradigm shift in marketing towards a relational perspective. Farrán (2013) dates the brand crisis to between 1995 and 2005. Several phenomena triggered the need to revalue the brand’s role, such as the advent of new technologies, the infinite possibilities of consumption and creation of digital content, the ‘content infoxication,’ and the homogeneity of products. Brands had to focus on the intangibles, amplify their meaning, and create links with the consumer. Peters (2002) points out the importance of building new links with the consumer around trust and emotional bonds; brands must create value and connect with the end consumer. In this context, in the last two decades, the advertising industry has been acquiring storytelling overtones as the story allows conveying naturally and organically what brands stand for. Brands are no longer talking about the properties of their organizations but their identity. Brands could relate to different personal attributes. Thus, for example, the Barbie case shows that Mattel cares for Barbie as if she were not a doll but a real woman. According to Wall Street, the toy’s value is worth more than two billion dollars; Barbie is not imitable; she is unique. Barbie has a world of her own and a personality: always fresh, optimistic, modern, and romantic (Bassat 2001). Aaker (1997) investigated whether brands were associated with specific attributes in a study carried out with various brands. Among his findings, he identified that there were brands related to sincerity, which was positioned as the best attribute to achieve consumer trust. The use of storytelling allows the brand to develop concepts capable of moving the consumer and connecting on a deeper level, as the story is the vehicle that carries the brand’s values ‘We are facing a new consumer who needs to get to know a brand before they start to have faith in it and create an

Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies  47

emotional bond by identifying with the story, making it their own out of their conviction’ (Segel 2014, p.122). An organization can use storytelling at a strategic level to achieve consistency in all its messages, as well as at a more operational level, in specific communications both internally and in advertisements or presentations—stories with a message to convey, a plot, conflict, and characters (Fog, Budtz, Munch, and Blanchette 2010). Vizcaíno (2016) reviews a vast theoretical corpus on the role of brands as storytellers. In his work, he sets out the different approaches to the term brand storytelling where he compares positions such as those of Farrán (2013), Signorelli (2012), and Segel (2014). Vizcaíno (2016) highlights the importance of brand storytelling as a strategic tool for image creation, improving the attractiveness of the image and exciting the consumer through the generated brand concept ‘Brands have value because they add value to the companies that own them and, above all, to the customers who buy them. Brands have become a sign of social identification’ (Bassat 2001, p.203). Lundqvist, Lilkander, Gummerus, and Riel (2012) decided to conduct an experiment related to brand storytelling, given the lack of empirical evidence on consumer responses to this tool. In their approach, they used two groups with different brand experiences; one based on brand storytelling and one not. Those who enjoyed a brand story showed a more positive attitude towards the brand and were even willing to pay more for the product. In their study, they demonstrated that brand storytelling generated positive associations towards the brand, as announced by more theoretical approaches such as Kaufman (2003), Kelley and Litman (2006), and Guber (2007), where storytelling worked as a brand strategy to generate a positive perception in consumers. As lines of future research, the researchers Lundqvist, Lilkander, Gummerus, and Riel (2012) encouraged others to continue new experiments in this field, a task that Farrán (2013), among others, has carried out along the same lines.

Branded Content in Brand Image Building Branded content is mainly associated with the generation of brand value, as we have seen above. Martí (2010) points out the predominance of branded content actions in building brand image. A branded entertainment fiction narrative can improve brand image and transmit values related to specific products or brands (for example, differentiation, authenticity, and credibility) and values linked to consumers’ perception of themselves (the search for the self, expression, and personal satisfaction, among others). The Content Scope study (2015) highlights that the added value of generating branded content is first the creation of engagement, analyzed in detail below, and second, improving brand image. Branded entertainment connects emotionally with the consumer thanks to its essence as a hybrid between advertising and entertainment, storytelling, and the experience it generates in the consumer through original content.

48  Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies

For González Martín (1996), ‘brand image is the transition from the materiality of the product to the symbolism of its personalization’ (p.11). From another angle, García-Uceda (2001) defines brand image as a group of perceptions, associations, and memories that the consumer processes and, as a result, obtain a mental image of the product through the information they receive or think they can receive through its name and advertising. In this sense, branded entertainment goes beyond the limits of advertising; it is not an advertisement but original content. Through narrative, it manages to connect with audiences in a context of participatory culture and a narrative discourse developed exclusively for the brand, transmitting its values and principles in an entertainment format. The viewer processes the mental image of the brand under a new cognitive and emotional dimension thanks to the entertainment provided and can develop personal bonds with the brand (Castelló-Martínez 2014). Branded entertainment establishes relationships with people in a dynamic of value co-creation as part of the new paradigm of postmodern marketing. The brand gains autonomy from the product to become part of the consumer’s personality. Vargo and Lusch (2006) expose that marketing is not simply an exchange of goods but works under a philosophy where the consumer actively participates, as the consumer’s experience and perception are decisive in generating brand value. Under this premise, the brand proposes actions that matter, aiming to offer relevant experiences to the consumer. Payne, Storbacka, and Frow (2008) agree with this new way of looking at marketing, where all processes must generate value for the consumer, for suppliers, and where the implementation of actions must become meeting points between the customer and the organization. Audiences can obtain a virtual brand experience and generate these meeting points through a branded entertainment action served by the content, the narrative, the theme, the characters, and the world it recreates. Indirectly, the viewer can positively perceive the brand in their mental image. This experience turns the individual who views or interacts with the content into a co-creator. Given its characteristics, branded entertainment can collaborate in the generation of trust, one of the effects that brand image building pursues. The narrative offers the possibility to establish a positive evaluation of the product, to understand in a non-intrusive context the brand’s attributes and values, and generate clear expectations through storytelling. Branded entertainment can help create trust and, consequently, the eventual purchase intention (Aguilera and Baños 2016). According to IPG data prepared for Forbes magazine (2016), statistical studies show that branded content offers between 85% and 86% trust, regardless of the number of times the brand gets a mention in the content. Consumers tend to view content in a trusting framework due to the engagement strategy of non-intrusive communication, where they are interested because of the quality of the content. The brand is not the focus of attention; instead of

Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies  49

stealing time from the individual, it brings value to the individual with relevant content.

Study of Creative Strategies and Their Application to Branded Entertainment The advertiser defines a creative strategy to provide a framework within which the creativity of the advertising message will be developed (brief). Within broad parameters, the creative team must start from this strategic point to develop a creative process that responds to the brand’s needs and meets its objectives (creative brief) (Ortega 2004). Numerous investigations analyze the procedure for creating an advertising campaign. It includes its phases, agents, and the characteristics that both a brief and a creative brief should contain. It considers successful works such as the recent publication by Castelló-Martínez and Del Pino-Romero (2019) that can serve as a reference manual in the understanding of advertising to integrated persuasive communication in all its dimensions. This chapter aims to make a brief analysis of the various existing creative strategies and to analyze which one can nourish branded entertainment. The creative strategy is a tool to connect with the target audience. The following pages briefly mention some unique creative strategies based on Ortega’s (2004) classification. In a second section, this study establishes links between the given philosophies and their reflection in the branded entertainment communication axis. The communication axis is the chosen differentiation, the differential advantage of the product to be communicated in the persuasive communication action, given creative objectives and a target audience. Other terms analogous to the axis of communication are sales pitch, significant difference, or promise. The communication axis can be based on a product feature, a differentiating advantage or a benefit for the consumer. Castelló-Martínez and Del Pino-Romero (2019, p.241) The  Unique Selling Proposition  philosophy, created by Rosser Reeves in the 1940s, is based on focusing advertising on a single selling proposition that differentiates the product with its fundamental defining characteristic, its predominant attribute, and with a strong, attractive creative strategy to get the consumer’s attention. Nowadays, many advertisements apply this strategy. Inspired by Ogilvy, the conceptualization of the brand image promoted a new prism from the 1960s onwards, where the product became a second plane. It is the brand that takes on greater importance and provides a specific image and identity, endowing it with a set of beliefs and impressions.

50  Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies

The French agency RSCG created advertising campaigns based on ‘spectacle advertising.’ It means brands, in their intense search to find an image that identifies them, transform the brand no longer into an object or a thought but into a person, with a marked identity as if it were a Hollywood star, full of spectacle and glamour (Ortega 2014). The promise, for Séguela, president of RSCG, becomes immaterial according to a physical aspect related to the product’s characteristics, a psychic aspect such as the brand’s character, and an aesthetic value that emanates from the tone and style of the language used to communicate (Castelló-Martínez and Del PinoRomero 2019). Ortega (2004) points out ‘the transgressive strategy’ as a new modality. It focuses on campaigns outside of conventions and conservative stereotypes in a search for innovatively attracting attention, and already present in the 1990s. Benetton follows this aggressive and provocative orientation by presenting photographs by the acclaimed photographer Toscani. The pictures include AIDS patients, war scenes, and catastrophes, among other examples. This perspective turned ugliness into an attraction, journalism into advertising, and controversy into a new interest in the brand’s service. In recent decades, a new creative current has proliferated in which brand image acquires a new dimension in embracing permanent values. Brands are identified with abstract concepts and promises, usually of a universal nature and lasting over time; ideas related to the  zeitgeist, or culture and spirit of the present time, with ideas of a moral, social, cultural, or scientific nature. Automobiles, luxury brands, beauty products, or alcoholic beverages often use this strategy.  For Castelló-Martínez and Del Pino-Romero (2019), the unique selling proposition based on a rational attribute has now evolved into an Emotional Selling Proposition. The brand seeks truth in its identity, an aspect that differentiates it from its competition in order to exalt it.  In its audio-visual format, branded entertainment allows creatives to break the limits set by the 30-second TV spot and seeks to elevate the brand in connection with principles. Brands pursue that brand truth, following certain principles that resonate with the company. The particularity of branded entertainment is the ability to tell a story and to involve the brand in it. Thanks to storytelling, the brand can connect emotionally with consumers, whether the narrative revolves around a cause, a product, a person, or a specific purpose ‘Great storytelling is the foundation of great (branded) entertainment, and if your story resonates enough, people will share it and help make it news’ (Chun 2018, p.64).

Effects of Branded Entertainment Advertising Discourse on the Consumer First, the advertiser must establish objectives and seek to influence consumer attitudes through its advertising strategy. Numerous studies have been carried

Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies  51

out on the advertising effects on the consumer, as knowledge of the audience perception and mental process to develop a more successful advertising strategy (García-Uceda 2001). The audience’s behaviour depends on numerous external variables (the environment in which he/she has grown up, education, and culture as examples). Also, internal factors relate to personal and psychological characteristics intrinsic to their existence.  Advertisers are particularly interested in studying three factors related to consumer psychology: 1. The process of the message’s perception determines the audience’s interpretation of the message and the final meaning the individual gives to the advertising impact. 2. The learning or knowledge process can trigger a behavioural change about a product or service. 3. Finally, studying the audience’s motivation process. The advertisement triggers impulses, instincts, and rational or motivational processes (GarcíaUceda 2001).  According to Ortega (2004), to carry out effective strategies, it is necessary to study consumer perception, attitude, and motivation in depth. Nelli (2012) asks which advertising model based on learning, motivation, or attitudes is closest to the postulates of branded content marketing. The individual exposed to a branded content action learns first and foremost, but thanks to the entertainment, the viewer can enjoy an experience. For this author, the favourable learning environment of a  branded content action happens in a triangular relationship between brand, consumer, and content. This connection works as long as the brand reflects coherence, unity, credibility, relevance, authenticity, integration, and informative or emotional values. The consumer must show attention, interest, emotion, involvement, and gratification in a second direction. In addition, brands can generate awareness, encourage preference, and a call to action if content triggers an interrelationship between consumer and brand where the commercial objectives behind any advertising campaign materialize. 

Main Theories of Advertising Models and Consumer Effects Next, this chapter briefly reviews the fundamental theories that have dealt with the effects of advertising communication on the consumer and its influence on the shaping of attitudes. Second, it studies to what extent branded content participates in these processes and what effects it provokes. The current ‘hierarchy of effects models’ focuses on the logic of a sequential learning process. It approaches a learn-feel-do sequential logic depending on the campaign’s attitudinal level, whether it pursues an informational, emotional, or attitudinal goal (Castelló-Martínez and Del Pino-Romero 2019).

52  Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies

Among the main models of this nature, this volume highlights the AIDA model, DAGMAR, and Lavidge and Steiner, among others (Ortega 2014; Martí Parreño 2015; and Moriarty, Mitchell, and Wells 2012). The AIDA model refers to Attention-Interest-Desire-Action. This model revolves around the logic that communication should achieve a consumer’s desired behaviour in a four-phase procedure: attention, interest, desire, and purchase action (Ortega 2014). First, this model offers a cognitive phase (attention) to move on to a second, a more emotional phase where components such as interest and desire arise. Finally, according to this method, it triggers a third conative phase focused on action (Martí 2015). The DAGMAR model comes from the acronym of the book  Defining Advertising Goals for Measured Advertising Results, written by Colley in 1961. This proposal is inspired by first defining the advertising goals so the brand can precisely analyze the effects it provokes in its target audience. Second, this model empowers a deep sense of brand understanding. Third, it seeks to achieve a favourable attitude towards the brand. Finally, to achieve a purchase or other action of interest to the brand (Ortega 2014). These four phases of notoriety, understanding, conviction, and action follow the logic and orderly achievement (Martí 2015).  The Lavidge and Steiner model included new components of the AIDA model. The cognitive phase includes awareness, knowledge, and liking; the affective phase relies on preference and conviction; and the conative phase focuses on the purchase process as the parent concept (Martí 2015). These models have both supporters and detractors; these theories question advertising’s ability to activate the consumer’s cognitive, emotional, and conative phases in a sequential and unidirectional way. The following motivation-based advertising models are set out. Under this prism, the following consider the motivations that determine the behaviour of consumers. For his part, Henry Joannis published his theory in 1976, in which he analyzes motivation under psychological forces of a positive or negative nature, determining factors in the purchasing process. In this dichotomy of positivity and negativity, advertising must break this negative psychology through a message focused on motivating attitudes or reducing the arguments that lead to a ‘no’ (García-Uceda 2001; Ortega 2014). Finally, attitude-based advertising models are current of thought. This philosophy relies on building or reinforcing an attitude towards the brand. The Fishbein model shows two forms of attitude modification. On the one hand, this theory changes the individual’s beliefs towards the product or brand by improving the perception of the product or brand. Another alternative is the ability of advertising to perceive different attributes of the product in order to change favourably the evaluation of the characteristics offered by the product. The interaction of information and persuasion is fundamental to favour this attitudinal change (Ortega 2014). According to Fishbein, a product has specific attributes that the consumer values in a certain way; the consumer

Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies  53

generates a predisposition or attitude towards it according to these beliefs (García-Uceda 2001).

Branded Content from a Consumer Learning Perspective Nelli’s (2012) model analyzes the advertising effects of branded content  on the consumer and proposes a study model considering the consumer’s desires, which can be utilitarian, expressive, social, or experiential. These dreams or desires stimulate the individual’s motivation and predisposition towards the brand. The exposure to the branded content action will have a greater or lesser effect on the viewer/consumer depending on the consumer’s motivation to consume such content, the interactivity, the type of product involved, and the degree of involvement it means for the consumer. For example, a low-cost product will have a low engagement compared to a high-end selective product whose cost implies a high degree of brand engagement.  In these cases of greater involvement,  branded entertainment  can be an opportunity to evoke a product experience with an emotional impact on the consumer. In the particular case of branded entertainment, the brand will get the consumer’s involvement and attention concerning the quality and spectacle it offers in its content with a vital emotional component.  According to Nelli (2012), the cognitive process of learning about a brand through a  branded content  action follows a series of phases, summarized in detail below. First, exposure. In this case, a branded content impact might consider previous history with that brand, the brand’s coherence, and other internal factors that affect the viewer, such as his state of mind at that moment. Second, in learning about a brand, the consumer will be affected by distractions, time constraints, as well as other factors. Nelli also points to the individual’s ability to decode and interpret the message correctly as a variable in receiving the message. According to Nelli, the audience might take the editorial content of branded content as a unit in the viewer’s mind. However, later, in an analytical process, the individual will differentiate the informative, educational, and entertainment components separately.  For Nelli, a branded content action can change attitudes and activate individual and collective behaviour that can influence customer loyalty in the medium and long term. Several factors have a greater or lesser effect on the consumer: 1. The motivation variable brings the consumer closer to the content. 2. The familiarity the consumer has with the product category. 3. The ambiguity of the information presented. If the message is too apparent, learning will be quick, and it will be challenging to influence the consumer’s mind. There are specific campaigns where

54  Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies

the brands invite viewers into the interpretation process. These are campaigns where the brand presents the information suggestively and ambiguously. It will take work to influence the consumer’s mind. Nelli points out that including the consumer in the interpretation process, ambiguity can play a slow role in message interpretation and favour the brand in the consumer learning process.  The fourth variable focuses on the brand’s market share. Nelli recommends using branded content strategies in cases where the consumer needs to be more sufficiently familiar with the brand, product, or experience. In these cases, a branded content strategy can help the consumer learn about the attributes of the brand or product and the consumer experience (Nelli 2012). Bermejo-Berros proposes another model that allows advertisers to evaluate the psychological mechanisms of the consumer when exposed to branded content: branded entertainment introduces new psychological mechanisms in the process of approaching the consumer, including cognitive and affective factors through entertainment (Bermejo-Berros 2015). Traditional advertising, such as radio, print, and television, together with new forms of advertising of the digital era, such as banners, is based on a push, invasive strategy, trying to attract the consumer’s attention to such advertising clearly and consciously. The AIDA and DAGMAR models use a procedure to appeal to the consumer. On the other hand, in the 21st century, the pull advertising strategy of attraction has changed the form of advertising communication and is incredibly decisive for branded entertainment. This technique encourages the individual to approach advertising in a friendly atmosphere, without prejudice or counter-arguments. The consumer focuses on the content, so advertising takes a back seat. This strategy aims for the message to awaken in the consumer a voluntary interest in the brand, with an active cognitive interest and a positive emotional state. Indirect advertising becomes more relevant to the marketing discipline because even if the consumer does not consciously process the advertisement or brand, exposure to it can be just as effective in terms of persuasion at a level of cognitive unconsciousness.  Bermejo-Berros (2015) also demonstrates his interest in delving into the psychological processes related to this practice: Advertising today needs to consider not only all marketing variables but also how the consumer processes advertising content in this century’s new social and cultural context. Branded Entertainment is an excellent example of this change of attitude in advertising. Bermejo-Berros (2015, p.26) It is essential to analyze  branded entertainment  from the perspective of the psychological processes that affect the consumer since branded entertainment ultimately seeks to persuade the consumer through emotional connections and entertaining content. For Bermejo-Berros (2015), after analyzing numerous branded entertainment campaigns, he detected four types of psychological processing in the viewer’s mind.

Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies  55

1. Attention and perception advertising. The individual must only pay attention and receive the stimulus expected to make a cognitive and emotional response. The advertising presented is shown as enigmatic, amusing, and surprising. The attention is voluntary. An example is the advertising campaign In an Absolut World, (Clériguez 2014) is about a vodka brand that wanted to surprise the people of Madrid by simulating a beach in the centre of Madrid, something that the residents of this city miss. This typology often uses sensorial elements such as music, smell, and volumetric billboards. 2. Reactive or reactive advertising. This process includes campaigns that use multiple media and multiple channels simultaneously. This type of advertising requires the consumer’s attention and involvement; after exposure to the stimulus presented, the audience reacts with a cognitive response. For example, the Scotch-Brite company partnered with several restaurants and bars (Bermejo-Berros 2015). When customers asked to pay the bill, they received a scouring pad and an invitation to wash the dishes instead of the bill. 3. Interactive and intermediate action advertising. This asks the individual to perform one or more interactive actions and induces interaction with the content beyond immediate exposure to the ad. Participation in digital environments, social networks, and virtual worlds enables this type of connection with the consumer. Apps, virtual realities, fiction, and engagement are crucial to success. An example is the CSI Second Life campaign, where the series’s protagonist enters a virtual world. The consumer receives an invitation to participate in this fiction of intrigue and espionage through the CBS website.  4. Planned distant action advertising. This type of advertising is complex; it needs an advanced level of planning and depends on the technology and interactivity possibilities available in multimedia environments. This type of advertising adapts to the consumer achieving high levels of personalization. It offers a long-term path to achieve an impact on the consumer, who needs to be active and collaborate in the participation and creation of content. The advertising campaign produced by Heineken’s  Crack the Case  campaign contains advertising in digital media and on television, taking advantage of the premiere of the James Bond film  Skyfall (Bermejo-Berros 2015). Heineken launched TV spots, interactive films, outdoor events, and games. Branded entertainment activates third- and fourth-level psychological processing as it mobilizes more mental resources than traditional advertising activating attention, perception, understanding, learning, and motivating action in the medium and long term. Brands are considering branded entertainment as a good option in today’s entertainment culture, where young generations find fun, socialize, and create links through entertainment and experiences (Bermejo-Berros 2015). 

56  Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies

Both fiction and advertising content impact consumer behaviour. The audience might imitate certain character behaviours, living the same emotions and buying the same products ‘Thus, a young person could wear a certain garment or drive a certain vehicle to show an attitude of rebellion similar to that of the protagonist of a film such as Rebel Without a Cause (Ray, 1955)’ (Martí 2010, p.41). The characters become meaningful references for the audience, capable of conveying an ideology and changing viewers’ behaviour and attitudes. The socalled para-social attachment, defined by Russell (2006), is the degree to which a viewer considers a character a meaningful referent. Beyond paying attention to this theory to observe how a character can be authentic in the viewer’s perception, positive para-social attachment to a character interacting with a brand or product could signify a positive predisposition in the audience towards that product. Russell (2006) detected this inclination in television  product placement, confirming a positive relationship between character, product, and audience attitude towards the product. This relationship can extrapolate to video games and other audio-visual entertainment formats. For this research, this relationship finds a new scenario when applied to the field of  branded entertainment, which is interesting to investigate the viewer’s attitude towards the brand and the characters through short, branded entertainment, films. 

Bibliography Aaker, J. L. (1997, August). Dimensions of brand personality. Journal of Marketing Research, 34, 347–356. Álvarez Monzoncillo, J. M. (2011). Ocio Audiovisual Multiplataforma. [Multiplatform audiovisual entertainment]. In J. M. Álvarez Monzoncillo (Coord.), La Televisión Etiquetada. Nuevas audiencias, nuevos negocios [Tagged television. New audiences, new business]. (pp. 62–83). Madrid: Ariel, Fundación Telefónica y Editorial Planeta. Aguilera, J., & Baños, M. (2016). Branded entertainment. Cuando el Branded Content se convierte en entretenimiento. [Branded entertainment. When branded content becomes entertainment]. Pozuelo de Alarcón: ESIC. Bassat, L. (2001). El libro rojo de la publicidad. [The red book of advertising]. Barcelona: Plaza & Janés. BCMA. (2022). PRISMA. Retrieved from https://bcma​.es​/noticias​/presentacion​-guia​-de​ -estrategia/. Bermejo-Berros, J. (2015). A classification of branded entertainment based on psychological levels of processing. In J. Martí, C. Ruiz-Mafe, & L. Scribner (Eds.), Engaging consumers through branded entertainment and convergent media (pp. 22–53). Hershey, PA: IGI Global. Blumer, H. (1933). Movies and conduct (Películas y conducta). New York: MacMillan. At Martí, J. (2010). Funny marketing: Consumers, entertainment and marketing Communications in the age of branded entertainment [Marketing. Consumidores, entretenimiento y comunicaciones de marketing en la era del Branded Entertainment]. Madrid: Wolters Kluwer, p. 40. Castelló-Martínez, A. (2014). II internet day conference. Branded content: Content that makes a difference. [II Jornada Día de Internet. Branded content: Contenidos que marcan]. Universidad de Alicante. Departamento de Comunicación y Psicología Social. Retrieved from http://bit​.do​/e8cDJ. Castelló-Martínez, A., & del Pino-Romero, C. (2019). De la publicidad a la comunicación persuasiva integrada. [From advertising to integrated persuasive communication]. Madrid: ESIC Editorial.

Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies  57 Content Scope. (2015). Una investigación sobre la evolución, tendencias y uso del branded content entre los Anunciantes y Agentes de España. [A research on the evolution, trends and use of branded content among advertisers and agents in Spain]. Madrid: Grupo Consultores. Content Scope. (2018). III branded content Spain 2017. Retrieved from https://bit​.ly​ /40GuE48. Clérigues, B. (2014, June 27). Marketing de guerrilla en la Malvarrosa. [Guerrilla Marketing in La Malvarrosa]. Retrieve from http://bit​.do​/e8cDS. Cited by Bermejo-Berros, J. (2015, p. 29). A classification of branded entertainment based on psychological levels of processing. In J. Martí, C. Ruiz-Mafe, & L. Scribner (Eds.), Engaging consumers through branded entertainment and convergent media (pp. 22–53). Hershey: IGI Global. Chun, M. (2018). The news it creates. In J. Pereira (Ed.), The art of branded entertainment. (pp. 95–117). London: Peter Owen. Deloitte. (2019). 2019  media & entertainment industry outlook. A new world of content and advertising possibilities. Retrieved from http://bit​.do​/e8cFW. Días, R., & Harrach, G. (2018). Digitally born killers or what branded entertainment can do for brands. In J. Pereira (Ed.), The art of branded entertainment (pp. 23–63). Londres: Peter Owen. Drewniany, B., & Jewler, A. (2008). Creative strategy in advertising. Boston, MA: Thomson Wadsworth. Eguizábal, R. (1998). Historia de la Publicidad. [History of Advertising]. Madrid: Editorial Eresma & Celeste Ediciones. Eguizábal, R. (2007). Advertising theory [Teoría de la Publicidad]. Madrid: Cátedra. Farrán, E. (2013). Storytelling como herramienta y mejora de la eficacia en publicidad. Análisis de los casos Aquarius y BMW en televisión (1992–2010). [Storytelling as a tool and improvement of advertising effectiveness. Analysis of the Aquarius and BMW cases on television (1992–2010)]. (Phd Thesis). Castellón: Universidad Jaime I de Castellón. Fog, K., Budtz, C., Munch, P., & Blanchette, S. (2010). Storytelling: Branding in practice. New York: Springer. Forbes. (2016). Retrieved from http://bit​.do​/fbhZJ. García-Uceda, M. (2001). Las claves de la publicidad. [The keys to advertising]. Pozuelo de Alarcón: ESIC Editorial. González Martín, J. A. (1996). Teoría General de la Publicidad. [General advertising theory]. Madrid: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Google Research Insights. (2012). Retrieved from https://bit​.ly​/3KbRkE0. Grinta, E. (2017). Branded entertainment. La rivoluziones del settore marcom inizia da qui. [Branded entertainment. The marketing communications revolution starts here]. Milán: FrancoAngeli. Guber, P. (2007). The four truths of the storyteller. Harvard Business Review, 85(12), 52– 59. Cited by Lundqvist, L., & Gummerus, R. (2012). The impact of storytelling on the consumer brand experience: The case of a firm-originated story. Journal of Brand Management, 20(4), 286. https://doi​.org​/10​.1057​/bm​.2012​.15. Hardy, J. (2018). Branded content. In J. Hardy, H. Powell, & I. Macrury (Eds.), The advertising handbook (pp. 102–122). Oxon: Routledge. Hardy, J. (2022). Branded content. The fateful merging of media and marketing. New York: Routledge. IAB. (2019). Top tendencias digitales 2018. Recuperado 15 abril 2019 http://bit​.do​/ e8cGY. IAB. (2022). Branded content white book. Retrieved from https://bit​.ly​/3Zk8Z0H. Johnson, A. (1837). Works of Samuel Johnson with an essay of his life and genious by Arthur Murphy, E. Vol. I. New York: George Dearborn, Publisher.

58  Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies Kaufman, B. (2003). Stories that sell, stories that tell. Journal of Business Strategy, 24(2), 11–15. Cited by Lundqvist, L., & Gummerus, R. (2012). The impact of storytelling on the consumer brand experience: The case of a firm-originated story. Journal of Brand Management, 20(4), 286. Kelley, T., & Litman, J. (2006). The ten faces of innovation: Strategies for heightening creativity. London: Profile Books. Cited by Lundqvist, L., & Gummerus, R. (2012). The impact of storytelling on the consumer brand experience: The case of a firm-originated story. Journal of Brand Management, 20(4), 286. Kendall, L. (2012). Put a price on your content: Measuring the value of content and branded content. Retrieved from http://bit​.do​/e8g3V. Kotler, Jr. P., & Armstrong, G. (2008). Marketing principles (12th ed.). (Moreno López, Yago, Trad). Madrid: Pearson Educación. Kotler, P., & Keller, K. L. (2016). Marketing management (15th ed., Global, Ser. Always learning).Krugman, D., & Hayes, J. (2012). Brand concepts and advertising. [Conceptos de marca y publicidad]. In S. Rodgers & E. Thorson (Eds.), Advertising theory (pp. 434– 446). New York: Routledge. Lehu, Jr. J. M. (2009). Branded entertainment (2nd ed.). London: Kogan Page Limited. Lundqvist, L., & Gummerus, R. (2012). The impact of storytelling on the consumer brand experience: The case of a firm-originated story. Journal of Brand Management, 20(4), 283–297. Martí, J. (2010). Funny marketing. Consumidores, entretenimiento y comunicaciones de marketing en la era del branded entertainment. [Funny marketing. Consumers, entertainment and marketing communications in the age of branded entertainment]. Madrid: Wolters Kluwer. Martí, J. (2015). Emplazamiento de producto en bestsellers literarios: Efectos de la familiaridad con la marca, la repetición y la congruencia sobre la memoria de los lectores. (Tesis inédita de doctorado). [Product placement in literary bestsellers: Effects of brand familiarity, repetition and congruence on reader´s memory]. Universitat de Valencia. Factulta dÉconomia. Mattelart, A. (1991). La publicidad. [Advertising]. (López, A., trad). López Ruiz. Barcelona: Paidós. Meitz, T. G. K., & Zurstiege, G. (2014). Strategy in advertising. In D. Holzhausen & A. Zerfass (Eds.), Handbook of strategic communication (pp. 383–394). London: Routledge. Meitz, T., & Zurstiege, G. (2015). Strategy in advertising. In D. Holtzhausen & A. Zerfass (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of strategic communication. New York: Routledge. Moriarty, S., Mitchell, N., & Wells, W. (2012). Advertising & IMC: Principles and Practice. Hoboken, NJ: Prentice Hall. McNeal, J. (1964). Children as consumers. Austin, TX: University of Texas Bureau of Business Research. Cited by Martí, J. (2010, p. 41). Funny marketing. Consumidores, entretenimiento y comunicaciones de marketing en la era del branded entertainment. [Funny marketing. Consumers, entertainment and marketing communications in the age of branded entertainment]. Madrid: Wolters Kluwer. Muñoz, P. (2021). Branded Contnet as a brand strategic communication active. [El branded content como activo de comunicación estratégico para las marcas]. (pp. 23–31). At Olivares-Santamarina and Gago Gelado. Branded Content in Postdigital communication. [El branded content en la comunicación posdigital]. Valencia: Tirant Humanidades. O’Brien, K. (2019, abril 17). Ads we like: Apple says not to mess with mother earth with action-packed iPhone film. The Drum. Retrieved from http://bit​.do​/e8g4Z. Ogilvy, D. (1983). On advertising. New York: Vintage Books A Division of Random House. Ogilvy, D. (1985). On advertising. New York: Vintage Books a Division of Random House.

Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies  59 Ortega, E. (2004). Advertising communication [La comunicación publicitaria]. Madrid: Pirámide. Moriarty, S., Mitchell, N., & Wells, W. (2012). Advertising & IMC: Principles and practice. Hoboken, NJ: Prentice Hall. Muñoz, P. (2010). Foreword. In J. Martí (Ed.), Funny marketing. Consumidores, entretenimiento y comunicaciones de marketing en la era del Branded Entertainment. [Funny marketing. Consumers, entertainment and marketing communications in the age of Branded Entertainment]. Madrid: Wolters Kluwer. Nelli, R. (2011). L´evoluzione delle strategie di branded entertainment. [The evolution of branded entertainment strategies]. Milan: Vita e Pensiero. Nelli, R. (2012). Branded content marketing. Un nuovo approccio alla creazione di valore. [Branded content marketing. Branded content marketing. A new approach to value creation]. Milan: Vita e Pensiero. Payne, A., Storbacka, K., & Frow, P. (2008). Managing the co-creation of value. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 36(1), 83–96. Cited by Aguilera, J., & Baños, M. (2016, p. 99). Branded entertainment. Cuando el Branded Content se convierte en entretenimiento. [When branded content becomes entertainment]. Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid: ESIC. Pellicer, M. (2011). Ética y Estrategias Publicitarias. [Ethics and advertising strategies]. Saarbrücken: Editorial Académica Española. Pereira, J. (2018). The art of branded entertainment. London: Peter Owen. Peters, T. (2002). El meollo del Branding. [The heart of branding]. Madrid: Ediciones Nowtilus. Cited by Farrán, E. (2013, p. 232). Storytelling como herramienta y mejora de la eficacia en publicidad. Análisis de los casos Aquarius y BMW en televisión (1992–2010). [Storytelling as a tool and improvement of advertising effectiveness. Analysis of the Aquarius and BMW cases on television (1992–2010)]. (PhD Thesis) Castellón: Universidad Jaime I de Castellón. PWC. (2010). Measuring the effectiveness of online advertising. Study conducted by PWC for IAB France and the SRI. Retrieved from http://bit​.do​/e8g5P. Pérez-Latre, F. J. (2011). La publicidad y los medios. [Advertising and media]. Pamplona: Eunsa. Quesenberry, K. (2016). Consumer information overload: Shift to consumer-centric advertising model. In R. Brown, V. Jone, & M. Wang (Eds.), The new advertising: Branding, content, and consumer relationships in the data-driven social media era (pp. 33–66). Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. Ramón, A., & Segovia, C. (2016). Comunicación integrada de marketing. [Marketing integrated communications]. Madrid: ESIC. Ray, N. (1955). Rebel without a cause. Warner Bros. Rodríguez, I. (2011). Estrategias y técnicas de comunicación. [Strategies and techniques for communication]. Barcelona: UOC. Rogel del Hoyo, C., & Marcos Molano, M. (2020). El branded content como estrategia (no) publicitaria. [Branded content as an (un)advertising strategy]. Pensar La Publicidad. Revista Internacional De Investigaciones Publicitarias, 14(1), 65–75. https://doi​.org​/10​.5209​ /pepu​.68369. Russell, C. A. (2006). Advertainment: Fusing advertising and entertainment. Retrieved from http://bit​.do​/fbifR. Russell, C. A. (2007). Advertainment: Fusing advertising and entertainment. Retrieved from http://bit​.do​/fbifR. Rust, R., & Oliver, R. (1994). Service quality: New directions in theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Savar, A. (2013). Content to commerce. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons.

60  Branded Content in Advertising Communication Strategies Segel, C. (2014). Brand story. Historias que dejan marcas. [Brand story. Stories that leave their mark]. Providencia: Ediciones Universidad Finis Terrae. Signorelli, J. (2012). StoryBranding. Creating Stand-Out Brand through the power of story [StoryBranding. Creando marcas sobresalientes a través del poder de las historias]. Austin: Greenleaf Book Group Press. The Content Council. (2013). The spending study: A look at how corporate America invests in branded content for 2012. Retrieved from http://bit​.do​/e8g6E. Vargo, S. L, & Lusch, R. F. (2006). Service-dominant logic: What it is, what it is not, what it may be. In R. F. Lusch & S. L. Vargo (Eds.), The service dominant logic of marketing. Dialog, debate and directions (pp.43–56). Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. Cited by Aguilera, J., & Baños, M. (2016, p. 97). Branded entertainment. Cuando el branded content se convierte en entretenimiento. [Branded entertainment. When branded content becomes entertainment]. Pozuelo de Alarcón: ESIC. Vizcaíno, P. (2016). Del storytelling al storytelling publicitario: El papel de las marcas como contadoras de historias. [From storytelling to advertising storytelling: the role of brands as storytellers]. (PhD thesis). Madrid: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Ward, S. (1974). Consumer socialization. Journal of Consumer Research, 1(2), 1–14. Cited by Martí, J. (2010, p. 41). Funny marketing. Consumidores, entretenimiento y comunicaciones de marketing en la era del branded entertainment. [Funny marketing. Consumers, entertainment and marketing communications in the age of branded entertainment]. Madrid: Wolters Kluwer. Woodside, A. G. (2010). Brand consumer storytellilng theory and research: Introduction to a pshychology & marketing special issue. Psychology & Marketing, 27(6), 531–540. Cited by Castelló-Martínez, A., & del Pino-Romero, C. (2019, p. 262). De la publicidad a la comunicación persuasiva integrada. [From advertising to integrated persuasive communication]. Madrid: ESIC Editorial. Wostenholme (2008). Woodside, A. G., Sood, S., & Miller, K. E. (2008). When consumers and brand talk: Storytelling theory and research in psychology and marketing. Pshychology and Marketing, 25(2), 97–145. Citado por Castelló-Martínez, A y Del Pino-Romero, C. (2019, p. 262). Yahoo. (2012). Subconscious Storytelling. Research Study. Unlocking the Value of Branded Content. Retrieved from http://bit​.do​/fbp9A.

3

Typologies and Formats of Branded Content

Introduction In the planning process of a branded content strategy, the company itself has to consider external and internal factors when approaching a campaign. Internally, Nelli (2012) points out that organizations must define the objectives to achieve in the medium and long term, the audience they want to impact, and the thematic areas that resonate with the entity the most. These and other factors, such as the brand’s storytelling, the values defended by the organization, and consistency with other campaigns, are elements that influence decision making. Branded content experts should also consider external elements such as the competition’s trajectory and the sociocultural context. These factors influence the choice of an informative, editorial, playful, or purpose-driven typology. As detailed in Chapter 2, academic literature mainly points to three branded content categories. Authors such as Nelli (2012), Pereira (2018), and Hardy (2021) mention three categories of branded content: informational/editorial, educational, and entertainment character. Currently, brand utility is beginning to gain prominence where the purpose prevails in the ideation and execution of a campaign. The authors Toledano, Selva Ruiz, and Díaz Masa (2021) point out brand utility as a new typology of branded content due to the relevance it is gaining in society. In addition to these typologies, the execution of the campaign can take many formats. Asmussen, Wider, Williams, Stevenson, Whitehead, and Canter (2016) made one of the first compilations of formats where the content can be provided as an article, a TV show, a podcast, or posts on social networks, among others. BCMA (2022) launched the ‘Foco’ portal, which shows an exhaustive compilation of the different existing formats classified under the umbrella of editorial, audio-visual, sound, experiential, and interactive digital, as detailed in this chapter. For BCMA (2022), the content platforms are: A space created by a brand whose objective is to build on its values over time. It is built around a strategic territory or a concept; it is designed to offer valuable content to an audience and is intended to last over time. It usually has a preferred location, a website, which usually contains DOI: 10.4324/9781003310686-4

62  Typologies and Formats of Branded Content

different formats that are grouped around a specific theme or issue and adapt the different formats and channels for distribution outside its preferred location. BCMA (2022) The brand can distribute content in different communication channels: owned media, paid media, earned media, or shared media, as Hardy (2021) points out. This chapter analyzes the particularities of this puzzle between typologies of branded content, existing formats, variety of platforms, and distribution possibilities of such content.

Informative and Editorial Branded Content Toledano, Selva Ruiz, and Díaz Masa (2021) understand informative branded content as all branded content that informs or teaches something that the audience does not know and whose form and language are very similar to conventional journalism. Its objective is to provide information that the consumer receives as useful and relevant, adding value to the brand. Toledano, Selva Ruiz and Díaz Masa (2021, p.43) Usually, brands choose this type of action because it helps them to gain positioning in a sector. It is also a common practice when trying to be a reference in a subject. Brands choose informative and editorial branded content because it positions the brand as a reference offering experience and advice. It also demonstrates mastery of a sector, helps to maintain proximity with the consumer, promotes the frequency of communication messages, and, in some way, competes directly with publishers and media whose primary business is the generation of news. Some of the first examples of informative branded content date back to 1900. The publication of the Michelin Guide in 1900 in France was born to provide information to travellers. Customers can find accommodations, restaurants, and vehicle maintenance on its pages. Nowadays, the guide is a world reference of quality. Going to a Michelin-starred restaurant is synonymous with prestige and haute cuisine, as Aguilera and Baños (2016) point out. Another example is The Furrow’s case in Chapter 1 of this volume. As the company itself states on its website: The Furrow was first established by John Deere Company in 1895 as a journal for the American farmer. The goal of the magazine remains the same - to tell stories that people enjoy reading and provide them with knowledge that they can apply in their operations. Deere (2022)

Typologies and Formats of Branded Content  63

Working with editorial branded content implies a similar editorial department. The marketing department must have a team of journalists, copywriters, researchers, and specialized editors to offer an optimal quality level. Create an editorial line of content, and establish a calendar that contemplates important moments in customers’ buying process. For example, there will be important dates related to the seasonal cycle in customers’ buying process, important moments at a sociocultural level where the company wants to be present and news flows of greater or lesser intensity depending on the organization’s objectives. The consulting firm Deloitte launched in its editorial plan the Deloitte debates inspired by a very successful television show. The company regularly publishes weekly pro and con debates on hot business and finance issues (Pulizzi and Brenner 2014). Informational branded content campaigns can be based mainly on text, image, video, audio, new technologies, and social networks. Usually, brands prefer the following formats: press releases, guides, reports, toolkits, trend reports, product features, case studies, checklists, and reviews. The branded content editorial can be adapted to the company’s possibilities, whether a multinational or a small family business. Start-up Reforcer, an alpine ski clothing brand, is located in the Pyrenees mountains in the Aran Valley region. Its location does not prevent it from selling clothes to customers all over Europe through its website: www​.reforcer​.com. The founder of this company overcame a life-threatening illness and, after recovering, decided to pursue his dream and create this brand. Reforcer’s storytelling uses the slogan ‘climb Your mountain’ because we all have mountains to overcome, steep slopes to climb, and intersperses to overcome. Its message is vital because it is based on personal experience and has a unique authenticity. In 2020, the brand opted for informative branded content. A magazine specializing in snow for the Spanish market was interested in the founder’s story of overcoming challenges and the process of creating the clothing store’s products. Solonieve published a fourpage report with high-quality photographs under the title ‘Reforcer, a personal challenge.’ The article told the epic deed of the founder Juan Martinez. This example shows how informative branded content can be adapted to the size of the company, no matter if it is a multinational or a start-up.​ Informative content offers the advantage of being adaptable to the company’s essence. For example, Ameritrade, an investment company, publishes and distributes ThinkMoney magazine in print and digital (www​.thinkmoneydigital​ .com). This magazine is a niche product with a high return as a targeted publication. The magazine presents a fantastic design and insightful information about investment and finance. Customers are loyal and read this magazine regularly. Today’s digital distribution of content facilitates outreach; new technologies provide the opportunity to turn any brand into a media company. This ease of publication allows brands to become media companies, and publishers, as they have at their disposal a vast network of their own media: print media, websites, micro-sites, blogs, communities, digital media

64  Typologies and Formats of Branded Content

Figure 3.1 Tweet from the Reforcer Brand Announcing Its Editorial Article.

centers, press room, e-mail, webinars, online training tools, white papers and cases, e-magazines, e-books, physical and virtual events, mobile platforms, apps among others. Aguilera and Baños (2016, p.204)

Educational Branded Content This type of action focuses on participating with an active voice in society, building a deep relationship with the audience, and offering content that has an impact and lasts because of the interest it generates. This typology uses any available format. The difference lies in the inspiration for those ideas, the creative approach, and the impact it seeks to have on a given niche group. The Hellmann’s brand, famous for its ketchup, barbeque, and mayonnaise sauces, has a wide variety of recipes on its website, such as American Pancakes, brownies, Ham Mustard Sandwich, or a delicious tuna, olives, capers sub sandwich. It also offers a free download of an ebook dedicated to making the most of leftovers. This example is educational and signifies a commitment and statement of intent towards making the most of food as an alternative to a culture of waste. ‘If you have ever wondered how you can tackle food waste at home, the Food Waste Hacks handbook holds plenty of answers’ (Hellmann’s 2022). CMI awarded global sales training company RAIN Group in the professional services industry in 2021 for its campaign ‘The Ultimate Virtual Selling Toolkit’ as the best B2B branded content campaign. The company asked more

Typologies and Formats of Branded Content  65

than 500 buyers and sellers what type of advice and expertise was most important to them. So, with that information, the company produced several editorial formats. The Virtual Selling Skills and Challenges Report, an ebook, and several documents titled ‘How to Build Relationships, Differentiate and Win Sales Remotely.’ The company achieved over 4400K downloads of its research report, 9K ebook copies sold, 66K+ views of its blog, infographics, and slide decks, and more than 15 new closed/won deals (CMI 2022). Aguilera and Baños (2016) state that through this strategy, brands try to have more social and human participation. It is no longer about getting customers but about keeping them over time throughout a lifetime, about creating passionate subscribers to a brand. The possibilities are endless. In the US, the Downtown Resource Group of Minneapolis opted for interactivity to show neighbours valuable information in the home-buying decision process. The company created an interactive guide to Minneapolis with comparisons made by neighbours, the information provided by real estate agents, and valuable data about the area. In this way, those interested in buying a home had at their disposal an educational tool in the home-buying decision process (Aguilera and Baños 2016). Along the same lines in Spain, BBVA bank presented the first app that allows searching for housing through augmented reality: ‘Valora View.’ BBVA has unveiled Valora View, the first app in the European Banking sector using augmented reality to help prospective buyers or renters find a home. With this new free service, available for both customers and noncustomers of the bank, BBVA launches a tool that, harnessing the power of big data, is capable of providing users with recommended purchase or rent prices for a specific property. And not only that: The application can also provide advice on whether it makes more sense to buy or rent, and even run mortgage simulations. BBVA (2018) BBVA bank has been able to take advantage of the possibilities of educational branded content to connect with audiences in their needs and offer them quality content. Through the ‘We learn together’ campaign (‘Aprendemos Juntos’ in Spanish language), the bank has found a powerful tool to communicate its purpose and corporate values, not only by educating but also by acting with an impact on society (Garrido and Madrid 2021). The bank’s objectives focused on creating real opportunities to improve people’s lives, providing methodologies to prepare society with the necessary skills to face the 21st century and thus improve affinity and consideration towards the brand. In addition, this strategy could help them to differentiate the brand from the competition (IAB 2022). The advertising effectiveness awards in Spain awarded this campaign with gold for the best-integrated campaign and bronze for the most innovative strategy, thus demonstrating the bank’s commitment to education (Garrido and

66  Typologies and Formats of Branded Content

Madrid 2021). The bank commissioned a study to determine what the term ‘creating opportunities’ meant for Spanish society. The answer was ‘education’ as the best lever to improve opportunities for each individual. Based on this insight, the brand designed a communication platform with two objectives. First, to ignite the conversation about education and second, to create content, allying with media, educational institutions, and social networks to distribute it in as many channels as possible. ‘It drives education transformation by empowering children, parents, and teachers by designing online courses to boost skills and creating online methodologies to develop in schools and homes’ (Garrido and Madrid 2021, p.263). The platform brings together experts in different subjects. Starting in 2018, BBVA will publish an average of 12 weekly videos in different formats: onehour videos, five-minute video editorial cuts, two-minute videos for social networks, and story formats for Instagram timelines. El País newspaper echoes all the publishing house’s content and social media channels. The combination of owned, earned, and social media is impressive and achieves a 24/7 connection with audiences. Garrido and Madrid (2021) point out several learnings from this campaign. BBVA’s ‘We learn together’ demonstrates a brand’s capacity to generate positive societal changes through educational branded content. Relevant content is not merely making good or formally correct content but relevant content that generates an impact. In this sense, this campaign combines education with purpose, becoming a lever for transformation in society and transcending the product category. Banking manages to transcend beyond the management of a savings account to become an expert voice in education, in the actual generation of opportunities for society. Thus, usefulness becomes the new metric. ‘Because if you are useful, you get elected’ (Garrido and Madrid 2021, p.265). Finally, organizations can distribute their content on their own platforms they manage and control. This capability allows for continuity in the dissemination of content without relying on intermediaries. Since 2018 BBVA has achieved more than 1.5 billion views, a community of more than five million followers, and a sentiment of 1% opposing. With more than 50 awards, among which stands out recognition by the UN for its contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals (IAB 2022). Undoubtedly, Dove is one of the brands with a pioneering global presence in this type of action. According to Advertising Age, the Real Beauty Sketches campaign was selected as one of the 15 best campaigns of the 21st century. Ogilvy Säo Paulo carried out this action in 2013 for the Unilever group. The company wanted to educate society on the concept of self-image and selfesteem, values in which the brand wanted to position itself. The brand conducted a video-documented experiment where they invited several women to pose for a portrait. They waited in a waiting room while, one by one, they entered the drawing studio. An experienced FBI artist would make a drawing of each one with the peculiarity of not seeing them. He would only take as a reference the verbal description of what the women said about

Typologies and Formats of Branded Content  67

themselves. Then, the sketch artist would draw another portrait of each of them based on the description that another participant had observed. In this way, the women could see two drawings of themselves, one showing how they saw themselves and one showing how others saw them from the outside. In all cases, the descriptions of the outsiders were more beautiful and more accurate to reality. This experiment is about the education of true beauty, self-image, the personal perception we often have about ourselves, and self-esteem. The experiment had a tremendous impact on social networks, with an impact on television: tv channels from 110 countries and 25 languages broadcast the video (Loorenberg 2017, p.54). Consistently, Unilever has followed this same educational strategy through The Dove Self-Esteem-Project: an educational programme to strengthen the self-esteem of girls and adolescents. The project features a website: https:// www​.dove​.com​/us​/en​/dove​-self​-esteem​-project, a downloadable guide to improve girls’ emotional security and self-esteem, a kit for educators and teachers, and a gamification experience. The guide contains articles covering key aspects affecting self-esteem and offers activities reinforcing security and selfconfidence. Dove presents its proposal in this way: At Dove, we believe no young person should be held back from reaching their full potential. However, low body confidence and anxieties over appearance keep young people from being their best selves, affecting their health, friendships, and even performance at school. For more than 15 years, we’ve been helping parents, mentors, teachers, and youth leaders deliver self-esteem education that’s reached more than 60 million young people so far. By 2030, we’re aiming to have helped ¼ billion build their positive body image. Dove (2022)

Branded Entertainment The nature of entertainment branded content typology is often the most spectacular. Like informational or editorial content, communication assets are not about the brand’s product or service per se but offer valuable content in their own right. The productions convey the brand’s values, identity, and personality and meet marketing objectives (Aguilera and Baños 2016). Generating entertainment in multiple forms opens a new panorama for organizations in different categories and sectors. On the one hand, they must guarantee quality standards as high as any video game production company, film studio, mobile application developer, or theatre company, among others. When the industry redefines the meaning of the advertising message, branded entertainment offers an alternative to be present in society in a playful and non-intrusive way. The consultancy Sociograph’s (2021) study for BCMA examines the impact of different campaigns and their effectiveness, taking into

68  Typologies and Formats of Branded Content

account the different formats used and the level of emotion and engagement with audiences. In conclusion, the study shows that audio-visual branded content obtains better results than the other formats and traditional advertising, a format commonly used for entertainment actions. Rodríguez-Rabadán, Galán-Fajardo, and Del Pino-Romero (2022) conducted an empirical analysis where they examined the effects on viewers of two branded entertainment pieces of the Catalan beer Estrella Damm: Vale (Amenábar 2015) and Las Pequeñas Cosas (Rodríguez 2016). The study reveals a direct relationship between the level of entertainment generated by the short films and the intention to purchase the product. In conclusion, entertainment is an excellent tool to transmit values and ideas and persuade the consumer in decision making. The viewer freely chooses to enjoy such content, devoting his time and attention to the message provided in a playful and entertaining format, which is essential to transmit a message that has an emotional impact on the medium- and long-term in the viewer’s memory. Another of the main qualities of branded entertainment is its ability to use storytelling applied to marketing and communication purposes. Storytelling is an indispensable tool to attract consumers in an environment saturated with information. Storytelling provides narrative techniques and rhetorical strategies that generate identification through emotion and engagement to get the audience to empathize with universes that are close to them. Rodríguez-Rabadán, Galán-Fajardo and Del Pino-Romero (2022, p.166) Farrán (2013) and Loggerenberg (2017) point out that storytelling neurologically activates the brain and is capable of higher retention; especially in a society that has grown up with a multitude of advertising messages, being able to tell a story and achieve brand resonance is very valuable. Stories that offer more authentic, honest, genuine, and relevant value will be able to resonate more in a saturated society and build an emotional connection. ‘A strong emotional connection advances a strong emotional relationship with a target audience that strategically builds customer-based brand equity, also referred to as brand resonance’ (Loggerenberg 2017, p.20). Brand resonance could enhance engagement, brand loyalty, attitudinal attachment, and a sense of community. The Cannes Film Festival is one of the main events in the advertising industry to reward and evaluate the best campaigns from around the world. According to the organization, the branded content and entertainment category includes those communication pieces that seek to entertain and offer immersive content. Entrants to the branded content & entertainment Lions category will demonstrate how a brand has successfully worked independently or in association with a content producer or publisher to develop and create

Typologies and Formats of Branded Content  69

or co-create entertaining and engaging content for their audience. This could be either by creating original content or programming for a brand or by naturally integrating a brand into existing formats by partnering with a publisher or media partner. Cannes Lions (2012) In 2016 the festival changed its name to ‘Cannes Entertainment Lions’ to prioritize entertainment rather than the term brand. Lions Entertainment, a two-day event dedicated to brands and the entertainment industry, was launched, replacing the Branded Content & Entertainment Lions. The new categories were Branded Content & Visual Storytelling, Talent; Brand Experience; Games; and Sports. The list of participants in 2022 is more than a hundred bells and whistles in the categories of fiction films up to five minutes, non-fiction films up to five minutes, fiction films between five and thirty minutes, non-fiction from five to 30 minutes, audio content, brand integration and sponsorship, audience engagement and distribution strategy, talent: film, series, and audio, talent: digital and social, talent partnerships with talent, digital and mobile games, brand integration for games, sports: brand integration, sponsorship and agreements and finally innovation in branded content. As can be seen, the list is extensive and demonstrates an amalgam of possibilities in the world of entertainment for different formats and platforms. Branded entertainment is a typology that can capture the viewer’s attention more intensely than other typologies due to the creative flexibility it provides and its playful factor, avoiding intrusive commercial messages. In collaboration with Demoskopea, the Italian Branded Content and Entertainment Observatory carried out research to delve into the new paradigm of current communication, where the consumer and the brand communicate in different channels, in different media and platforms giving rise to multi-experientiality and multi-channel. In this new context, marketing campaigns lean towards creating their own characteristic identity and a long-lasting relationship over time. The brand approaches the consumer with an attitude of giving, engagement, dialogue, and entertainment (Grinta 2017). Nowadays, engagement is gaining importance in advertising. The following paragraphs reflect on how branded entertainment could impact brand engagement. Engagement marketing strategies help consumers to have a better involvement with the brand. It has become more relevant in recent years. Current trends try to measure the correlation between brand messages and consumer engagement, the level of depth, and the interaction time with the action generated by the brand (Martí and Muñoz 2008). Various research shows that engagement in advertising is significant because it is directly related to the increase in consumer recall and actions such as seeking additional information about the product, consulting a website, and finally, buying a product or service.

70  Typologies and Formats of Branded Content

The focus of this study is to analyze to what extent branded entertainment generates engagement in the consumer and whether it is an advertising technique that favours this type of involvement with the viewer/consumer. To this end, the definition of engagement proposed by Bigné, Hyder, and Martí (2014) is taken as a starting point since, in their study, they conducted an extensive literature review on the meaning of the term. The authors define brand engagement as ‘a psychological state of brand evocation in the consumer based on an identification between brand and consumer and fueled by brand-consumer interactions’ (Bigné, Hyder, and Martí 2014, p.257). Aguilera and Baños (2016) point out that brand engagement transcends the relationship between buyer and seller to expand to new synergies between potential customers and society. Finally, it must bring an experience to the consumer and capture their participation. According to these statements, the brand must generate a dynamic connection with the consumer, the social environment, and the different agents involved in the communication process. Brand engagement might vary depending on the type of content; a greater or lesser effect of involvement with the consumer will be achieved, this effect being a psychological state of evocation of the brand that may result in a short-, medium-, or long-term purchase. Authors Aguilera and Baños (2016) emphasize the importance of engagement and its relationship with consumer behaviour: The consequences of engagement impact consumer/customer behavior: more loyalty, the audience invests more in the brand (transactions, the share of wallet, and, we add, customers become less sensitive to price). Engagement allows more interaction with the brand, generates knowledge (co-creation), generates positive comments, and actively recommends the brand to third parties. Engagement creates perceived value. Aguilera and Baños (2016, p.117) In this study framework, the authors Bigné, Hyder, and Martí (2014) point out not only the importance of engagement but also consider three dimensions to achieve consumer engagement with the brand. These three phases are cognitive, emotional, and behavioural engagement. Even in a culture of brand infatuation, the consumer considers rational elements essential for the decision to purchase a product, such as price, performance, or product quality. Rational engagement will provoke consumer responses related to attention (brand awareness). In a second dimension, emotional engagement affects the feelings, the intrinsic motivations of the individual, and even hedonistic values that may include the desire for escapism, entertainment, sexual elements, or fun. This approach will seek to generate a new attitude towards the brand in the individual. Finally, a behavioural component translated into the voluntary decision of the consumer to invest personal resources in a brand beyond the purchase of the object itself or the consumption of the product. This investment of time, participation, money, and creativity can take place in

Typologies and Formats of Branded Content  71

an individual sphere or a community, turning the consumer into a prosumer seeking a conative response on the usefulness of the brand (Bigné, Hyder, and Martí 2014). According to Hardy (2018), one of the attractions of branded content in marketing strategies is the ability to offer messages with a value proposition, which increases consumer engagement. Branded entertainment no longer interrupts the consumer’s entertainment; the consumer spends time with this content because it is valuable (Martí and Muñoz 2008). This non-intrusive content is often broadcast on owned media channels thanks to new technologies and the digital revolution. Well-executed, professional quality content can increase engagement and consumer involvement; in coordination with paid media, it can catalyze repercussions in earned media if the brand offers valuable content worthy of interest and subject to be shared by the consumer. Belch and Belch (2018) justify the growth in the use of audio-visual advertising in online environments due to its ability to generate engagement as follows: The use of advertising in the digital video format has grown exponentially in recent years as it allows more significant interaction and favors consumer engagement with the brand. Advertisers and agencies involved in the process must establish the parameters of style, time, and types of content to capture the consumer’s interest, where emotion and humor are usually good allies. Belch and Belch (2018) Branded entertainment, in its online video format, is an advertising technique that organically connects with the consumer from interest and attraction, generating relevant content to establish medium- and long-term relationships. For Grinta (2017), branded content and entertainment revolve around three axes: 1. Engagement: there is a new relationship between a brand and a consumer based on respect, credibility, and value 2. Storytelling: the brand becomes the essence of the story 3. Innovation as a new form of communication. Another of the remarkable peculiarities of branded entertainment is its ideation and creation process, which is very different from the editorial or educational typology. The creative process incorporates advertising methodologies and follows the narrative laws of entertainment. In advertising, the advertiser defines a creative strategy to provide a framework for the creative development of the advertising message (brief). In broad parameters, the creative team must start from this strategic point to develop a creative process that responds to the brand’s needs and meets its objectives ‘creative brief’ (Ortega 2004). Numerous pieces of research analyze the procedure of creating an advertising campaign. Different studies examine its phases, agents, and the characteristics

72  Typologies and Formats of Branded Content

that both a brief and a creative brief must contain. Works that have already been successfully carried out, such as the recent publication of CastellóMartínez and Del Pino-Romero (2019), can serve as a reference as a manual in understanding advertising to persuasive communication integrated into all its dimensions. The following is a brief analysis of the various existing creative strategies and an analysis of which one can nourish branded entertainment. The creative strategy considers a route designed to connect with the target audience. On the other hand, the different creative proposals are the possible strategic contents that communicate the strategy to convey a concept (LID 2022). The staging of the advertising message expression has given rise to various currents, of which some of the most outstanding are mentioned based on the classification proposed by Ortega (2004). In the second section, it is stated the connection links between the following philosophies and their reflection in the communication axis of a branded entertainment campaign. The communication axis is the chosen differentiation, the differential advantage of the product to communicate in the persuasive communication action, given creative objectives and a target audience. Other terms analogous to the axis of communication are sales argument, significant difference, or promise. The communication axis can focus on a product feature, a differentiating advantage, or a benefit for the consumer. Castelló-Martínez and Del Pino-Romero (2019, p.241) Throughout the 20th century, there have been different trends in approaching the creative strategy in creating an advertising campaign. The Unique Selling Proposition philosophy, created by Rosser Reeves in the 1940s, focuses advertising on a single selling proposition that differentiates the product from its fundamental characteristic. Its predominant attribute, with a strong, attractive creative strategy to get the consumer’s attention, is a strategy that is still in force in many advertisements. The conceptualization of the brand image, inspired by Ogilvy, promoted a new prism from the 1960s onwards, where the product took second place. The brand acquires greater importance and reflects an image and identity, endowing it with a set of beliefs and impressions. Other currents, like the French agency RSCG, propose a strategy based on spectacle advertising. In their intense search to find an image that identifies them, brands transform no longer into an object or a thought but a person, with a marked identity as if it were a Hollywood star, full of spectacle and glamour (Ortega 2004). Séguela, president of RSCG, states a ‘promise’ that becomes immaterial and inspired according to a physical aspect related to the product’s characteristics, a psychic aspect such as the brand’s character, and an aesthetic value emanating from the tone and style of the language used to communicate (Castelló-Martínez and Del Pino-Romero 2019).

Typologies and Formats of Branded Content  73

Ortega (2004) points out ‘the transgressive strategy’ as a new modality already present in the 1990s. This one is outside conservative conventions and stereotypes in a search to draw attention innovatively. Benetton campaigns led by the photographer Toscani are an example of this more aggressive and provocative orientation in advertising. Images of AIDS patients, war scenes, and catastrophes, among other examples, have served as an advertising campaign, turning ugliness into an attraction, journalism into advertising, and controversy into a new interest in the brand’s service. In the last decades, a new creative current has proliferated where the brand image acquires a new dimension in the philosophy of permanent values. Brands are identified with abstract concepts and promises, typically of universal character and lasting in time; ideas related to the zeitgeist, or culture and spirit of the present time, with ideas of a moral, social, cultural, or scientific nature. Sectors such as automobiles, luxury brands, beauty products, or alcoholic beverages use this strategy as part of their communication strategies. For Castelló-Martínez and Del Pino-Romero (2019), the unique selling proposition based on a rational attribute has now evolved into an Emotional Selling Proposition. The brand seeks in its identity a truth, an aspect that differentiates it from its competition to extol it. In this creative journey, branded entertainment, in its audio-visual format, allows creatives to break the limits set by the 30-second TV spot and seeks to elevate the brand in connection with certain principles. Values can start from ‘searching for that brand-truth (brand truth),’ Castelló-Martínez and Del PinoRomero (2019, p.225), or according to some principles they intend to identify and give agency. Brands that opt for a branded entertainment action seek as the axis of communication a central element that represents values that give the brand relevance and are exciting and significant for the consumer. Branded entertainment can tell a story and involve the brand in it. Thanks to storytelling, the brand can connect emotionally with consumers, whether the narrative revolves around a cause, a product, a person, or a specific purpose. ‘Good storytelling is the foundation of good branded entertainment; if your story resonates enough, people will share it and turn it into the news’ (Chun 2018, p.64). Entertainment can take numerous formats. Toledano, Selva, and DíazMasa (2021) highlight social experiments where the brand highlights a situation of interest to a community and draws conclusions on issues of general interest. An example is the Ruavieja campaign (2018) awarded at Cannes Lions for creating an algorithm that identifies the time we have left to share with loved ones. Experiential formats, such as the content that RedBull consistently launches, bring the viewer closer to the experiences they would experience if they practiced risky sports. Other entertainment formats are short films like the famous series The Hire by BMW (2008), documentaries like Oso by the brand Tous (2020), web series like The Beauty Inside (2012) by Intel and Toshiba, feature films like The Lego Movie (2014) or the expected release of the feature film Barbie (2023), TV shows like Old Spice creating its

74  Typologies and Formats of Branded Content

reality show in 2017. Other formats include cultural and social projects such as the campaign Una fotografía irrepetible, ‘Unique Photograph,’ a project by Trappa and CB&Fire chocolates to denounce the felling of trees and the problem of palm trees in virgin areas. Well-executed making of formats is content that generates high interest, such as Welcome Home (2018) by Spike Jonze for the Apple Homepod brand. Finally, live events are another format to explore as they allow a tremendous viral effect thanks to the personal experiences of all participants and the echo they can make in social networks and earned media. For example, Coca-Cola has been holding the ‘CocaCola Music Experience’ since 2019, an event revolving around music. The Madrid beer Mahou organizes a route of traditional tapas bars in the city, a miniature tasting of different local gastronomic dishes, an interactive app, a website called www​.Mahoudrid​.com, and special discounts and promotional offers for users. Tenderich (2014) and Bonsignore and Sassoon (2014) highlight the case of The Beauty Inside (2012) as a benchmark for audio-visual branded entertainment. The technology company Intel established an agreement with Toshiba to make a branded entertainment that reflected the brand values. Intel is the soul of the computer. In the same way, they presented a story highlighting the value of the inside of people’s hearts. The company launched a six-episode interactive and social web series directed by Drake Doremus, an award-winning director at the Sundance Film Festival. The plot is about Alex, a man in his 20s who wakes up every day with a new body and a different face; although his physique varies, he is always the same. The viewer follows Alex’s metamorphosis throughout the different chapters. The protagonist uses a Toshiba Ultrabook computer to record events in the form of a diary; it is the only thing that does not change in his life and on which he can rely. The project’s approach had an interactive character where the audience could send videos and interact with the protagonist through social networks: Facebook and YouTube. Alex changes, and under that premise, any viewer could adopt the character’s personality to participate in the plot. The producers of the films used more than a hundred faces throughout the episodes, turning this date into a global event. Intel’s challenge was captivating the audience and standing out with an intangible product. The Beauty Inside was created to get people thinking about a product they can’t see, the Intel processor that powers the Toshiba Protegé. This has been one of Intel´s greatest challenges. Intel has cycled through various strategies to overcome this challenge. They began with selling the functionality of the product, which became very technical and stodgy. To overcome this, Intel created the legendary Intel Inside campaign. Years later it evolved into a strategy focused on the empowerment to be had from utilizing products powered by Intel through celebrity endorsements

Typologies and Formats of Branded Content  75

and partnerships. As of late, they have realized that the current market requires ‘something’ more engaging to grasp their attention. Tenderich (2014, p.13) In 2022, Greenpeace won the Gold Lions award for its Los Santos +3ºC campaign in the entertainment category with its commitment to a gaming experience. As Lions the Work (2022) describes, Los Santos +3ºC is a crossover of scientific data and entertainment. Through this immersive experience, people interact with the real effects of climate change in an unprecedented way. Not only seeing it but living it. This gaming experience used the modding of a server of GTA online. This game was improved to provide a greater experience. Greenpeace participated in the project and guided the creation of all the GTA’s features, designed in accordance with a futuristic reality, engaging and entertaining. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we are in a ‘now or never’ moment against climate change. On the current path, the world can have 3°C warming in this century. The goal of this project was meant to engage young audiences, Gen Z, make them care about this problem and ignite the need to fight against climate change, signing their petition and donating to the cause. Los Santos, the land of GTA Online, is an immersive replica of the city of Los Angeles, California. This replicates the city thanks to a simulator made with thousands of hours of real urban footage. This game is considered one of the most realistic games nowadays thanks to the research and development by Rockstar made GTA. As GTA Online has online servers with open code, it’s possible to ‘hack’ and change everything. ‘In partnership with their own scientific team, Greenpeace used real future predictions to develop Los Santos +3°C. An entire metaverse half-underwater, afflicted by heat, drought, air pollution, and a full-blown economic crisis, with climate refugees and many other real challenges. Lions the Work (2022) Gen Z, GTA server developers, and 50 Brazilian local top streamers and professional gamers showed a real interest in the game. Greenpeace streamed the game for an entire week which helped to build a community around this phenomenon. The strategy also included a direct way to act. Inside the game, players can sign Greenpeace’s petition and donate to the NGO. Greenpeace’s scientific team traced every consequence of a 3°C increase in warming in Los Angeles and around the world. Those predictions guided the next four months of coding and modding by the development company. As the project turns scientific predictions into this immersive entertainment, it was a hot topic on the news (only earned media) and social networks. Los Santos +3°C quickly crossed the gaming world. Researchers, teachers, journalists, and many kinds of environmental-related influencers shared

76  Typologies and Formats of Branded Content

about this on social networks. According to Lions the Work (2022), the results showed more than +450 hours of live streaming just in the first week. The gaming community watched almost eight million minutes of broadcasting. In the first week, one in three gamers who interacted with the in-game access to the petition had signed it. Until today, the community still plays and streams Los Santos +3°C. Without any Greenpeace investment, the project generated +340% in petition signatures, +40% in donations, and almost 30 million in earned media. Gen Z engaged with the immersive gaming experience and assimilated the real need of taking action to stop climate change.

Purpose-driven Branded Content Toledano, Selva, and Díaz-Masa (2021) understand brand utility as ‘everything that the brand does that is useful for the consumer, and whose dissemination can turn it into relevant content.’ Many editorial, educational, or entertainment campaigns have tried to provoke a reaction in society to participate actively in their current challenges and cultural transformation. Organizations committed to generating branded content actions must, in any case, be aligned with the company’s purpose. As early as 1960, David Packard, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, stressed the importance of asking why an organization, capable of doing something collectively, should contribute to society in some way (content marketing). The purpose that defines the company will guide the actions that seek to generate that impact concretely ‘In short, the purpose is the organizational rasion d’être and more permanent nature of its existence, which the other components and strategy get built around ’ (Džamić and Kirby 2018, p.64). Brands need to be associated not only with values but also with meaningful actions. Branded content may bring brands an excellent opportunity to generate purpose-driven content in a given context. Brand purpose is related to a higher-order reason for a brand to exist than just making a profit. Nowadays, there are growing opportunities for brands to become part of the social change of their time by committing themselves and delivering content that matters. Pernod Ricard’s ‘The time we have left’ campaign to promote its Rua Vieja liqueur won a Gold Lion and Bronze Lion award in 2019. The concept was born to make up for lost time with loved ones. Spain has a tradition of having a liqueur after lunch or dinner. This culture is losing this tradition as there is no time to linger and chat after a meal. Moreover, restaurants and bars offer a liqueur by its category but not by the brand’s own denomination, making it difficult to gain market share for the brand. Rua Vieja wanted to distinguish itself in the product category of the market. The brand’s starting point is based on a product consideration where consumers appreciate them as something artisanal, with natural ingredients and intense flavours. Also, three out of four customers ask for liquor by type, not brand. The idea persists in society that liquor is something to give as a treat. Pernod Ricard aimed to gain brand recognition, stand out from its competitors, and have a presence

Typologies and Formats of Branded Content  77

in society. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, we had a social distancing marked by the stressful pace of life and the isolation produced by technology. Rua Vieja wanted to launch a message to society at Christmas 2018 to bring back the more human side: strengthening ties with loved ones. The starting premise was, what if citizens could know the remaining time left to enjoy the people they love. How would that change life attitudes or personal relationships? The execution of this campaign starts with creating an algorithm that can calculate the remaining time the audience has left with the people they care about, not speculations but accurate data based on personal history. Based on this algorithm, the brand executed a social experiment. Several bonded participants saw the results of the algorithm. Then their reaction to learning how much time they had left together was videotaped. With these materials, a video was edited and broadcast on November 18, 2018, on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. In those days, the website received more than one million views (Lions the Work 2022). The video/experiment went viral. The campaign was so successful that the company decided to give away bus tickets so that the audience could visit their loved ones. The results were terrific. The campaign was the most viewed and shared campaign in Spain in its history. Some of the most critical data were: 17.5 million views in total (13.5M on YouTube, from which 5.3M came from Whatsapp), more than 300K shares, one million people visited the website, and more than 700K calculated how much time they had left with their love ones; an average time spent on the web: 4 minutes 30 seconds; visits to the web came from 194 different countries; sales increased by +52%. Due to the sudden demand, the supermarket franchise Carrefour had to create a direct button on its e-commerce front page. A Chilean TV show dedicated a one-hour documentary to the idea and the most beautiful message: thousands of people uploaded pictures of their get-togethers, thanking Rua Vieja for making them possible. This campaign demonstrated that branded entertainment with a purpose achieves a profound impact, impeccable creativity focused and coherent with the brand’s truth can obtain a social return. In turn, the brand gains relevance and gets a licence to talk to its consumers about those things that are important in their lives beyond purchasing liquor. Furthermore, ultimately, the purpose gets consumers to change their behaviour and take notice of an almost unknown brand. Sales of the product increased by 52% and gained 14.4% in the liquor market share (Scopen 2019). Content comes to the following conclusion: there is no good content strategy without aligning the brand and organizational ones, driven by the bigger purpose. Furthermore, content and culture could not exist side by side, but are nested with each other: content is the expression of purpose and culture. Džamić and Kirby (2018, p.69)

78  Typologies and Formats of Branded Content

Brands must deeply understand their target audience, create powerful content that resonates and be part of the current conversation according to the concerns and have the credibility to create branded content where the purpose is the main factor and axis from which the strength of the campaign starts. Today’s consumer, educated to discern the truth about a brand’s discourse and sceptical about accepting promising slogans, pays attention to the brand under this new tool where attraction takes precedence over intrusiveness. Branded content does not give excessive weight to the commercial dimension of the content, but neither is it concealed (Nelli 2011). The brand becomes a generator of interesting content for the consumer with a coherent, transparent, honest, and open-to-dialogue discourse. In this culture of generosity, the branded content technique offers a sincere communication vehicle where campaigns inspired by usefulness can build medium- and long-term bonds between brands and consumers. Another notable example is the best practices of the banking sector. After the financial crisis of 2008, the banking sector has used this content generation strategy to restore lost trust with consumers in a new, more responsible digital communication under the commitment to provide value to society. Examples include campaigns such as ‘We learn together’ (‘Aprendemos Juntos’), BBVA’s open educational platform, Bravo (2020), the campaign ‘To be wherever you are’ (‘Estar donde estés’), relevant editorial information content provided by Banco Sabadell, and finally, ‘Beyond Money’ (‘Cuánto: más allá del dinero’), a short film produced by Banco Santander to attract the trust of young people to the value of what is really important (RodríguezRabadán 2019). The 2017 Grand Prix-winning branded entertainment campaign, ‘Beyond Money’ by MRM/McCann for Banco Santander presents a futuristic world between the sci-fi and thriller genres. The story tells the life of a wealthy woman who is a victim of a materialistic world where selling memories is possible. In this campaign, Banco Santander picks up the zeitgeist latent in today’s society and reflects the place of money in our value system, the addiction to shopping, and the importance of the experiences we each live. Materialism becomes the antagonist of the story, a danger that threatens to steal the protagonist’s happiness, break family harmony and destroy her most beautiful memories. Banco Santander presents a narrative with high production values, a universal theme, and an exciting and original concept capable of connecting with audiences of all cultures and beliefs. However, most importantly, the agency MRM/McCann knew how to understand the brand’s concerns. In 2017, after the economic crisis, Banco Santander wanted to connect with a young millennial audience and change the negative perception of this generation towards banking to a positive perception. In the end, Banco Santander opened more than 900,000 bank accounts for its target audience. Santander Bank’s message reached the consumer. They wanted to tell them that they were there to help them, to help them to fulfil their dreams, live experiences, and enjoy life. Millennials got the message through a relevant piece that money

Typologies and Formats of Branded Content  79

is not the important thing, but that true wealth remains in the experiences we live in our lives. This branded entertainment campaign with purpose echoes these new trends of commitment to society since the essence of a story understood as an ambassador of a brand’s values must be honest, authentic, and sincere. Likewise, the story’s creativity is the vehicle to access the consumer’s world in a friendly and non-intrusive way. Originality and a compelling message are crucial to capturing the viewer’s attention in the attention economy society. Brands are transforming their communication strategy towards messages with a transformative sense, with meaningful actions and purpose. This trend results from factors such as digitalization, the new consumption habits of today’s viewers, media convergence, and the new role of advertising in today’s society; these and other elements influence these advertising campaigns based on generating added value for the consumer. Brands that act under a brand purpose as a prime reason for the brand to exist (beyond a market share, stock market listing, or dividends). They can find an opportunity to be part of their time, engaging and disseminating content that matters in their own, earned and paid media channels. Companies such as Dove, Banco Santander, or BBVA show how branded content has the uniqueness of having the necessary tools to transform the brand message and go beyond itself to be part of a culture and obtain a significant impact in the medium and long term with consumers. Brands must understand the genetics of their organization and identify the aspects that differentiate them from the competition. In addition, organizations must know their audiences to connect and identify ways to communicate optically through meaningful content. As Marc Mathieu, SVP of Marketing at Unilever, predicted, gone are the days when marketing and advertising were about creating a myth and telling it. Now it is about telling the truth and sharing it. An organization’s purpose could be considered the fifth P of marketing: product, price, place, promotion, and purpose. Today it is crucial to define the identity that distinguishes a brand from its competitors, find a good reason for being, and remain consistent with it. Sharing a brand’s purpose through branded content advertising can reinforce the brand’s position in the market compared to others that do not use these strategies. For these campaigns to have a positive impact, the purpose and message must transcend communication and have a tangible impact on the essence of the brand, from product development to customer experience and employee relations, among others. Brands that can connect with customers on a human level and, over time, will obtain great opportunities in the market. The professional practice has consolidated as a non-conventional advertising tool, very original and relevant, which offers a capital value engagement and usefulness capable of giving voice to the latent brand purpose in organizations. Purpose-driven branded content forecast an excellent future projection, capable of achieving an impact on society under the principle of responsibility.

80  Typologies and Formats of Branded Content

Branded Content Formats BCMA (2020) presented FOCO, an acronym for branded content formats. It is a guide developed by BCMA’s Creation and Innovation Commission that proposes classifying the different formats available in a branded content project. The tool is intended as a guide to support and inspire the many opportunities available when carrying out an action of this type. Thus, BCMA establishes a series of categories, distinguished into print and digital publishing. In print publishing, fiction and non-fiction books, newspapers, and magazines stand out. In 2002, the Bulgari brand commissioned a novel by the writer Fay Weldon. The jeweller wanted to give a copy to all customers who visited the new store on Sloane Street. In 2013, Louis Vuitton carried out a similar action in France by collecting short stories under the title The Trunk. Louis Vuitton and French publisher Gallimard will release The Trunk, an anthology of short stories presented as a literary game. Since 1854, the Louis Vuitton family home in Asnières has been filled with the whispering of extraordinary stories of trunks, luggage and travel. Gaston-Louis Vuitton, the founder’s grandson and a passionate collector, constituted fabulous archives. Cases about thefts, spies, princesses, lost or bloodstained trunks… he would comb the press for articles about the object that encapsulated the fantasies of his time: the trunk. Forty years later, eleven French writers could immerse themselves in this treasure and brought them back to life. Here the leading Parisian writers of our time sing in praise of trunks and their travels. These lucky travellers are: Éliette Abécassis, Fabienne Berthaud, Marie Darrieussecq, Virginie Despentes, Nicolas d’Estienne d’Orves, Patrick Eudeline, David Foenkinos, Philippe Jaenada, Yann Moix, Véronique Ovaldé et Bruno de Stabenrath. Louis Vuitton (2022) The digital editorial format refers to those editorial formats in digital platforms and distributed on screens. Examples are ebooks and emagazines, as well as websites. ‘Digital interactive’ is a new category because of its dynamic and participatory nature. In 2019, NY Public Library launched InstaNovels, literature classics adapted to the digital world, reinventing Instagram stories as a new way to bring literature closer to young audiences. Thus, Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ novels were adapted and illustrated by Magoz (@magoz); Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,’ illustrated by Buck (@buck_design); ‘The Raven’ by Edgar Allan Poe, illustrated by Studio Aka (@ studioaka); Franz Kafka’s ‘The Metamorphosis,’ illustrated by Pelizer Cesar (@ cesarpelizer); and ‘A Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens, illustrated by Caitlin McCarthy (@ c8l. in). All stories are available to read in the Highlights section of the Library’s Instagram account (@nypl) (BCMA 2020). Audio-visual media, including fiction and non-fiction, group together formats like film, television, SVOD, and VOD. In 2011, RedBull launched a

Typologies and Formats of Branded Content  81

film premiere with the documentary The Art of Flight around the sport of snowboarding, considering this action as an example of fiction. The production quality executed by its production company Red Bull Media House, stands out. Television includes those formats that are distributed online, ‘either on thematic or general channels, as part of an established schedule and broadcast as another content, outside the advertising block’ (BMCA 2020). These formats include live broadcasts, current affairs, entertainment, fiction, and non-fiction programmes. BCMA continues its classification with the audio format, distinguishing between radio, podcasts and audiobooks, songs and records, and voice assistants. These formats include sports shows and games, non-sports festivals, exhibitions, tours, and guided tours. The audience might experience these formats from an active or a passive approach, depending on how much they want to get involved in the experience, become prosumers and share content. Finally, BCMA (2020) highlights interactive digital classification as a booming format. This category includes social networks, interactive websites, video games, mobile, and other devices. Brands should work on several axes when designing a branded content campaign. These axes include objectives, messages, creativity, broadcast platforms, and formats available as new technologies advance. The correct selection of these parameters and their relationship with the other factors will influence the campaign’s success.

Bibliography Aguilera, J., & Baños, M. (2016). Branded entertainment. Cuando el branded content se convierte en entretenimiento. [Branded entertainment. When branded content becomes entertainment]. Pozuelo de Alarcón: ESIC. Amenábar, (2015). Vale. [Shortfilm]. Spain: Estrella Damm. Asmussen, B., Wider, S., Williams, R., Stevenson, N., Whitehead, E., & Canter, A. (2016). Defining branded content for the digital age: The industry experts views on branded content as a new marketing communications concept. A collaborative research project. Retrieved from https://bit​.ly​/3qvrpNL. BBVA. (2018). Retrieved from https://bbva​.info​/3eI2BhZ. BCMA. (2020). Retrieved from https://bcma​.es​/noticias​/presentacion​-foco/. BCMA. (2022). Retrieved from https://foco​.bcma​.es/. Belch, G., & Belch, M. (2018). Advertising and promotion: An integrated marketing communications perspective. New York: McGraw-Hill Education. Bigné, E., Hyder, A., & Martí, J. (2014). Brand engagement. In L. Moutinho, E. Bigné, & A. Manrai (Eds.), The Routledge companion to the future of marketing (pp. 250–268). New York: Routledge. Bonsignore, P., & Sassoon, J. (2014). La nuova frontiera della comunicazione d´impresa. [la nueva frontera de la comunicación de empresa]. Milán: FrancoAngeli

82  Typologies and Formats of Branded Content Bravo, E. (2020). Results: Communication that works. [Resultados. La comunicación que funciona]. Madrid: Anunciantes y Scopen. Castelló-Martínez, A., & del Pino-Romero, C. (2019). From advertising to integrated persuasive communication. [De la publicidad a la comunicación persuasiva integrada]. Madrid: ESIC Editorial. Chun, M. (2018). The news it creates. In J. Pereira (Ed.), The art of branded entertainment (pp. 91–117). London: Peter Owen. CMI. (2022). 35 examples of brands that are winning with content. Retrieved from https://bit​.ly​/3Lbk1Qn. Deere (2022). Retrieved from https://bit​.ly​/3YWOaZU DMSQ. (2021). Digital branded content uncovered. Retrieved from https://bit​.ly​ /3z3DzkK. Dove. (2022). Retrieved from https://bit​.ly​/3CUmPO3. Džamić, L., & Kirby, J. (2018). The definitive guide to strategic content marketing: Perspectives, issues, challenges and solutions (1st ed.). Kogan Page. Retrieved October 21, 2022. Garrido, P., & Madrid, G. (2021). ¿Pueden ser los contenidos de marca palanca para promover la transformación social? Aproximación a la iniciativa Aprendemos Juntos de BBVA. [Can branded content be a lever to promote social transformation? Approach to BBVA’s “We learn together” initiative]. In P. Olivares-Santamarina & R. Gago Delgado (Eds.), El Branded Content en la comunicación posdigital: Estructuras, aplicaciones y casos de éxito [Branded Content in post-digital communication: Structures, applications and success stories] (pp. 255–273). Valencia: Tirant Humanidades. Grinta, E. (2017). Branded entertainment. La rivoluziones del settore marcom inizia da qui. [Branded entertainment. The revolution in the marketing communications industry starts here]. Franco Angeli, 35. Farrán, E. (2013). Storytelling as a tool and improvement of advertising effectiveness. Analysis of the aquarius and BMW cases in television (1992–2010). Doctoral thesis. Universidad Jaime I de Castellón. Retrieved from https://bit​.ly​/3xM3mLe. Hardy, J. (2018). Branded Content. In En Hardy, J., Powell, H, & Macrury, I. (eds.) The Advertising Handbook. (pp.102–122). Oxon: Routledge. Hardy, J. (2021). Branded content. The fateful merging of media and marketing. Routledge. https://doi​.org​/10​.4324​/9781315641065. Hellmann’s. (2022). Retrieved from https://bit​.ly​/3F2ES7n. IAB. (2022). Branded content white book. Retrieved from: https://iabspain​.es/. Loggerenberg, M. (2017). The strategic value of authentic narrative in branded entertainment. Doctoral thesis. University of Sellenbosch Business School. Lions the Work. (2022). Retrieved from https://www​.lovethework​.com​/en​-GB​/entries​/ los​-santos​-3c​-621813. Louis Vuitton. (2022). Retrieved From https://bit​.ly​/3EYoMM9. LID, Interactive Marketing Dictionary. (2022). Retrieved from https://bit​.ly​/2mHGL08. Martí, J., & Muñoz, P. (2008). Engagement marketing. Una nueva publicidad para un marketing de compromiso. [New advertising for engagement marketing]. Prentice Hall. Financial Times. Madrid: Pearson Educación. Nelli, R. (2011). L´evoluzione delle strategie di branded entertainment. [The evolution of branded entertainment strategies]. Milán: Vita e Pensiero. Nelli, R. (2012). Branded content marketing. Un nuovo approccio alla creazione di valore. [Branded content marketing. A new approach to value creation.]. Milan: Vita e Pensiero. Ortega, E. (2004). La comunicación publicitaria. [Advertising communication]. Madrid: Pirámide.

Typologies and Formats of Branded Content  83 Pereira, J. (2018). The art of branded entertainment. London: Peter Owen. Pulizzi, J., & Brenner, M. (2014). Epic content marketing: How to tell a different story, break through the clutter, and win more customers by marketing less. McGraw-Hill Education. Garrido Pintado, P., & Madrid Gómez, G. (2021). ¿Pueden ser los contenidos de marca palanca para promover la transformación social? Aproximación a la iniciativa Aprendemos Juntos de BBVA. [Can branded content be a lever to promote social transformation? Approach to BBVA’s Aprendemos Juntos initiative]. In J. Olivares-Santamarina & R. Gago Gelado (Eds.), El Branded Content en la comunicación posdigital: Estructuras, aplicaciones y casos de éxito. [Branded content in post-digital communication: Structures, applications and success stories] (pp.255–273). Valencia: Tirant Humanidades. Rodríguez, A. (2016). Those little things [Las Pequeñas Cosas]. Estrella Damm. Rodríguez-Rabadán, M. (2019). Theory and practice of branded entertainment. Exploration of its origins, creative resources, effectiveness and effects on the consumer (Doctoral thesis). Madrid: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Rodríguez-Rabadán, M., Galán-Fajardo, H., & del Pino-Romero, C. (2022). Mediterráneamente. Estudio de eficacia cuantitativo del branded content en las películas publicitarias de Estrella Damm. [Mediterranean. Quantitative effectiveness study of branded content in Estrella Damm advertising films]. Revista Mediterránea de Comunicación/Mediterranean Journal of Communication, 13(1), 165–184. https://doi​.org​/10​ .14198​/MEDCOM​.20590. Sociograph. (2021). Marketing science consulting. Branded Content Marketing Association. https://bit​.ly​/2ZWRzOO. Scopen. (2019). Resultados, la comunicación que funciona. [Results, communication that works]. Madrid: Scopen. Stengel, J. (2022). Retrieved from www​.jimstengel​.com. Tenderich, B. (2014). Transmedia branding. Frankfurt: European Institute for Media Optimization. Toledano, F., Selva, D., & Díaz-Masa, J. (2021). La transformación digital de la comunicación: Nuevas fórmulas de creación, producción y distribución de contenidos de marca. [The digital transformation of communication: New formulas for the creation, production and distribution of branded content]. In P. Olivares-Santamarina & R. Gago Gelado (Eds.), El Branded Content en la comunicación posdigital: Estructuras, aplicaciones y casos de éxito. [Branded content in post-digital communication: Structures, applications and success stories]. (p.31–55). Valencia: Tirant Humanidades.

4

Branded Entertainment Screenwriting An Examination of Its Creative Writing Resources and Analysis of the Short Films Produced by Estrella Damm ‘Vale’ and ‘The Little Things’

Introduction Literature review and international scientific contributions such as Maras (2009), López-Izquierdo (2009), Nelmes (2011), and Prince (2013) show that the theoretical approach to the screenplay has a vital path dated over the last ten years. This new generation of academic theorists has a field of research to balance professional practice and grounded theory. Prince (2013) recommends studying the script must be from four prisms: first, the discourse around the meaning of the practice, second the theoretical research, third the framework of practice, and finally, the criticism and interpretation. This chapter focuses on the third point of the practice framework, explicitly considering this field of study’s dimension and depth. The following research presents the expressive resources of the script since advertising uses the script in its most commercial approach. Brands try to reach the most significant number of people with a clear purpose. The difference is that now they use the script and not a commercial spot to get their message across. First of all, it is essential to consider an appreciation between the story’s meaning and plot. These are intrinsic elements in the development of a script. Genette (1989) defines a story as the set of narrated facts or events presented according to a logical and chronological order. It is precisely the concept of plot and story that participates in the order mentioned by the author. Chronology and order of cause and effect are the significant differences between plot and story. On the other hand, the plot could respond to the narration of events articulated through a cause-and-effect scheme. The plot orders the events in the story so that through the revealed and hidden information, the viewer experiences a particular style and feels a unique emotion. For example, knowing whom the killer is from the beginning or otherwise discovering this fact at the end would make the difference in a movie thriller. The Hollywood industry’s concern with providing a structure to the story in the dramatic construction of the script has been a present theme since the beginning of the American film industry. Patterson (1921) researched the importance of structure in the making of a script. Patterson, in the 1920s, DOI: 10.4324/9781003310686-5

Branded Entertainment Screenwriting  85

warned of the need to offer a plot in the film. It is not enough to have images as if they were flashes. The interest in pampering the structure goes back to the beginning of the 20th century. Marion (1938) advised that every writer who dreamed of success should give the story a particular well-constructed structure because the countless subsequent revisions of the script would not affect the script if the structure did not work. In today’s practice, the study of the script structure has become even more critical. Script structure is a fundamental piece for the apprentice writer, the professional writer, and the theoretical researcher. In line with the current controversy of all-knowing gurus, Maras (2009) and Bordwell (2006) agreed in verifying that the last generation of screenplay practice writers does not own the foundations of dramatic construction. Theorists like Sánchez-Escalonilla (2004) and Huntley (2007) coincide in mentioning the structural proposals of the screenplay by authors from professional practice such as Field (2001), McKee (2004), and Seger (1994). These references coincide with the importance of Aristotle’s Poetics as a basis for constructing the screenplay plot. Therefore, this research takes these sources as the primary reference points to briefly analyze the issue of structure in the dramatic construction of the script. This analysis also incorporates the work of Snyder (2005) for its significant impact on the market and for echoing the theories presented by the authors mentioned previously. The essence of cinema is action; ‘without action, there can be no tragedy’ (Aristotle 2001, p.40). The Greek philosopher studied the poetic composition in-depth and extracted an order in the plot of the facts to continuously keep the spectator’s interest. The beginning, middle and, outcome terms first invented by Aristotle transcended narrative forms until today. Field (2001), a pioneer in the writing of manuals focused on the practice of the script, looked for a basic conceptual scheme present in the structure of the plot of many scripts; the so-called ‘paradigm’ (p.13). His theory is based on dividing the plot of the script into three parts: the approach (beginning or first act), confrontation (middle or second act), and resolution (end or third act). After him, many professionals have built theories under different nomenclatures compatible with the root of the classical structure, based on the classical structure of Aristotle. In order to move the action forward, every act should add meaning to the plot. The branded entertainment short film ‘Vale’ (2002) summarizes the dramatic conflict in three acts. First, the unaltered and altered stage. Second, the struggle, being these the acts that lead the protagonist towards his goal. Finally, the adjustment (third act), in which the conflict raised at the beginning of the plot is solved. At the beginning of the film, the viewer can identify the main character’s interest and motivation. Snyder (2005) comments in-depth on the change that takes place in the story at the beginning. The calm, unaltered space is interrupted by a catalytic element that makes the film more difficult to understand.

86  Branded Entertainment Screenwriting

In general, the second act is the space to solve the dramatic question of the story and put into the characters’ voice the issues and dilemmas that concern the scriptwriter, questions that worry the writer. Seger (1994) warns of the need to give these subplots structure, in turn, to articulate them organically in the framework of the main action. Last, the third act tends to occupy approximately a quarter of the total length of the film, as Vanoye (1994) compares in his work. The third act resolves the conflict raised at the film’s beginning and presents a more accelerated rhythm. The third act seeks to be memorable, keeps the biggest surprises, elevates our feelings, and offers an accelerated rhythm to capture all our interest. The third act is a narrative space in which the proposed plots come to an end, the final order is restored, the transformation of the character takes place, and the emotions reach the highest point (Snyder 2005). As Field (2001) advised, there must be turning points in a film script: events that turn the action into another dimension that allows the story to move forward. McKee (1997) and Seger (1994) agree with Field (2001) in the conformation of the classic structure of the script in three acts with pivot points. The film script offers a microstructural system underlying the main structure, called by Sánchez-Escalonilla (2004) as ‘the minor units of the script’ (p.139). The three units are: sequences, scenes, and ‘beats,’ as McKee (2004, p.59) calls them. The film script seems to be formed by information cells that have the same genetic code. Whether it is a dialogue or a scene, every microunit of the script must offer conflict; a beginning, middle, and resolution. Every time the writer changes the locations of characters, light, or day or night, the scene must include a statement in capital letters that gives a preamble to the scene’s content. Therefore, each scene is a unit of dramatic action with the exact location and lighting. The sequence, unlike the scene, as McKee (1997) points out, ‘is not expressly identified in the script but is an abstract element that brings together several scenes, usually two to five’ (p.60). The sequence usually brings together about five scenes, and the whole of them acquires a greater meaning. Similarly, all the scenes together in a sequence have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Finally, the beats could be called small changes of behaviour that usually occur during a conversation or interaction between several characters during an action. These beats generate a change in the direction of the scene. McKee (1997) summarizes them as changes in action and reaction. Thus, we could express that a beat is a passage from trusting to mistrusting, peace to anger, and revenge. Many writers ask themselves whether they should write by focusing on the origin and thread of the plot. Other artists prefer to focus on the action that induces the story. Some authors prefer to follow the character’s journey towards transformation. Sánchez-Escalonilla (2004) differentiates between scripts whose essence in the dramatic construction is the action or those narratives guided by the character’s evolution, the transformation, and the relationship with other characters within the story. Morris (2008) points out the

Branded Entertainment Screenwriting  87

discrepancy to equate the relevance of the structure and the creation of the character. The truth is that it is common in the cinematographic jargon to differentiate those films centred on the character beyond the action itself. Huntley (2007), after an in-depth study of the predecessor theories on the paradigm, divides all the practical approaches to scriptwriting into two lines of thought. First, a post-Aristotelian school with followers such as Field (2001), Hauge (2011), and McKee (1997). This current of thought focuses on the creation of the plot from the storyline and the action. Huntley points out that although McKee and Seger attach great importance to the structure, they do not disregard the value of the character’s creation as the fundamental axis of the story. The second category focuses on the advance of the plot. Writers dedicate this part to the creation of the character and develop the protagonist’s choices. This approach has its roots in the work of Campbell (1972) and his followers, such as Vogler (2007). These authors argue that the hero is the essence of the story. It is the one that undertakes a journey towards a transformation. Another essential factor when writing a screenplay is creating credible characters, crucial to the development of the film. The characters must reveal a genuine personality and show changes that alter that inner nature throughout the narrative (McKee 1997, p.135). Having a character design inspired by a universal archetype can add dimension and familiarity with the viewer. Every culture and civilization has patterns that reside in the human mind. Such archetypes can help bring the viewer closer to identifying, understanding, and living out the emotions experienced by the characters in the story. Authors such as Farrán (2013), Delgado-Ballester and Fernández-Sabiote (2016), and Vizcaíno (2016) summarize in 12 the archetypes that universally shape a typical human experience, as forms or images of collective and family nature such as the ordinary man, the joker, the protector, the creator, the sovereign, the innocent, the explorer, the hero, the wise man, the rebel, and the magician. In the story, the archetypes give strength in identifying with the characters and underline the transcendence of the conflicts suffered by the protagonists towards the objective they are pursuing (Farrán 2013, p.201). Archetypes inspire the seventh art to show on the screen characters full of transcendence. Seger (1994) refers to ‘typical characters’ (p.154) present in many films which respond to original models or patterns repeated in many stories. Both for Field (2001), Seger (2000), and Hauge (2011), the character must be worked from two perspectives. On the one hand, his inner motivations and, on the other, the external actions and the field in which he develops: professional, personal, and private arenas. Hauge (2011) classifies characters into four typologies within the main characters: the hero referring to the main character, the nemesis or antagonist, the reflexive character that supports and helps the main character, and finally, the character with a romantic aspect. In the background, the secondary characters add dimension to the conflict or credibility in the story.

88  Branded Entertainment Screenwriting

Campbell (1972) delves into mythology and applies the theories of psychoanalysis of the Jungian school to the narrative. In his study, Campbell discovered how many of the myths separated in time, distance, culture, races, and religions have elements in common called the author as a series of spiritual principles shared by all human beings. Campbell gathers the postulates of the Jungian school regarding the figure of archetypes, concepts that are of great help when it comes to conforming to a film script. According to Jung, in human dreams, the same patterns are usually repeated. The archetypes are a reflection of the human mind. For Campbell (1972), these archetypes would express the most fundamental truths of human beings regardless of race, culture, or religion. According to Campbell (1972), stories can take on a universal meaning, traveling internationally, achieving a universal reception, connecting with the audience’s emotions, and crossing barriers. Script analyst Christopher Vogler (2007) studied Campbell’s work in-depth and adapted the lessons learned from mythology to the field of writing for both screenplay and theatre and novel in a memo. The author adapted the patterns of the myth to the adventure of the fictional character. This schematic order places the main character not as an epic hero but as a hero understood as a man or a woman, the story’s protagonist. Campbell’s underlying idea is to illustrate the idea of the monomyth, hence the title of his work ‘The Man with a Thousand Faces’; a hero who makes a journey with a similar pattern in the stages he travels independently of the myth itself. The film script shows the protagonist’s journey in an adventure with stages from the hero’s journey. Vogler (2007) summarizes them in: the ordinary world, the call to adventure, the rejection of the call, the encounter with the mentor, the crossing of the first threshold, the trials, the approach to the deepest cave, the Calvary, the reward, the way back, the resurrection and finally the return with the elixir. Campbell (1979), Vogler (2007), Seger (1994), and Hauge (2011) coincide in underlining the importance of entering not only in the journey of the hero as an external trip full of surprises and challenges but also as an adventure towards the interior of the human being. A journey where the vicissitudes of feelings, emotions, and dilemmas are glimpsed. In this inner journey, the writer will be able to project the film’s themes, the dramatic issue of the story, the questions it aims to raise in the audience, and the transformation of the character in this journey towards a new world. These authors agree that the character is an element to organize the story and order the film’s structure. After overviewing some of the main aspects of creating a screenplay, it is time to reflect on the following paragraphs on the conformation of the screenplays and production of the Branded Entertainment advertising campaigns ‘Vale’ (2015) and ‘The Little Things’ (2016). The Estrella Damm website presents the film Vale (Amenábar 2015) with the following synopsis: ‘a group of friends meets an American girl (Dakota Johnson) at a party. One of them (Quim Gutiérrez) will try unsuccessfully

Branded Entertainment Screenwriting  89

to approach her because he does not speak English. However, he will find another way to stand out’ This description comes with a slogan: ‘the passion for culture does not understand languages’ (Estrella Damm 2019). The short film has a record in the most well-known global film database; IMDB and the synopsis follow the same line. The viewer, when choosing to watch a film, creates expectations according to the casting. In a film marketing campaign, some of the factors that influence the decision are the poster, the synopsis, and the critics, among other factors. The audience wants to know the film’s plot in a synthetic way to generate that expectation and interest towards the short film. The plot of ‘Vale’ unfolds as follows. Under the walls of Dalt Vila in Ibiza, music livens up the night of partying on the rooftop of a terrace. Two young people pay attention to Rachel, a foreign woman lost in the crowd (Dakota Johnson). The boys approach her introducing themselves. A new day dawns in an Ibiza village surrounded by an orchard and the Mediterranean Sea. Victor (Quim Gutierrez) is resting with his friends, some around the pool and others preparing the food. Rachel is around the fire. Victor wants to talk to Rachel but does not know English and his friends dissuade him. Even so, Victor comes over for an ice-cold beer from an Estrella Damm bucket. At this point, he takes the opportunity to fill himself with courage symbolically, start a conversation and break the ice with Rachel. He does not understand anything, and Victor says ‘OK,’ an answer that intrigues Rachel and serves as a trigger to ignite the spark between the two. Soon after, everyone sits around the table under a shady porch. Before eating, everyone toasts with an Estrella Damm. Everybody toasts the cook; Rachel thanks him for the welcome and his new friends. Between toasts and laughter, everyone shares a healthy and tasty meal. In the afternoon, they go sightseeing in the streets of Dal Vila and the Santa Llúcia bastion. The sun, the markets, and the narrow streets fill the visit with charm. During the walk, Victor, in his shyness, rehearses some English phrases to communicate with Rachel. The group of friends enjoys a swim on the beach of Benirrás. During the talks among them, Victor surprises his friends as he happens to be a very cultured boy. He knows about cinema and music, such as the members of the band Gorillaz. Shortly after, the group ends the evening on a terrace of a bar. Before sunset and accompanied by a beer, the conversations come and go. Victor observes the scene somewhat upset for not wholly understanding Rachel. However, through the context, he introduces himself into the conversation and surprises everyone as he is a phenomenon in remembering things that everyone has forgotten, like movie details. Victor accuses his friends of being ignorant amidst laughter. So they arrive at night, contemplating the sunset with their bare feet on the dock. Later, the gang takes an Estrella Damm relaxing in a chill out under the stars. Victor reflects for a moment on why he memorizes all those details, which leads him to remember how the friendship with his colleagues began years ago. First, a colleague invited him for a beer and introduced him to his friends. Friends forged a unique relationship between music, exhibitions, parties, theatre, and Estrella

90  Branded Entertainment Screenwriting

Damm’s beer, full of anecdotes. To each invitation, Victor said ‘OK,’ an attitude of acceptance that made him one of the group. Back to reality, Victor surprises all his friends by answering the last questions about cinema and gets everyone’s applause and Rachel’s admiration. The night ends with Victor and Rachel sitting on the dock. Victor manages to express himself in English and invites Rachel to stay with him looking at the stars, to which the foreigner responds with a smile and a voucher. This plot is rich in detail, and the viewer gets the emotion and involvement in the story. At first, the premise did not reveal the outcome, is completed with the development of events. The director of the film, Amenábar, reveals the events strategically to bring Rachel and Víctor closer together gradually. The events happen naturally. The viewer becomes a confidant of Victor. Victor’s simplicity and limitations in his desire to meet and spend time with Rachel achieve the viewer’s empathy, who wishes the protagonist’s success and that the romantic story has a happy ending. The story’s structure follows a classic beginning, middle, and end pattern, dividing the story into three acts. Following the paradigm proposed by Field (2001) or the classic plot design by McKee (1997), this study highlights the fundamental points of the plot under this scheme. The first act presents the island of Ibiza where the story takes place; the audience meets the group of friends and is aware of the premise: Victor is interested in Rachel. The dramatic conflict comes from Victor’s inability to court Rachel as he does not speak her language. The tourist’s presence breaks the calm of the holidays, which serves as a trigger for the story. It is what happens in the story to get the action started. Victor must overcome an obstacle to achieve his goal. On the one hand, connecting with Rachel despite not speaking English, and on the other hand, dealing with his friends to stand out from them all in Rachel’s eyes. The second act takes place throughout the afternoon, moments that friends spend together, and although Rachel seems increasingly unreachable, there is one last hope. Victor discovers that he shares musical and film preferences with Rachel. The film’s slogan is the passion for culture, and no understanding of language serves as a link between Victor and Rachel. At the same time, subplots about the relationships between friends are interwoven and presented as flashback memories of Victor. The attitude of admiration serves the third act that Rachel begins to show towards Victor, who falls under her spell. Friends gather to enjoy a starry night, an Estrella Damm, in the third act on a summer terrace. There, Rachel tests Victor with a difficult question, but the young man can answer it. Full of complicity, Victor manages to attract Rachel’s attention and enjoy her company. Vale is a story centred on the characters. The action serves the character. In this story, the viewer cares about Victor’s transformation. The protagonist could identify with the average man archetypal pattern. Victor’s desire comes to belong to a group, to love and be loved. Throughout the film, he gains confidence and courage to overcome language barriers and to be able to show

Branded Entertainment Screenwriting  91

Rachel whom he is despite not understanding each other verbally. In this case, the protagonist does not show a negative or positive change in his transformation; he can be whom he is despite not speaking English. The illusion that he shows to connect with Rachel is so grand that he breaks the mould. According to the take of this research, this short film does not show the approach of Campbell’s hero’s journey (1972) in most of its phases, perhaps due to the footage, although there are some coincidences. Victor shows himself in an ordinary static world, but the interest in Rachel makes him leave and overcome his fears to communicate with Rachel and court her. In the second act, Victor will undergo several tests where he will see his ability to feel integrated into the group despite not speaking English and gain the respect and admiration of the young woman. As a reward, he will make Rachel feel interested in him, the moment in which he tests her with a question full of curiosity and complicity. Victor can rescue himself thanks to his remarkable memory and ability to show authenticity when he is uncomfortable. The final prize is the company of Rachel, an Estrella Damm, and the illuminated night sky. Amenábar uses several characters to make this story a reality. Victor, the main character. A funny young man, with his insecurities and at the same time with a friendly and straightforward personality. Rachel, a foreign woman, beautiful and enigmatic, sociable and restless. In the background, Amenábar orchestrates the rest of the friends. Two men and two women with complementary roles sometimes serve as obstacles and sometimes help hinder or facilitate Victor’s life. All the characters in the story play empathic roles in connecting and capturing the viewer’s interest. Estrella Damm beer appears in the story not as an element that could be incidental but rather as one that has a purpose. The writer and director include the beer ‘Estrella’ in the dialogues; sometimes, the characters invite each other to drink an Estrella. The brand oversaw the story so that its beer could not be replaced with a competitor’s brand. That would affect the rest of the story or the dialogues. The presence of the drink is associated with gastronomy, the Mediterranean Sea, and the sun, among other characteristic values of this Catalan beer. Beer is even present when the protagonist gains self-confidence and in those situations of joy and fun. The beer is active throughout the plot achieving a natural integration with the rest of the film. The press echoed the premiere of the short film ‘The Little Things’ (Rodríguez, 2016) as a creative campaign for Estrella Damm beer and as a film event of interest to all viewers. Alberto Rodríguez, the director, said the following words for the Spanish film magazine Fotogramas (2016): It is a gastronomic route and an invitation to enjoy the moment and discover things. It is also a Frank Capra comedy, and it is not that I want to compare myself to him, but there is something of his spirit. The director presents the film under the following premise. When the shooting of an action blockbuster on the island of Mallorca is interrupted, a new

92  Branded Entertainment Screenwriting

adventure begins, in the style of a road movie, with the film’s protagonist: Jean Reno. Several websites of cinematic reference place the film in the comedy genre and present the following synopsis. ‘A veteran and famous French actor receives a lesson from his young and vitalist personal assistant in this short commercial about the roughness, lack of empathy, own pride and wounded others’—film Affinity (2016), Imdb (2016). It is interesting to compare the directors’ statements, highlighting the values that Estrella Damm beer tries to identify: the Mediterranean lifestyle, gastronomy, and the little things that make life enjoyable. On the other hand, the synopsis that they echo on the film circuit focuses on the plot and the relationship of the characters, emphasizing the cinematographic character of this creative proposal, making it similar to any other film, whether or not it has a brand as a promoter in its conception and production. The plot of ‘The Little Things’ (Rodríguez 2016) goes as follows. A yacht explodes off the coast of Mallorca. A man dressed in a tuxedo (Jean Reno) manages to escape from the flames. Out of the water on the shore, a beautiful woman in a brand new evening dress awaits him. The French actor Jean Pierre Bertrand (Jean Reno) cannot finish the scene because he does not believe the words he plays. The production team is annoyed with the film star’s haughty attitude and will have to wait four days for a new model of the yacht to arrive before filming the scene again. For four days, Laia (Laia Costa) will be your tour guide to take you to enjoy the gastronomy and show you the island. The young lady brings him some croissants as a courtesy gesture, but the actor rejects them being somewhat rude and hostile. Laia proposes to take him to her friend’s terrace, where they make the best red shrimp on the island, but the Frenchman does not like the idea and insists on going to a restaurant he has found on the internet. The guide warns him that the restaurant is a bit oldfashioned, but Mr. Bertrand is stubborn. Once there, and bored by the silence and seriousness of the place, he prefers Laia to accompany him to eat. The girl takes a moment to give him the script of her first short film, hoping that the actor can help her in her artistic career. While Laia leaves to park the van, Jean Pierre uses the script to set the table at the restaurant. Mr. Bertrand turns what could be a fun and enjoyable tapas meal into a nondescript lunch. The guide insists on choosing next time. The next day the actor has breakfast with a view of the sea and rehearses the last line of his film without success. Shortly afterward, Laia arrives at the hotel with her van. She goes out to welcome him with a complimentary traditional brioche, which the actor rejects again. The young woman has prepared a day of diving and lunch for him. During the trip by car, Laia takes the opportunity to ask him about the script and if he has given her time to read it. Bertrand answers rudely. The diving day is accompanied by a meal at the seashore, with Estrella beers and the gastronomic products brought by Laia’s friends and boyfriend. The relationship between Bertrand and Laia improves. The next day Bertrand is closer and accepts the breakfast that the young lady brings him. Laia includes the actor in her circle of friends and

Branded Entertainment Screenwriting  93

invites him to spend the day with friends in a cottage lost by the sea. It is a rainy day but full of charm in the company of laughter, beer, and good food. Laia tries to encourage the actor to enjoy life and let himself go. The conversation takes a turn when the actor shows his most sarcastic and acidic side to knock Laia’s dreams down and criticize her script, pages he has not even read because he considers it puerile and unnecessary fruit of a small life. The tour guide ends the conversation very upset and goes to the van to take him back to the hotel. It is a new day, and Laia is not there. A new guide has come to look for him. Bertrand goes to eat at Marta’s restaurant, Laia’s friend. The place exceeds the actor’s expectations, who enjoys an Estrella Damm beer and some red prawns with a view of a small coastal village. From the restaurant’s view, he sees a wedding celebration. She is Laia and her husband. Laia’s friends recognize Bertrand and invite him to join the banquet. Jean Pierre thinks it might be a bad idea after being so hostile to the young woman, but Laia’s friends insist that she only says good things about him, showing her good heart. The bride welcomes him with a smile and invites him to sit down at the table. Jean Pierre finds himself surrounded by friends and the magic of a night full of charm and happiness. After dinner, the actor decides to go and apologize to the bride, and it comes from his heart to say the words of the script: the best thing in life is to know how to enjoy the little things. The voice of the room service wakes up the newlyweds. The young woman wakes up and opens the window to a viewpoint overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. A magnificent breakfast and an envelope await her. She opens it; there it is, her script with Bertrand’s corrections and a note from the actor offering to help her with the project. Bertrand returns to the set. The yacht explodes, he leaves the water in his tuxedo and arrives at the shore where his companion in a brand-new evening dress is waiting for him. The actor can interpret her lines perfectly. The actor receives praise from the production team and ends his scene by celebrating with Estrella Damm. The structure of this story follows a classic pattern based on three acts: beginning, middle, and end or first, second, and third acts. Bertrand shoots a scene from his new film but cannot interpret its lines with conviction. In addition, the special effects manager warns that they have exploded the last model of the yacht, which is indispensable in the scene. The trigger for the plot is the obligatory wait for a new model to arrive. The actor has to stay on the island for four days to return to the shoot. During the four days, as if against the clock, the actor will be accompanied by a young tourist guide who will try to take him sightseeing and discover Mallorca’s gastronomy. Jean Pierre’s bad character spoils the relationship and turns the dynamic between them into a path of thorns. The second act takes place during the meetings between Laia and Bertrand. The young woman can overlook the actor’s harsh words and offer him a pleasant diving day and a meal in his family and friends’ environment. Little by little, Bertrand let himself be introduced to this world, although deep down, he

94  Branded Entertainment Screenwriting

is reluctant to enjoy it and leave his self-centredness aside. When all seems lost, Laia’s friends invite Bertrand to celebrate Laia’s wedding with them. The beginning of the third act is when the artist suffers the last transformation towards the rediscovery of the small things and will apologize to the charming Laia. Finally, the denouement of the short film offers an opportunity to Laia: Bertrand reads the project and decides to help her. On the other hand, the French actor will finish the shooting of the impeccable film. The film’s main character, Jean Pierre Bertrand, is a haughty and hostile actor who despises the value of small things and believes he can use people at his whim. He could represent the archetype of the powerful and despotic man, an almost anti-hero figure that contrasts with the kindly role of Laia. Throughout the story, and thanks to Laia’s kindness and Mediterranean culture, he will rediscover the ability to be surprised and enjoy the little things and leave aside his roughness and cruelty. Laia is a young fiancée who works as an actor’s guide in the days of waiting for the shooting. The girl is happy, generous, and excited about her work, projects, and life. She could respond to the archetype of the caretaker, that figure who makes life better for others, is kind and good. She is incapable of giving a wrong answer to Bertrand, whom she feels sorry for not being able to enjoy herself as she does. Laia offers her light to everyone who is by her side and is capable of transforming Bertrand. In return, she receives as a reward for her patience the help of a great actor for her script project. The beer brings joy to the most beautiful moments and accompanies idyllic moments of rest in a paradisiacal setting. It does not hinder the story’s plot, but the brand integrates its presence into the Mediterranean world. In conclusion, the advertising short film contains some of the main expressive elements of a fiction script, responding to a typical entertainment film. The brand becomes part of the story integrally without altering the expressive resources of the script, such as the plot, structure, or construction of the character. Therefore, after this review of the literature and comparative study of the two short films, this research shows that branded entertainment adopts the laws of the film script while respecting its expression. Estrella Damm has received numerous awards for this campaign. This strategy has kept producing results since 2015 with great recognition and becoming one of the leading companies in branded entertainment in Spain. Estrella Damm has managed to combine artists from the film industry to create authentic branded entertainment.

Bibliography Amenábar, A. (2015). Vale. Produced by Estrella Damm. Aristotle. (2001). Poética de Aristóteles. (Aristotle´s poetics). (Villar, A., trad.). (1ª ed., 6ª reimp). Madrid: Alianza. Bordwell, D. (2006). The way Hollywood tells it: Story and style in modern movies. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Branded Entertainment Screenwriting  95 Campbell, J. (1972). El héroe de las mil caras. (A hero with a thousand faces). (Hernández, J., trad., 1ª reimpresión). México: Fondo de Cultura Económica. (1949). Delgado-Ballester, E., & Fernández-Sabiote, E. (2016). ‘Once upon a brand’: Storytelling practices by Spanish brands. [Había una vez una marca: Las prácticas narrativas por las marcas españolas]. Spanish Journal of Marketing-ESIC, 20, 115–131. https://doi​.org​/10​ .1016​/j​.sjme​.2016​.06​.001. Farrán, E. (2013). Storytelling como herramienta y mejora de la eficacia en publicidad. Análisis de los casos Aquarius y BMW en televisión (1992–2010). (Storytelling as a tool and improvement of efficiency in advertising Analysis of the Aquarius and BMW cases on television). (Doctoral thesis) Castellón: Universidad Jaime I de Castellón. Field, S. (2001). El libro del guion: Fundamentos de la escritura de guiones: Una guía paso a paso, desde la primera idea hasta el guion acabado [Screenplay: The foundations of screenwriting. A step-by step guide from concept to finished script]. (Ed. amp., 6th ed.). Madrid: Plot. (1979). Genette. (1989). Figuras III. (Figures III). Traducción de Carlos Manzano. Barcelona: Lumen. Hauge, M. (2011). Writing screenplays that sell: The complete guide to turning story concepts into movie and television deals. [Escribiendo guiones que venden: La guía completa para convertir conceptos de historias en acuerdos de películas y televisión]. (New 20th anniversary ed., 1st CollinsReference ed.). New York: CollinsReference. Huntley. (2007). How and why Dramatica ® is different from other story paradigms. Retrieved March 19, 2020, from http://bit​.do​/e8cGU. López Izquierdo, J. (2009). Teoría del guión cinematográfico: Lectura y escritura. (Theory of the film script: Reading and writing). (Comunicación audiovisual, 7). Madrid: Síntesis. Maras, S. (2005). The problem of theory and practice: Towards a constitutive analysis. Journal of Media Practice, 6(2). Maras, S (2009). Screenwriting: History, theory, and practice. Londres: Wallflower. McKee, R. (1997). Story: Substance, structure, style, and the principles of screenwriting. New York: ReganBooks. McKee, R. J. (2004). The screenplay: Substance, structure, style and Screenwriting principles [El guion Sustancia, estructura, estilo y principios de la escritura de guiones]. (Lochart, J., trad.), (3ª ed.). Barcelona: Alba Editorial (1997). Morris, A. (2008). It is all a plot. (Bachelor’s thesis). Brisbane: Queensland University of Technology, Faculty of Creative Industries. Nelmes, J., & O’Thomas, M. (2011). Analyzing the screenplay. A comparative approach (1st ed.). Oxon: Routledge. Patterson, F. (1921). Cinema craftsmanship: A book for photoplaywrigths. [La artesanía del cine]. New York: Harcourt, Brace. Citado en como Marion (1938) probablemente citado en Maras, S. (2009). Screenwriting: History, theory, and practice. [Guion: Historia, Teoría y Práctica]. Londres: Wallflower. Prince, S. (2013). A history of the screenplay. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Rodríguez, A. (2016). Those little things. Produced by Estrella Damm. Rodríguez-Rabadán, M. (2019). Theory and practice of branded entertainment: Exploration of its origins, creative resources, effectiveness, and effects on the consumer (Doctoral thesis). Madrid: University Carlos III Madrid. Sánchez- Escalonilla, A. (2004). Estrategias de guion cinematográfico (Film script strategies). Barcelona: Ariel. (2001). Seger, L. (1994). Making a good script great (2nd ed.). Hollywood: Samuel French Trade. Seger, L. (2000). Cómo crear personajes inolvidables. [Creating unforgettable characters]. (Domínguez Medina, C., trad). Barcelona: Paidós. (1990).

96  Branded Entertainment Screenwriting Snyder, B. (2005). Save the cat. Michigan: Michael Wiese Productions. Vale, E. (2002). Técnicas del guioon para cine y televisión. (Screenwriting techniques for film and television). (Wald, M., trad). (1a. ed., 6a. reimp ed., Multimedia, 3). Barcelona: Gedisa. (1982). Vanoye, F. (1996). Model scripts [Guiones modelo y modelos de guion]. (López, A., trad). (1ª ed París 1991). Barcelona: Paidós (1991). Vizcaíno, P. (2016). Del storytelling al storytelling publicitario: El papel de las marcas como contadoras de historias. (From storytelling to advertising storytelling: the role of brands as storytellers). (Doctoral thesis). Madrid: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Vogler, C. (2007). The writer’s journey: Mythic structure for writers (3rd ed.). Studio City, CA: Michael Wiese Productions.

5

The Influence of Filmic Storytelling on Branded Entertainment Films

Introduction In the last decade, brands have begun to incorporate branded content into their marketing plans due to several factors; according to Hardy (2021), these include the convergence of the media, the rise of new technologies, and the habits of the new consumer. Muñoz (2021) defines branded content as: Communication assets produced or co-produced by a brand that, through formats that fulfill a role of entertainment, information, and/or utility, distributed outside the advertising space, connect and/or create an audience that voluntarily devotes its attention, viewing, listening, or participation time, thanks to the relevance of the content; thus building an integrated communication territory with the potential for seriality, which strategically promotes the role and values of the brand. Muñoz (2021, p.24) On the other hand, branded entertainment could be summarized as ‘the expression of branded content taken to the field of entertainment content in all types of communications, formats, and platforms’ Rodríguez-Rabadán, (2019, p.55). Among its benefits, the audience accepts branded content as non-intrusive content. Advertisers use entertainment as a vehicle for transmitting brand values to become part of the consumer’s beliefs and generate notoriety and brand preference in the medium and long term. According to the Sociograph study (2021), the content distribution format par excellence is video entertainment on digital platforms, where it connects with greater intensity compared to other traditional advertising techniques, which is why it is reviewed in this work. Currently, this thriving practice still presents numerous challenges, such as the definition of parameters in the ideation and creation process of these campaigns, the writing process, and the brand’s role. There are other adjacent techniques, such as product placement. Del PinoRomero, Castelló-Martínez, and Ramos-Soler (2013) offer a theoretical approach as a starting point. The authors use product placement or  brand placement interchangeably to refer to the punctual and accessory or integrated DOI: 10.4324/9781003310686-6

98  Influence of Filmic Storytelling on Branded Entertainment Films

presence of a brand in the spatial or narrative context of the fiction genre, ‘especially cinema and television’ (p.25). In its cinematic format, branded entertainment finds an organic integration into the spatial and narrative context. Among its many variants, branded entertainment uses the film format as a means of expression. Through a cinematographic story, brands seek to identify the values that represent them. The creation of a film script explores all the universal elements of creating a story from a visual point of view. As defined by Sánchez-Escalonilla (2004), ‘cinema has provided narration with the possibility of telling stories with actions that can be seen’ (p.31). The narrative is mainly based on the image, whose main characteristic is the visual element. Vale (1996) identifies the art of film as a new and original form of storytelling with a dramatic construction different from others, such as operas, short stories, plays, or novels. The author synthesizes the definition of film as a story addressed to an audience through a series of moving images with three elements that characterize it: • • •

the story (what is told) the audience (to whom it is addressed) the moving images (the medium through which the story is conveyed).

This simple description reflects the dual nature of a film and the interrelation between written narrative and visual aesthetic values to achieve the expressiveness of the medium. Elements described by Marcel (2002), such as the creative function of the camera, lighting, costumes, sets, colour, actors’ performance, music, or editing, contribute to the creation of the film. Vale (1996) considers that form and content are the main elements of a film script; form responds to "a limited number of rules that are applied to obtain certain effects" Vale (1996, p.74), and content, referring to a narration of facts: the story; an invariable concept, ‘with as many laws as there are stories’ (Vale 1996, p.74). As Farrán (2013) enumerates, ‘disciplines such as Philosophy, Neurology, Psychology, Semiotics, Structuralist Anthropology or Narratology approach the meaning of narration and storytelling from different theoretical points of view’ (p.218). Filmic storytelling is enriched by numerous disciplines, which are briefly mentioned in the following pages to narrow down definitions and essential concepts in storytelling. The film story is a narration in the same way as the novel, the short story, the theatre, or the opera. Narrative and storytelling are different concepts. The present study successfully studies visual storytelling from the formal point of view, the dramatic construction, and the characteristics of the contents that influence film and advertising storytelling. The study’s novelty lies in examining the impact of these expressive resources and their influence on the specialty of branded entertainment.

Influence of Filmic Storytelling on Branded Entertainment Films  99

Objectives This paper brings together a theoretical corpus around the meaning of filmic narrative concerning advertising. Based on the sources consulted, a taxonomic analysis is presented that delimits the scope of the elements that comprise a preliminary basis for this research and its relationship with current professional practice. Second, and as the main objective, the study analyzes the influence of filmic storytelling in the execution of advertising storytelling applied to branded entertainment. This study considers several examples such as short films like Vale by Estrella Damm, Cuánto (Beyond Money) by Banco Santander, feature films such as Cinergía by Gas Natural Fenosa and Barbie by Mattel, and documentaries such as Breaking2 by Nike and Oso (Bear) by Tous. Based on these cases, the following pages explore whether the filmic narrative elements and the script’s expressive resources suffer an alteration for advertising purposes.

Methodology As a methodology of analysis for the research, the study focuses on reviewing academic literature on global impact, mainly from the last 20 years to the present day. The work approach presents the novelty of related fields such as film scriptwriting, narrative, and advertising; disciplines converge in a hybrid way in the new praxis of branded entertainment. In the second phase, this research focuses on the filmic narrative’s impact on the advertising practice. This approach presents the analysis of practical reference cases in the specialty of fictional branded entertainment. The feature films, short films, and documentaries explored here have received awards and recognition in the industry and have demonstrated an impact on the current cultural and social panorama.

Results Storytelling and Cinema The Concepts of Narrative, Story, and Storytelling

Farrán (2013) stops to specify the differences between narration and story as they are intrinsically related concepts in Narratology but different from each other. The author chooses the theorist Herman’s (2002) definition of narrative as the most accepted one. For Farrán (2013), ‘a narrative is a Spatio-temporal construction that provides actions that take place in a certain world (fictional or not) and that the definition and description of this world requires descriptive phrases and a content (the story)’ (p.216). For Prince (1989), the story is the world where events take place; it is conveyed through the signs articulated in the story. It is a sequence of events relevant to a character or characters seeking to resolve a conflict or achieve a goal. The story is the root of all narrative forms and structures, according to Haven (2014). The author describes the story as the quintessential basis

100  Influence of Filmic Storytelling on Branded Entertainment Films

of human communication. First came stories, poems, plays, speeches, monologues, articles, encyclopedic entries, etc. For Haven (2014), a story is a narrative account of a real or imaginary event. Vizcaíno (2016) agrees with Farrán (2013) in mentioning the confusion between narration and story understood as synonyms. However, they are not, and refers to the work of Genette in Figures III (1989) to discern the differences between story, story, and narration in the narrative text from a structural analysis: I propose (…) to call story the meaning or narrative content (…), story properly speaking the signifier, statement or narrative text itself, and narrative the narrative act producer, and by extension, the whole of the natural or fictitious situation that occurs. Storytelling is inherent to human beings, present in both oral and written forms throughout history. Núñez (2007) answers the question about the meaning of a story in a universal sense with the following definition: ‘a story is a communication tool structured in a sequence of events that appeal to the senses and emotions’ (p.28). According to Farrán’s (2013) argumentation, the story is the fruit of narration as a set of elements whose final meaning is a story. Vizcaíno (2016) analyzes more than 15 definitions of the term storytelling. The author observes that all the meanings refer to telling a story. He detects similarities between the Hispanic meaning of a story and the Anglo-Saxon description of the storytelling term and proposes an updated definition of the term’s meaning. Vizcaíno (2016) defines advertising storytelling as: ‘the conscious instrumentalization of the innate human ability to narrate through the use of stories in commercial communication with a persuasive purpose that responds to specific marketing objectives’ (p.140). A clear purpose and the intention to correspond to the goals set by the organization are essential so that, beyond the skill of storytelling, it must serve a specific purpose concerning a brand’s strategy. Storytelling is essential in creating a branded entertainment script due to the intentionality of the brand when telling a story associated with particular ideals and messages that represent the essence of the organization and its positioning. Filmic Storytelling and Audio-visual Narrative

Following García Jiménez (1996) and Sánchez-Navarro (2006), this work undertakes the starting point in the science of Narratology to delve into the concept of filmic narrative as a branch of study dependent on audio-visual narrative. The term Narratology is identified as the study of narrative theories. Prince (1989) defines it: is understood as a science that studies the nature, form, and functioning of narrative regardless of its medium of representation; it analyzes narrative from different theoretical and structural approaches throughout history (p.65). Its birth comes from French structuralism and is associated with the theorists Roland Barthes, Claude Bremond, Gérard Genette, A-J Greimas,

Influence of Filmic Storytelling on Branded Entertainment Films  101

and Tzvetan Todorov, who started a new specialty in literary research with systematic procedures in the study of the formal elements of the narrative. In recent decades, a new branch of post-classical thought has emerged, far removed from classical narrative formalism, in which new narrative forms must be taken into account, a trend advocated by Cornils, Schernus, and Kablitz, among others (Kindt and Muller 2003). Next, this study focuses on the adoption of narrative in the seventh art following the object of study of this work and its relationship with branded entertainment films. Sánchez-Escalonilla (2001) identifies the essence of film narrative as visual action. The author understands ‘audiovisual narrative’ as writing with images and sound. He differentiates this concept from the term ‘cinematographic narrative,’ whose etymological meaning comes from the Greek  kinema and graphos  or, in other words, writing with movement. The concept of audio-visual narrative, defined by García Jiménez (1996) as ‘the faculty or capacity of visual and acoustic images to tell stories, conceived as a discipline that aspired to the practical training of audiovisual narrators’ (p.13) and encompassed in its more specific meaning, in the discipline of Narratology, is relevant. Sánchez-Navarro (2006), under the theories of García Jiménez (1996), points to the audio-visual narrative as a particular type of narrative form based on the capacity of images and sounds to tell stories. ‘In the same way that the syntagmatic relationship of verbal forms constitutes a continuity that translates as narrative, the articulation of two or more images will be contemplated by the reader/spectator as a narrative’ (p.77). The author differentiates audio-visual narrative as a generic term, including filmic, radio, and television. Each of these has its particular semiotic system. These clarifications serve as a preamble to put the focus of this study. It does not focus on the generalities of audio-visual narrative but mainly on the elements of filmic narrative in its cinematographic sense. According to Rodríguez-Rabadán (2019), branded entertainment can be as legitimate cinematic content for the viewer as fiction where no brand is involved in the ideation and production process. This approach is the starting point to briefly review the fundamental elements that make up the filmic narrative and thus see how they remain or are modified when applied to the branded entertainment technique. Elements of Filmic Storytelling

The construction of a good story is an area of research that has aroused interest for decades. From a linguistic, semiotic, and structural point of view, Farrán (2013) investigates the academic literature devoted to identifying the aspects that formally broadly construct a good story. The author studies the sources with data provided by scientists such as Poliany (1979), Sternberg (2001), and Haven (2007), among other authors, and concludes that there is no series of standardized parameters that lead to the formal composition of a good story. However, some essential points shape stories. This study follows Farrán’s

102  Influence of Filmic Storytelling on Branded Entertainment Films

argument and starts from the premise that the following elements are not fixed parameters but standard bases in Western culture for constructing a story. In the following lines, this research identifies some of the primary resources of the traditional story that are directly related to the contents of the filmic story: myth, rite, archetype, metaphor, mimesis, diegesis, verisimilitude, space, time, and genre. On Myth, Rite, Archetype, and Metaphor THE MYTH

Authors such as Campbell (1972), Farrán (2013), and Vizcaíno (2016) analyze theoretical questions about the different mythological typologies, their origins, anthropological significance, and their relationship with folklore and Western culture. This work underlines the importance of the narrative resource of myth as a recurrent element in filmic narrative. Myths provide images, symbols, and signs through which we can offer an interpretation of everything that surrounds us (Vizcaíno 2016). Both Núñez (2007) and Sherman (2011) agree in describing myth as sacred history, which helps us to understand a culture and to make sense of human existence in all societies. Myths provide behaviour examples and help us make meaning of our environment. Myths engrave the beliefs and identity of a community in the memory of generations. Throughout history, artists and writers have drawn on the themes, images, and characters of collective mythology because they offer certain universal ideals that remain vivid in the minds of society (Sherman 2011, p.322; Campbell 1972). Also, in the seventh art, the great film scripts are inspired by myths, a resource that gives relevance and attractiveness to gain an audience. In the words of Sánchez-Escalonilla (2004), ‘the formidable literary and cinematographic ocean that we contemplate in the third millennium of our era is due to the tributary seas of myths’ (p.70). As Sánchez-Escalonilla (2004) dictates, ‘knowing these ancestral stories allows the scriptwriter to deepen the themes and plots of his story’ (p.70). An example is the Platonic myth of the cave in films such as the Matrix. The protagonist, Neo, lives imprisoned in a fictitious reality reflecting another world, which he can one day access through a pill. This plot may be an allegory of the world presented by Plato. A man in chains in a lightless cavern where he only sees shadows of the authentic world; when he manages to leave the cavern, he is presented with a new reality, marvelling at the fact that he has emerged from ignorance. THE RITE

As Núñez (2007) points out, rites are another recurrent resource in the story. Ritual can be the ceremony that stages the myth; it is the act that manages to include men in a physical representation. Farrán (2013) compares myths as a

Influence of Filmic Storytelling on Branded Entertainment Films  103

mental representation of values and meanings. The rite is the physical representation of the same in such a way that it achieves a point of union with the ideas transmitted by the myths. Ritual succeeds in shaping human life in its depths. Farrán (2013) highlights a few rite examples: the tea ceremony in Japan, Farrán (2013), the ancestral nocturnal gathering of tribes around the bonfire, Vizcaíno (2016) or ‘a religious ceremony or taken to the Western society where young people look forward to the weekend night as a moment of great escape; the departure of an unrepeatable night to live hedonistic experiences’ (Núñez 2007, p.133). ARCHETYPES

Etymologically, the word archetype comes from two Greek terms ‘Arche’ (source, principle, origin) and ‘Typos’ (model). The union of these two concepts means ‘exemplary model from which other concepts, ideas or objects derive’ (Farrán 2016, p.196). Sherman (2011) describes the term archetype as an ‘image or figure that is present in the psyche of the human being, regardless of culture or race’ (p.33). In this light, psychologist Jung (1981) studied archetypes as patterns of innate ideas that reside in human thought and action as a principle that orders our behaviour and emotions. Archetypes accompany civilizations of all cultures in the collective unconscious. They are reflected in all the arts, such as cinema, and numerous disciplines, such as advertising. In the context of storytelling, archetypes are universal elements in every story. Delgado-Ballester and Fernández-Sabiote (2016) underline the importance of storytelling as a tool for human beings to better understand the world and organize our experiences so that we can communicate them to others. Also, reliving stories allows us to experience the experiences of the archetype in the story, whether it is, for example, being a rebel, a lover, or a hero. Farrán, 2013; Delgado-Ballester and Fernández-Sabiote, 2016; Vizcaíno, 2016 agree in identifying several archetypes: the ordinary man, the joker, the protector, the creator, the sovereign, the innocent, the explorer, the hero, the wise man, the rebel and the magician. Vizcaíno points out 12 universal patterns of behaviour through 12 archetypes, which he articulates around four internal human motivations: the axis of stability as control and security versus mastery is understood as risk and domination—on a second axis, belonging and comfort or independence and exploration. In the story, archetypes strengthen the identification with the characters and underline the transcendence of the protagonists’ conflicts towards the objective they are pursuing (Farrán 2013, p.201). Archetypes inspire the seventh art to show on-screen characters full of transcendence. Seger (2007, p.154) refers to ‘typical characters’ in many films that respond to original models or patterns repeated in many stories. For example, the caretaker is the excellent fairy figure represented in the character of the Good Witch of the North in the film The Wizard of Oz.

104  Influence of Filmic Storytelling on Branded Entertainment Films

The creation of believable characters in the filmic narrative is crucial to the development of the film; characters must reveal genuine personalities and show changes that alter their inner nature throughout the narrative (McKee 2004, p.135). METAPHORS

Farrán (2013) identifies the concept of metaphor as  ‘carrying beyond,’  taking this concept from an etymological meaning. The use of metaphors allows human beings to situate perceived meanings of concepts by the receiver and to know what these ideas convey either linguistically or visually through images (Zaltman and Zaltman 2008). According to Fajardo (2006, p.50) and Raymond and Gibbs (2008), metaphor goes beyond a feature of language; metaphor finds an interpretation in the context of the human being’s cognitive system, connected to feelings and emotions. This connection between two concepts can create and recreate reality and give way to a new one, deepening the way of conceptualizing the world and building on the unknown from reality. As Rodríguez (1991, p.551) poetically describes, metaphor is ‘the gateway to the imagination.’ The stories use metaphors, creating an enduring emotional value over time. Metaphor has a high synthetic and hypothetical value, Fajardo (2006), which has implications for the ability to convey concepts quickly and open up new imaginative horizons. In today’s storytelling, metaphor and metaphorical thinking ‘define and impose the structure of the story in fiction and advertising communication’ (Núñez 2007, p.174). The use of metaphor in the image has consequences in how it shapes the meaning of the message and the perception it causes in the audience. Researchers such as Jeong (2008), and Farrán (2016), underline the impact of metaphor on the receiver. For both authors, this mechanism offers a cognitive and attitudinal change concerning the message offered. It also provides attention capacity and maintenance of interest. It also creates feelings of positive inclination towards the message received, transmits emotions and credibility towards the content of the metaphor, improves the capacity of reproduction and durability, and finally, memorization of a message. These effects are significant in visual language, both in filmic storytelling and in advertising communication, with the particularity of using the image in addition to verbal language. Regarding the visual metaphor, two concepts do not find juxtaposition analogically, but two images find associations often without the need for text; they have implicit meanings and offer greater complexity than a verbal metaphor. Ortiz (2010) defends the presence and complexity of conceptual metaphors in the audio-visual corpus, which could be in greater or lesser intensity depending on factors such as genre or audio-visual style. For example, in realist cinema, metaphors occur to a lesser degree than in German expressionist cinema), or the medium to which they belong. Within the framework of this study, advertising

Influence of Filmic Storytelling on Branded Entertainment Films  105

may present a more significant presence of conceptual metaphors than cinema due to the effects that metaphor produces mentioned above. For example, the short films of the beer brand Estrella Damm #Mediterráneamente  Vale (Amenábar 2015) include metaphors such as the starry summer night in Ibiza or the sunset at sea. The brand tries to liken summer to beer, the coastal lifestyle, reinforce a positive feeling towards the brand, and linger in the viewer’s memory through these metaphors. Diegesis, Mimesis, and Plausibility

The Dictionary of Narratology refers to diegesis as ‘the (fictional) world in which the situations and events take place in a narrative’ (Prince 1989, p.10). This diegetic world might present a greater or lesser degree of extra-textual reality as the level of reality in which the characters act and where an attempt is made to create a credible world of action for the receiver of the story (Pimentel 1998). Diegesis finds its root in Classical Poetics from the writings of Plato and Aristotle in the 3rd century BC. It remains a topical issue due to the dilemma between fiction and credibility, studied by structuralists in the field of Narratology. In this sense, the distinction made by Aristotle is interesting. The philosopher deals with the issue of mimesis and verisimilitude in his work The Poetics. Aristotle uses the term mimesis as meaning the artistic imitation of life. ‘The impossible plausible is to be preferred to the impossible incredible, and arguments must be composed of irrational parts, but above all, they must have nothing irrational in them’ (Aristotle, p.107). The philosopher elaborates on the importance of the elements of the story and elaborates on a theory of imitation. When the philosopher speaks of mimesis, he does not mean mere copying but a creative transformation of events. In narratological theory, Genette (1989) separates narration and representation, a legacy of the classical poetics of Plato and Aristotle. Genette distinguishes three terms to identify art and gives a new nuance to the diegetic meaning: the story is the meaning or narrative content, the story responds to the narrative text, and the narration to the act of narrating that story and that situation. In this separation of terms, the author seeks to redefine the meaning of diegesis in his analysis of the constants in narrative structure: ‘diegesis is the Spatio-temporal universe designated by the story,’ (Genette 1989, p.83); it is the story told. What is essential is not the facts themselves based on reality but that the writer dramatizes what would happen according to what might be probable in the framework of our actions (Price 2017). In this way, the narrator constructs a universe of discourse through the story where human action is projected into a diegetic universe (Pimentel 1998). The spectator will be involved in a story to the extent that the spatiotemporal diegetic universe of the story is plausible and credible. Betteni and Fumagalli (2010) study the impact of verisimilitude on narrative. According to Italian authors, verisimilitude should not be confused with truth. For Aristotle, verisimilitude comes from the term (eikòs). It refers to the

106  Influence of Filmic Storytelling on Branded Entertainment Films

universally probable, which humanity generally agrees on, although he does not rule out the possibility that the opposite of what appears to be verisimilar is impossible. The Role of Space and Time in the Story

There is an excellent interdependence between space and time as essential elements of the narrative and premises of the story regardless of the expression in which they are presented, whether verbal or filmic (Martínez Expósito 2006). Space and time are necessary conditions for the creation of a film. Space and time, present in other traditional forms of narration, such as literature or photography, acquire specific characteristics in the filmic narrative, according to Carluccio (1988). Space is dissociated into two points of view: the space seen by the reader (where he or she can overcome the laws of space and move to another place through the imagination and the screen) and the space of the image itself. In cinema, space is represented through the registration of the image, camera movements, and the composition and fragmentation of the image. Cinema can play with a visible space within the camera’s field of vision and another invisible to the spectator’s eye, but whose abstract space is as valuable as the one offered on screen, with an implicit space for the characters beyond the reach of the spectator’s eye. As Marcel (2002) points out, it would be more appropriate to speak of a space ‘in’ the film, in the place where the action takes place. In turn, in the exposition of dramatic space, the relationship between space and the narrator and characters in the fictional world created (in a diegesis referred to as the fictional universe) can be analyzed and determined by two elements: spatial position and spatial mobility. According to Sánchez-Navarro (2006), spatial position means the place that corresponds to the spectator in front of the narrator; it can be a narrator character or one in which the character and narrator occupy the same point of view in front of the action of the camera. In the plot’s space, the story’s perception depends on the point of observation chosen by both scriptwriter and director. On the other hand, the concept of spatial mobility refers to the possibility of offering different points of view and modifying them according to the story. It is possible to make time jumps, the narrator’s capacity to tell the story from ubiquity, jumping from space to space; on the contrary, mobility is reduced to that which allows the character-narrator. The filmic narrative has a temporal form that gives the film a concrete and objective duration (also called the time of the action) and, on the other hand, a ‘subjective’ duration in the spectator (time of perception) where the content of the film influences the suggestion of a fictitious elapsed time (Carluccio 1988); a criterion that agrees with Genette in his distinction between the time of the story and time of discourse. This category makes a distinction in a structuralist line of thought: the story as content and the discourse as an aspect of the formal expression of the same. If, for example, Carluccio (1988) exemplifies,

Influence of Filmic Storytelling on Branded Entertainment Films  107

one wanted to tell the story of life on the screen, the time of discourse would still be the hour-and-a-half that the film lasts, regardless of whether it covers more or fewer facts of the life that is reflected in the story. According to Sánchez-Navarro (2006) and following Genette (1989), the narration concerning the story is synthesized in a narration contemporary to the event (present or simultaneous time), in a past or subsequent time, in a future or previous time (Sánchez-Navarro 2006, p.41). Genette (1989) studies time as the order of events; an order that can be altered as long as the story of the plot maintains its unity; either with sequences in regular order or through anachronistic sequences where the discourse is interrupted to travel in time and show earlier or later events. Sánchez-Navarro (2006) defines the term anachrony to designate any alteration of the order of a story’s events when represented by a specific discourse. This anachronism can occur partially, where the voice-over remains present, and the image travels to another moment in the story. Time in the scene may run continuously, or the audio-visual narrator may omit part of the action, technically called ellipsis, leaving the events freely available to the viewer’s imagination. According to Genette (1980), the anachronism’s distance, or span, and the extent or duration of the anachronistic event determine the complexity of such ellipses and their comprehension by the viewer. Branded entertainment films play with the use of time, which allows for more extraordinary narrative richness. The screenwriter has with this narrative resource a tool to make the viewer an accomplice of certain events, improve the film’s pace, anticipate events to reveal important information and provide the plot with a  differential  element. The short film Vale (2017) by Alejandro Amenábar has a scene where the director uses this jump to establish complicity with the spectator and give a twist to the script. The protagonist of the story, Victor, tries to win Rachel’s affection without success. On a starry night, all the friends have a beer and chat. In a trivia game, the friends ask him many questions, and he can answer anything, thus impressing the young woman. Víctor reflects for a moment on why he memorizes all these details, which leads him to remember how his friendship with his colleagues began. First, a work colleague invited him for a beer and introduced him to his friends. A unique relationship full of anecdotes was forged between music, exhibitions, parties, theatre, and the occasional Estrella Damm. At every invitation, Víctor said “OK,” an attitude that made him feel like one of the group. Back to reality, Victor surprises all his friends by answering the last of the film questions and gets a round of applause and Rachel’s admiration. The evening ends with Victor and Rachel sitting on the pier. Victor manages to express himself in English and invites Rachel to stay with her looking at the stars, to which the foreigner responds with a smile and a voucher. (Rodríguez-Rabadán 2019, p.222)

108  Influence of Filmic Storytelling on Branded Entertainment Films Genre

Betteni and Fumagalli (2010) point out the beginning of the study of the film genre, taking into consideration the theory of literary genre in the classical period; whether specific codes and themes existed between writer and audience: the dramatic, lyrical, and epic genre. Pérez-Bowie (2008) points out the beginning of the concept of genre in The Aristotelian Poetics. For the authors Betteni and Fumagalli (2010), the question of the genre must be articulated from three levels: the linguistic-semiotic angle as a code in the form of content. This last psychological level could be placed on a generalist level, based on a criterion of reception and predisposition of the spectator. In the literature review consulted for the last 20 years, genres are considered descriptive proposals, grouping content with specific formal characteristics. According to Grant (2007), genres should comprise a series of conventions (dialogue, music, specific style in each genre); iconography (objects, archetypes, staging, and even specific actors); the framework of the settings (physical space and historical period); stories and themes; characters and finally audiences. Drama, western, horror films, biopic (biographical films), romantic films, or comedies, to name a few of the most common genres, could be postulated as genres from a ‘social intuition’ as Traversa (2000, p.265) calls them. The question of genre is a mere classification between sender and receiver. On a generic level, whether they are film industry agents, critics, or spectators, common categories are often used which respond to vaguely defined criteria. Traversa (2000) wonders whether there is a space in which the meaning of genre is concretely defined beyond the exact attribution of a genre to a particular work. Compared to literary theory, which has a long tradition and an extensive bibliography, in the field of film, this question still needs to be supported by research where practice and theory agree. The classification of genres in a more general sense and contact with industry practice can offer universal principles of interpretation. For De Miguel (1988), genres are presented as a series of conventions, without being closed formulas, which fix the relationships between characters and are decisive for the progress of the narrative. These conventions make communication between writer and spectator easier: • • •

the stories start from already-known elements the spectator is guaranteed to be familiar with them a series of expectations are established.

In genre, themes, narrative structures, character types, iconography, and other formal aspects largely determine the combination of one or more genres. According to Bonsignore and Sassoon (2014), there are genre preferences in branded entertainment. For these authors, comedy, romantic drama, and thrillers are more popular than others when it comes to connecting with audiences. Examples of some campaigns where the genre plays a fundamental role

Influence of Filmic Storytelling on Branded Entertainment Films  109

in connecting with the audience are  The Hire,  where BMW Films presents a thriller; the  Beauty Inside of the  Intel brand opts for a romantic drama or Campofrío. This national cold meat company uses comedy in its branded content campaigns to convey a message to Spanish society of optimism in the face of the financial crisis or to overcome the COVID-19 problems that Spanish society has been going through in the last decade.

Discussion The study presents findings on the main elements of film storytelling that can nurture and inspire branded entertainment and the innovation presented when articulating the brand in the conformation of a branded entertainment script. Given some of the most relevant definitions from the theoretical point of view of Narratology through a brief overview of the last decades, this study provides a summary table of some of the most relevant meanings of the terms narration, storyline, and story based on the sources consulted. Narration

Storyline

Narration (narrative act) is the verbal fact or action that turns the story into a narrative; it is the narrative producing fact and, by extension, the actual or fictitious situation in which the narrative act takes place (Genette 1989, p.83). ‘For the science that studies narration, only narration can produce a story’ (Farrán 2013, p.170).

The storyline (narrative signifier) The story (narrative is the oral or written meaning) is the set discourse that materializes of narrated facts or the story, i.e., the concluded events presented narrative text that forms a logically and in signifying whole also called chronological order a statement or text (Genette, (Genette 1989, p.83). 1989 cited in Vizcaíno 2016, p.65).

A narrative is a Spatiotemporal construction that provides actions that take place in a particular world, fictional or not. The definition of this world requires descriptive phrases (the story) and content (the story) (Herman 2002).

Story

The storyline is the fruit of The story is about the narration as a set of elements world where events whose final meaning is a story occur, conveyed through (Farrán (2013). the signs articulated in the story (Prince 1989, p.57). The storyline is the result The story is the events of the organization and told in the narrative manipulation of history— discourse—the narration, oral or written, sequence of events of events that have occurred related to the or are imaginary (Reyzabal characters (Reyzabal 1988, p.47). 1988, p.47).

This work adopts the position of Farrán (2013), who concludes that no series of standardized parameters lead to the formal composition of a good story,

110  Influence of Filmic Storytelling on Branded Entertainment Films

although some essential points shape stories. The above statement treats the expressive resources of the story not as fixed parameters but as standard bases in Western culture for constructing a story. Branded entertainment adopts elements of filmic storytelling, such as Estrella Damm’s campaigns, celebrating each premiere as a rite. From Formentera (2009) to Amor a Primera Vista (2021), summer after summer, the beer brand has created a definite date with its audience to present the new summer story. The brand managed to create an association between Estrella Damm beer and summer, a time to enjoy the sun and live life ‘Mediterranean,’ enjoying the little things, the beach, music, gastronomy, the sun, friends, and partying (Rodríguez-Rabadán, Galán-Fajardo, and Del Pino-Romero 2022). In branded entertainment, having a character design inspired by a universal archetype can add dimension and familiarity with the viewer. From the literature review, it can be detected that every culture and civilization have patterns that reside in the ideology of the population. These archetypes can help the viewer identify with, understand and experience the emotions the characters in the story go through. For example, the Mercedes-Benz branded entertainment: Bertha Benz: the journey that changed everything (2019) recreates the historic journey in the first car and presents a charismatic character. This adventurous woman represents the archetype of exploration. The element of metaphor as a storytelling resource enriches the filmic narrative and acquires a new dimension in image and sound. Filmmaking and advertising use metaphor to convey relevance, emotion, and a high level of persuasion to the viewer. Branded entertainment can benefit from this mechanism, similar to cinema or advertising. Banco Santander’s Cuánto campaign (2017), winner of the Cannes Grand Prix 2017, represents metaphors of happiness beyond money in a film that focuses on the importance of life experiences in the face of the danger of materialism (Rodríguez-Rabadán 2021). According to the sources consulted, one of the most exciting factors in filmic storytelling applied to branded entertainment may be verisimilitude. In the fictional world, the film must give off a sense of unity and keep sense; the writer establishes a complicity with the spectator in the created world where specific rules are agreed upon. It is a fictional world where everything follows logic and sense. Tubau (2007) compares verisimilitude to game rules in which the writer and viewer establish rules to enjoy the limits of the narrative. Nike’s film The Switch (2016), starring football star Ronaldo, tells the story of how, after a collision with a young man, their bodies change. Despite the absolute impossibility of this happening, in fiction, it is plausible, and the story works. Nike conveys that work is more important than innate talent through this storyline. This work assumes that the story’s verisimilitude corresponds to the script’s coherence based on the rules of the game created by the author for that fiction. These rules must follow the standards of the genre presented in the story and deep knowledge of the characters. Finally, another relevant element detected in this study is genre. Given the disparity of approaches to the study of film genre, the proposal of the researcher

Influence of Filmic Storytelling on Branded Entertainment Films  111

Tudor (1973) is supported from an empirical point of view; the study of genres must start from a shared cultural consensus, taking into account films that are collectively classified in a particular genre. For Tudor, the selection criterion for some genres is determined by the intended intention of the viewer, while in other genres, the criterion is narrative. The theory and practice of the film genre are two parallel paths where they do not intersect in understanding both definition and classification. In this research, the meaning of genre is adopted under empirical and practical appreciation. From this consensus, advertising works can be classified into a specific genre to more clearly convey the intention of the type of story that wants to be presented to the viewer. For example, the branded content campaign Cuánto (Beyond Money) (2017) presents a futuristic thriller. The action series The Hire (2008), a documentary-like Oso (2020) by Tous, Bertha Benz (2019), a biopic of the feat of the first trip in a MercedesBenz vehicle, or the latest release of the toy factory Mattel with the launch of the feature film Barbie (2023), a romantic comedy scheduled for July 2023.

Conclusions After reviewing the literature presented in the theoretical framework and the presentation of examples from the advertising industry, it is concluded that the ideation and writing process of a branded entertainment action in its audiovisual entertainment format is based on the audio-visual narrative of entertainment. The creation team must have a specialist in audio-visual scriptwriting to develop a fictional narrative that articulates the brand in an integrated way together with the expressive resources of the script’s expressive resources of the script. The inclusion of the brand in the narrative of a film work respects and makes use of the expressive resources of the film. As Hardy (2018) points out, branded entertainment competes with original content created by film studios, audio-visual production companies, and digital content agencies. The narrative quality of branded entertainment must meet the highest standards of professionalism from ideation, scripting, and production. Advertisers need to form teams with scriptwriting specialists to master the expressive resources of filmic storytelling and thus guarantee a good result. According to, Lilkander and Gummerus (2012), Farrán (2013), and Vizcaíno (2016), the interest of the subject deserves more work to deepen its theoretical corpus in order to understand better its origins, evolution, history, and possibilities it offers shortly. It is essential to maintain continuity in developing a solid and well-founded theoretical framework on the expressive resources of filmic storytelling and its application to branded entertainment, as it is a new and growing practice in the advertising industry.

Bibliography Bettetini, G., & Fumagalli, A. (2010). Quel che resta dei media (What remains of the media). Milan: FrancoAngeli.

112  Influence of Filmic Storytelling on Branded Entertainment Films Bonsignore, P., & Sassoon, J. (2014). La nuova frontiera della comunicazione d’impresa. [The new frontier of business communication]. Milan: FrancoAngeli. Campbell, J. (1972). El héroe de las mil caras (A hero with a thousand faces) (Hernández, J., transl., 1st reprint). Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica (1949). Carluccio, G. (1988). Cinema e Raconto. Lo spazio e il tempo (Cinema and history: Space and time). Torino: Loescher. De Miguel, C. (1988). Science fiction: A black hole in genre cinema. Bilbao: University of the Basque Country. Delgado-Ballester, E., & Fernández-Sabiote, E. (2016). Once upon a brand: Storytelling practices by Spanish brands. Spanish Journal of Marketing-ESIC, 20, 115–131. https://doi​ .org​/10​.1016​/j​.sjme​.2016​.06​.001. Del Pino-Romero, C., Castelló-Martínez, A., and Ramos-Soler, I. (2013). Communication in constant change: Branded content, community management, communication 2.0, social media strategy. Madrid: Editorial Fragua. Fajardo Uribe, L. (2006). Metaphor as a cognitive process. Forma y Función, 19, 47–56. Retrieved from https://bit​.ly​/3aDvwCb. Farrán, E. (2013). Storytelling as a tool and improvement of advertising effectiveness. Analysis of the Aquarius and BMW cases on televisión (1992–2010) [Storytelling como herramienta y mejora de la eficacia en publicidad. Análisis de los casos Aquarius y BMW en televisión (1992–2010)] (Doctoral Thesis). Castellón: Universidad Jaime I de Castellón. García Jiménez, J. (1996). Audiovisual Narrative. Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra. Genette, G. (1980). Narrative discourse: An essay in method (Jane E. Lewin., trad). New York: Cornell University Press. Genette, G. (1989). [Figures III]. Translation by Carlos Manzano. Barcelona: Lumen. Gibbs Jr., R. W. (2008). The Cambridge handbook of metaphor and thought. New York: Cambridge University Press. Grant, B. (2007). Film Genre: From iconography to ideology. [Film Genre: From iconography to ideology]. London: Wallflower. Hardy, J. (2018). Branded content. In J. Hardy, H. Powell, & I. Macrury (Eds.), The advertising handbook (pp. 102–122). Oxon: Routledge. Hardy, J. (2021). Branded content: The fateful merging of media and marketing. Routledge. https://doi​.org​/10​.4324​/9781315641065. Haven, K. (2007). Story proof. The science behind the startling power of story. Esport, CT: Libraries Unlimited. In Farrán Texeidó, E. (2013, p. 183). Storytelling as a tool and improvement of effectiveness in advertising: Analysis of the Aquarius and BMW cases on television (1992–2010) (Doctoral thesis). Castellón: Universitat Jaume I of Castellón. Haven, K. (2014). Story smart: Using the science of story to persuade, influence, inspire and teach. CA. Libraries Unlimited. Herman, D.(2002). Story logic: Problems and possibilities of narrative. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. In Farrán Texeidó, E. (2013, p. 216). Storytelling as a tool and improvement of effectiveness in advertising: Analysis of the Aquarius and BMW cases on television (1992– 2010) (Doctoral thesis). Castellón: Universitat Jaume I of Castellón. Jeong, S.-H. (2008). Visual metaphor in advertising: Is the Persuasive effect attributable to visual argumentation or metaphorical rhetoric? Journal of Marketing Communications, 14(1), 59–73. https://doi​.org​/10​.1080​/14697010701717488. Jung, C. (1981). The archetypes and the collective unconscious (2nd ed.). Collected works of C.G. Jung. Translation: R.F.C. Hull. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. In Sherman, J. Storytelling. An Encyclopedia of Mythology and Folklore. Volume One, Volume Two, Volume Three. (2011, p. 34). Myron E. Sharpe. New York.

Influence of Filmic Storytelling on Branded Entertainment Films  113 Kindt, T., & Muller, H. (2003). What is narratology? Questions and answers regarding the status of a theory. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Le Roy, M., Freed, A., & Fleming, V. (1939). The Wizard of Oz. [Motion picture]. USA: Metro Goldwyn-Mayer. Lundqvist, L., & Gummerus, R. (2012). The impact of storytelling on the consumer brand experience: The case of a firm-originated story. [The impact of storytelling on the consumer brand experience: The case of a firm-originated story]. Journal of Brand Management, 20(4), 283–297. https://doi​.org​/10​.1057​/bm​.2012​.15. Marcel, M. (2002). The language of cinema (5th ed.). Translation María Renata Segura. Barcelona: Gedisa Editorial. Martínez-Expósito, A. (2006). Semiological organisation of space and time in cinema. Alpha (Osorno). Nº23, 181–200. Retrieved from https://bit​.ly​/3nXnver. McKee, R. J. (2004). The screenplay: Substance, structure, style and principles of screenwriting (3rd ed.). (Lochart, J., trans.). Barcelona: Alba Editorial. (1997). Muñoz, P. (2021). Branded content as a strategic communication asset for brands. In J. Olivares-Santamarina & R. Gago Gelado (Eds.), El branded content en la comunicación posdigital: Estructuras, aplicaciones y casos de éxito (pp. 23–31). Valencia: Tirant Humanidades. Núñez, A. (2007). You’d better tell it! Stories as communication tools. Storytelling. Barcelona: Empresa Activa. Ortiz, M. (2010). Integrated theory of visual metaphor. Communication & Society, 23(2), 97–124. Pérez Bowie, J.A., (2008). Leer el cine: La teoría literaria en la teoría cinematográfica. [Read the cinema: The cinematographic theory in literature theory]. Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca. Pimentel, L. A. (1998). El relato en perspectiva: Estudio de teoría narrativa [A story in perspective: A study in Narrative Theory]. Mexico City: Siglo XXI editores. Polianyi, L. (1979). So what’s the point? Semiotica, 25, 207–41. In Farrán Texeidó, E (2013, p. 183). Storytelling as a tool and improvement of effectiveness in advertising: Analysis of the Aquarius and BMW cases on television (1992–2010) (Doctoral thesis). Castellón: Universitat Jaume I of Castellón. Prince, G. (1989). A dictionary of narratology (1st ed.). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, p. 57. Reyzabal, M. (1988). Diccionario de términos literarios. [Literary terms dictionary]. Madrid: Acento Editorial. Rodríguez, J. (1991). Antología de literatura universal comparada. [Anthology of comparative world literature]. Murcia: Universidad de Murcia. Rodríguez-Rabadán, M. (2019). Theory and practice of branded entertainment: Exploration of its origins, creative resources, effectiveness and effects on the consumer. (Doctoral thesis, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid). https://bit​.ly​/3s5X9dN Rodríguez-Rabadán, M. (2021). The role of the advertising technique branded content to generate new links of engagement between brand and society. Questiones Publicitarias, 27, 1–7. https://doi​.org​/10​.5565​/rev​/qp​.350. Rodríguez-Rabadán, M. (2022). The influence of filmic storytelling on branded entertainment films. Global Media Journal México, 19(37), 1–22, July–December 2022. https://doi​.org​/10​.29105​/gmjmx19​.37​-484 Rodríguez-Rabadán, M., Galán-Fajardo, H., & del Pino-Romero, C. (2022). Mediterráneamente: A quantitative effectiveness study of branded content in Estrella Damm advertising films. Revista Mediterránea de Comunicación/Mediterranean Journal of Communication, 13(1), 165–184. https://doi​.org​/10​.14198​/MEDCOM​.20590.

114  Influence of Filmic Storytelling on Branded Entertainment Films Sánchez- Escalonilla, A. (2001). Estrategias de guion cinematográfico. [Film script strategies]. Barcelona: Ariel. Sánchez- Escalonilla, A. (2004). Screenwriting strategies [Estrategias de guion cinematográfico]. Barcelona: Ariel. Sánchez-Escalonilla, A. (2013). Verisimilitude and film story: The links between screenwriter, character and spectator. Communication & Society/Comunicación y Sociedad, 26(2), 79–94. Sánchez Navarro, J. (2006). Narrativa audiovisual. [Audiovisual narrative]. Barcelona: UOC. Seger, L. (2007). Cómo convertir un buen guion en un guion excelente. [How to turn a good script into an excellent script]. (Blasco, A., transl.), (9th ed., Libros de cine). Madrid: Rialp. (1997). Sherman, J. (2011). Storytelling. In An Encyclopedia of Mythology and Folklore. Volume One, Volume Two, Volume Three. New York: Myron E. Sharpe. Sociograph. Marketing Science Consulting. (April 9th, 2021). Branded Content Marketing Association. https://bit​.ly​/2ZWRzOO. Silver, J., & Wachowski, L., & Wachowski, L. (1999). The Matrix. [Motion picture]. USA: Village Roadshow Pictures, Warner Bros. and Silver Pictures. Sternberg, M. (2001). How narrativity makes a difference. Narrative, 9, 115–22. In Farrán Texeidó, E. (2013, p. 183). Storytelling as a tool and improvement of effectiveness in advertising: Analysis of the Aquarius and BMW cases on television (1992–2010) (Doctoral thesis). Castellón: Universitat Jaume I of Castellón. Traversa, O. (2000). The initial approach to film: Contact with the genre. CIC. Cuadernos de Información y Comunicación, (5), 261–266. Retrieved from: https://bit​.ly​/3P6IrMb. Tubau, D. (2007). The paradoxes of the scriptwriter: Rules and exceptions in the practice of screenwriting. Barcelona: Alba. Tudor, A. (1973). Theories of film. New York: Viking Press. In Grant, B. (2007, p. 22). Film genre. From iconography to ideology. London: Wallflower. Vale, E. (1996). Techniques of screenwriting for film and television. (Wald, M., trans.) (1st. ed., 6th. reprint ed., Multimedia, 3). Barcelona: Gedisa. (1982). Vizcaíno, P. (2016). From storytelling to advertising storytelling: The role of brands as storytellers (Doctoral thesis). Madrid: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. http://hdl​.handle​.net​ /10016​/24104 Zaltman, G., & Zaltman, L. (2008). Marketing Metaphoria. What deep methaphors reveal about the minds of consumers. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press. Quoted in Farrán, E. (2013, p. 225). Storytelling as a tool and improvement of effectiveness in advertising. Analysis of the Aquarius and BMW cases on television (1992–2010) (Doctoral thesis). Castellón: Universidad Jaime I de Castelló.

Branded content references Amenábar, A. (2017). Vale. [Branded entertainment short film]. Spain: Estrella Damm. Desmond Roe, M. (2017). Breaking2. [Branded entertainment documentary series]. USA: Nike. Doremus, D. (2012). The Beauty Inside. [Branded entertainment web series]. USA: Toshiba-Intel. Gerwig, G. (2023). Barbie. [Branded entertainment film]. USA: Mattel. Ledwidge, R. (2016). The Switch. [Branded entertainment short film]. USA: Nike. Lord, P., & Miller, C. (2014). Lego: The Movie. [Branded entertainment movie]. USA: Lego.

Influence of Filmic Storytelling on Branded Entertainment Films  115 Maíllo, K. (2017). How Much, Beyond Money. [Short film branded entertainment]. Spain: Banco Santander. Plaza, P., Cortés, R., Balagueró, J., & Cruz, J. (2014–2018). Cinergía. [Branded entertainment film]. Spain: Gas Natural Fenosa. Sans Patling, A. (2020). Bear. [Documentary branded entertainment]. Spain: Tous. Strasser, S. (2019). Bertha Benz. [Short film branded entertainment]. Germany: Mercedes-Benz. Villar, O. (2009). Formentera. [Branded entertainment music video]. Spain: Estrella Damm. Villar, O., & Jewell, P. (2021). Love at First Sight. [Short film branded entertainment]. Spain: Estrella Damm.

6

Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study

Interviews with Branded Content Experts The interviews here show various points of view on branded content, from the most academic to the most professional. The selection of all the participants in the study responds to a non-probabilistic, intentional, and theoretical approach (Aratzamendi, López-Dicastillo, and Vivar 2012). According to our candidates, the sample members are vital informants who can generate data relevant to the research question. In this sample, it seems to us that we present a balance in the selection of the participants, homogeneous in the sense of the field of study that we cover and, at the same time, heterogeneous since each one shows a specialty in a theoretical or practical area of the same field of study. The experts Parodi, Fumagalli, Sassoon, Perbellini, and Provenzi answered the following questions, which inspired the qualitative study. Ugo Parodi He is CEO of the audio-visual company Mosaicoon specializing in branded content and video content marketing. Mosaicoon has offices in Singapore, New Delhi, London, Madrid, Milan, Rome, and Seoul. 1. Do brands prefer the narrative genre (animation, adventure, biography, comedy, drama) and the theme when building a story? The choice of the genre and theme of a video follows the needs of the brand’s communication plan. Therefore, it depends on ‘how’ the brand wants to communicate its message. Generally, a brand wants to reach its target audience in a rather direct way, so brands tend to set an ‘emotional’ tone or fun to video content. 2. Do we live in a cultural context sufficiently mature from an audio-visual point of view to allow the viewer to identify the brand as the core and backbone of a story and actively participate in a branded content action?

DOI: 10.4324/9781003310686-7

Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study  117

Today there is a relatively mature audio-visual culture, users spend onethird of their online activity watching videos, but above all, they love stories. Video content that manages to make the viewer participate in bringing it into a story has a more significant impact on user engagement than one traditional TV spot. 3. Do brands today know how to create transmedia contexts where the viewer can gain experience and actively participate in creating content? The trend is increasing; brands are beginning to understand that to reach their audience effectively; they must create video content that communicates engagingly and consistently. 4. One of the most critical issues when performing a branded content action is finding exciting content for both the consumer and the brand. Is this mainly a problem of budget, lack of originality or organization in the work teams of the marketing departments, lack of knowledge and mastery of creative writing techniques, or any other element? Several obstacles, or rather complexities, arise in creating original video content that may be interesting for both the brand and the consumer. Indeed, if a brand wants to create high-quality content it very often needs to meet a high cost of production; if, on the contrary, if the budget does not reach the necessary level, the company gets low-quality content. The idea behind our company is to remove these obstacles by offering original video content produced by creative people from all over the world who provide high-quality videos that are interesting for users. Brands can quickly access this video content and choose the most popular ones. They are adapted to their communication needs. 5. Could you list three elements that should have a branded content story to get engagement and capture the viewer’s attention? If we are talking about pure entertainment, good references to branded content are: The film ‘Lego Movie.’ The New York Times Campaign: The Displaced. Finally, the animation short doc with Usain Bolt made by Gatorade. Video advertising content generates value and entertainment when it conveys a particular message, regardless of the product that is the subject of the advertising campaign 6. When writing a branded content or branded entertainment audio-visual script, how do you get the brand to be an integral part of the story and not just an integrated product?

118  Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study

The point is always to have a message to communicate so that the brand is the spokesperson for a story, not only for a product in advertising. 7. What could be a reference model of branded content at international and national levels in the three different formats of cinema, television, and entertainment for digital platforms? Lego Movie. Gatorade. 8. Who are the agents involved in writing a branded content script? In our platform, the creators themselves are the authors of the ideas. They write scripts and make videos. 9. What kind of information must first be provided to the scriptwriter? Our ‘creators’ can count on daily support from our platform that guides them on the type of content to be created depending on the trends of the moment, the most clicked videos on the web, and social movements. Armando Fumagalli He is the director of the Master in Script and Film Production at UNICATT. He combines this job with works as a script consultant. He is author of several books including Creativity to Power: from Hollywood to Pixar via Europe (2013) published by Rialp, Madrid. 1. Do brands prefer the narrative genre (animation, adventure, biography, comedy, drama) and the theme when building a story? So, companies that face the world of branded content or branded entertainment have yet to gain experience or obvious ideas about what they want to do or what it would be to do. One of the problems for which these forms are developing slowly in Italy is that the world of corporate marketing and entertainment (cinema, television drama) are two worlds that, at least in Italy, are separated. Also, because they live in two different contexts, one context more Milanese, more business-oriented, even the advertising industry and the Roman world, more oriented to cinema and television fiction. 2. Do we live in a cultural context sufficiently mature from an audio-visual point of view to allow the viewer to identify the brand as the core and backbone of a story and actively participate in a branded content action? So, it depends. There are very different audiences. There is a younger audience, which is, as it were…, open to nine forms of communication, and there is a more traditional audience that also follows the American

Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study  119

television series. Moreover, the conventional public in Italy, for example, is tuned to the most generalist television channels (La Rai, for example). So, the consumption habits and the answer to those to whom we say the communication that comes from the brands, starting from the companies, is very different. However, television was born in America with branded content because, initially, the first television series was directly sponsored by a single company. So, it depends. There are very different audiences. There is a younger audience, which is, how to say…, open to nine forms of communication, and a more traditional audience also follows American television series. And also, a traditional audience in Italy follows the more conventional tv channels (Rai 1, etc…). However, from what I recall, in America, television itself was born practically with branded content because, in the beginning, the first television series was directly sponsored by one company. The film ‘Quiz Show’ released in 1994 is based on an absolute scandal that happened in American television in the late ’50s. In his fourth film as director, Robert Redford makes a mixture of historical reality and moral tale in which television is portrayed as a business based on deception. The story shows the brand’s power over the TV show. So, this little ‘historical thing’ reminds us that commercial influences play a key role in television shows: it can be simply a mere product placement. One scenario could be a company XY presenting a show with almost no connection with corporate products. There are cases like Bticino, a series of six episodes with Giorgio Pasotti, which is pretty well received. There is flexibility, and there are great possibilities to do things even in very different ways from each other. The important thing is that the individual product has a quality of its own narrative, aesthetic, production, etc. That is, the fact that it is made through a company’s sponsorship should not be an excuse to do it badly or not to give exciting content. 3. Do brands today know how to create transmedia contexts where the viewer can gain experience and actively participate in creating content? So, the brands that I can think of are transmedial, a few. It takes work to think transmedial. Obviously, I know very well the Disney world. This company started betting on branded content. In 1937 the film studio released Snow White. The output of the film came with numerous products related to the narrative. So, to think in transmedial is difficult because you have to consider the narrative world, expanding the universe towards different media and formats. This is something that requires a culture that only some have. In fact, only a few have it; beyond these excellent and very significant cases of Disney and very few others, you do not see a lot of very effective action at the transmedia level.

120  Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study

4. One of the most critical issues when performing a branded content action is finding exciting content for both the consumer and the brand. Is this mainly a problem of budget, lack of originality or organization in the work teams of the marketing departments, lack of knowledge and mastery of creative writing techniques, or any other element? There are cases, in my opinion, of large companies that made this big mistake; for example, a few years ago, Pirelli … the company allocated a big budget for production. After several years you remember the scene but not the brand. Nowadays, many fashion companies invest high amounts in the so-called ‘Fashion films.’ Still, they consist of collections of images with nearly nothing interesting from a narrative point of view. Companies will hire professional experts in the branded content field to improve a specific narrative culture that invests in storytelling. Creating a 30-second commercial ad is very different from a ten-minute web series of eight episodes; it requires a different culture. Besides spending so much on talent and locations, it is crucial to allocate budgeting for creative development. In Italy, some films have been produced by Banca Intesa, one of the largest Italian banks and perhaps the most significant Italian bank. They launched the branded content campaign ‘not for trust’; the project counted substantial directors. In fact, these films were seen a little, and basically forgotten right away. The campaign wanted to sell the idea of inspiring confidence, and then they made a second attempt by making films with young authors with the artistic supervision of more experienced directors. This approach was a little better, but it still needed a real investment in the idea. The trend in the Italian film industry is to go immediately to production without going through the stages of careful development, not waiting until the project is really mature. in Italian cinema, many films that you see seem to be interesting first drafts. It is a vast difference compared with American cinema, where they usually do a tremendously more accurate job of writing the development until you get to a level of a screenplay that is sufficient to justify the investment of big budgets. 5. Could you list three elements that should have a branded content story to get engagement and capture the viewer’s attention? Branded content is the same as any other product that is not necessarily branded. If it’s a short film, it should be like a short film. If it’s a comedy, it should be trivially funny. A short film should tell an exciting story. Usually, the short film is an excellent setup with a final surprise; you can do it differently. So, branded content should respond to the logic of the format typical of that format that can be just a little different depending on the genre; if it is a thriller, it must excite and then give a consistent response credible compared to the premise. So, branded content should follow the narrative rules of any other editorial- or entertainment-driven content.

Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study  121

6. When writing a branded content or branded entertainment audio-visual script, how do you get the brand to be an integral part of the story and not just an integrated product? In this area, there is a lot of freedom. Some companies have a very welldefined set of values and find inspiration there. Other brands can also make a story that apparently has nothing to do with the brand. You make a story about a specific value and connect this value to the brand; it is optional to put the product inside. There is space for many different solutions depending on the situation, what is most appropriate and what is most interesting to do for that company. 7. What could be a reference model of branded content at international and national levels in the three different formats of cinema, television, and entertainment for digital platforms? So… in Italy, it is an emerging field, and we will see it coming. Internationally I can think of the film Cast Away, starring Tom Hanks. 8. Who are the agents involved in writing a branded content script? There can be a lot of freedom in this area. Some companies have a very well-defined set of values, and branded content allows them to tell a story that apparently has nothing to do with the brand but essentially shares a territory, a spirit, and values. For example, bank XY presents a story around the importance of banking, such as trust and planning for the future; the bank can make a story that talks about this value and then link this value to its brand; it is not necessary to put the product explicitly in the story. There are many different solutions. You must consider what is most appropriate depending on the situation and what is most interesting for that company to do at that historical moment, sometimes also responding to emerging societal issues. Sometimes you can make, for example, documentaries if you want to as branded content, some companies have done it, and it is a way of linking the business world with values of social sensitivity. They are also very effective ways of doing it. 9. What kind of information must first be provided to the scriptwriter? It depends on how you work in the sense that since it is something that, at least in Italy, is yet to be widespread, there may be companies that leave everything in the hands of the creatives. In Italy, they follow the inertia of standard processes similar to how to create an advertising campaign. However, a compelling case of branded content is when there are people in the team who actually work on the content, i.e., the creative content. An interesting point of branded content is Don Matteo. The characters in the TV series tell excellent stories in the region of Umbria that talk about these places. It was an interesting attempt, not a TV commercial, but in that case, you can see there was an effort to improve the storytelling, so it is an interesting case.

122  Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study

Joseph Sassoon He is a Scientist at the Storytelling Observatory of the University of Pavia and a member of the board of the Branded Entertainment Observatory in Rome. Co-author of the book Branded Content. La nuova frontiera della communicazione d’impresa (2014) published by Franco Angelli, Milan. 1. Do brands prefer the narrative genre (animation, adventure, biography, comedy, drama) and the theme when building a story? The brands tend to do more communication on the side. It is widespread to pick the comedy genre, but exploring other genres, particularly the dramatic one, could be more enjoyable. There are cases at the international level that cover solemn topics such as death; they are beautiful. It can create authentic engagement. 2. Do we live in a cultural context sufficiently mature from an audio-visual point of view to allow the viewer to identify the brand as the core and backbone of a story and actively participate in a branded content action? I think so. The audience is absolutely mature. It depends a lot on the ability of brands to create stories in which people recognize themselves. The desire to participate is very great; there is a predisposition. 3. Do brands today know how to create transmedia contexts where the viewer can gain experience and actively participate in creating content? Yes, I do. Not all. I create that this is a field in which the brands are experimenting. Some are far ahead, some have already made some fascinating things, and some are very interesting; some brands like Mont Blanc, Intel, and Toshiba have worked on this ground creating interaction with the audience. Many still have to understand that there is this new possibility. 4. One of the most critical issues when performing a branded content action is finding exciting content for both the consumer and the brand. Is this mainly a problem of budget, lack of originality or organization in the work teams of the marketing departments, lack of knowledge and mastery of creative writing techniques, or any other element? Indeed, the most important thing is to find good stories; clearly, you can also tell them well. These two are the two fundamental dimensions. The first involves a series of considerations: finding the right story to tell means finding stories that are relevant to the brand but do not straightforwardly speak about the brand. So, it’s about exploring the terrain in which the brand operates, everything around it, and in that dimension finding good stories that can interest the public and any other piece of information or entertainment. People must be able to watch these contents freely and

Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study  123

make a spontaneous choice to choose them and consume them entirely. So, they must be relevant. This means creating a good premise, a good treatment, and a good development of the stories. So, it depends on this that the message actually arrives. Maybe they need to invest more for the moment. However, the budget required for branded content works is a fraction of what is necessary for advertising because if It works, it is consumed spontaneously and does not require an average expense. I worked with Paolo Bonsignore of Illy. They had this experience: Illy needed to make beautiful branded content films broadcast through a television chain, avoiding the average expense. This is a significant saving for companies, so the need for investment is on the ground of production. Still, even there, you can do remarkable things by spending less than it costs, even a single commercial. 5. Could you list three elements that should have a branded content story to get engagement and capture the viewer’s attention? I have written another book called ‘viral stories,’ and I have studied the theme of virality a lot. For branded content in general also for any video that wants to have viral circulation, I would say that base on this search, the basic things are: • the capacity for surprise • the ability to excite • irony. These are three keys that make a significant difference. Among the three of them, I would highlight surprise. Some brands have managed to have viral circulation thanks to the fact that their content included a breakthrough in the story, a ‘plot twist.’ If there is this element for which the story ends in a very different way from expected, it creates that surprise. The fundamental aspect of being able to surprise people is that it can induce them to share content, which tends to create engagement. Branded content will be considered as long as it creates value, a meaning. I do not feel a logic in which simply investing a lot of money in a one-way unilateral way ensures that the public receives the content. Branded content must be thought of in a totally different way; in the perspective in which a brand becomes a ‘publisher,’ that is taken into account by the public to the extent that it manages to convey valuable Content. If you do, it will be taken into account. 6. When writing a branded content or branded entertainment audio-visual script, how do you get the brand to be an integral part of the story and not just an integrated product? There is a case of great interest starring Toshiba and Intel: ‘The beauty inside.’ The exciting thing, in this case, was that the two brands that participated in the project had different presence.

124  Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study

The main character used a Toshiba in the web series. So, Toshiba was there. Instead, Intel was not. The story talks about the invisible, our soul as human beings. Intel felt identified with this concept and metaphor: Intel products are hidden but are the most valuable thing in a computer. 7. What could be a reference model of branded content at international and national levels in the three different formats of cinema, television, and entertainment for digital platforms? Yes. ‘Mont Blanc’ launched this idea of filming ‘the beauty of a second,’ inviting the audience to capture seconds of their lives that had a singular beauty to celebrate a chronograph. The brilliant idea was to ask a community to use the public’s imagination. Therefore, launching to the public this idea of collectively creating the beauty of a second is a brilliant idea. 8. Who are the agents involved in writing a branded content script? So, I do not have straightforward experience, but branded content must start from the company. Then, as a second stage, brands can rely on external scriptwriters and directors who may not be inside as long as the concept is well thought out and oriented by the company. 9. What kind of information must first be provided to the scriptwriter? Scriptwriters need to understand the brand and pay attention to all useful details. In this way they can capture the brand values and reflect them with symbolism, within the storyline. Branded content is about creating narratives that are closed to brands, but the narrative does not necessarily talk about brands or products in an obvious and intrusive way. The scriptwriter must acquire this sensitivity. Mara Perbellini She is a film and television writer. Perbellini has more than 12 scripts written and sold for the main Italian producers in Milan and Rome. She is a teacher at IES Abroad Milan and the UNICATT summer filmmaking course in New York, at the School of Visual Arts. 1. Do brands prefer the narrative genre (animation, adventure, biography, comedy, drama) and the theme when building a story? In essence, it depends on the brand and the type of target that the brand has. For example, products like vehicles usually tell action and adventure stories. For instance, with the series of eight short films ‘The Hire’ with Clive Owen, BMW experimented with directors of excellent calibre who are specific experts in the action genre. Or even the beautiful spot produced by Volvo and Jean-Claude Van Damme. While other types of products, such as perfumes, can use different genres, perhaps with a more caring atmosphere, like Chanel No. 5 with Nicole Kidman with a very

Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study  125

romantic atmosphere. I want to mention Fellini’s commercial. He made a commercial for Barilla’s rigatoni, ‘always al dente,’ where music was significant. 2. Do we live in a cultural context sufficiently mature from an audio-visual point of view to allow the viewer to identify the brand as the core and backbone of a story and actively participate in a branded content action? Some viewers exert an influence on other viewers to participate. In the media sense, we live in a media culture; if we think of the older generation and the general public used to the most passive television, no. The new generations consume content through mobile, the Internet, social networks, and apps. I think the younger ones are ready and have fun with branded content. In conclusion, young people are the right audience for this. 3. Do brands today know how to create transmedia contexts where the viewer can gain experience and actively participate in creating content? There have not been large transmedia campaigns with mass success, but probably yes, in experimental circuits to niche targets. But I do see a huge potential for applying this. Substantially, it is like a screenwriter who has worked in video games and become versatile. It would be helpful to create a team of people accustomed to transmedia and used to storytelling to provide such value and knowledge at branded content. 4. One of the most critical issues when performing a branded content action is finding exciting content for both the consumer and the brand. Is this mainly a problem of budget, lack of originality or organization in the work teams of the marketing departments, lack of knowledge and mastery of creative writing techniques, or any other element? There needs to be more cooperation between professionals because it’s a new territory to explore. So, it has to be a collaboration between the marketing experts and the story experts. Once you’ve told the storytellers what you’re going to accomplish, the marketing experts should take a step back and give the scriptwriter a chance to explore a story. Also, within the production chain, ‘script development’ is usually the stage that receives less investment in the budget. Earmarking a more extensive budget line to this stage of the project to have a memorable story seems more important than spending it on A-list actors. Everything relies on a good story, then a good director and actors. Much of the budget goes to the director’s account, and these directors are used to wealthy production values. It would be a good idea to expand the possibility of telling these stories to medium-level professionals who are not big names but also screenwriting professionals who do not need a rich high-end on the set.

126  Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study

5. Could you list three elements that should have a branded content story to get engagement and capture the viewer’s attention? I want to quote Robert McKee because he is a bit of the patron saint of all the storytellers. First, the idea itself is not enough but must permanently be attached to emotion to make the story memorable. So, how do you create this emotion? How do you create engagement? How do you capture the attention of the audience? As Robert McKee says, where is the dark side? Once you find this obstacle, this dark side goes through the change phase. So, substantially, a revelation of the dark side is surpassed. If the audience feels connected to the conflict, they will stay there until the problem finds a solution. I highlight three important things: working with emotions, seeing the dark side, and developing the overcoming or change. At the heart of the work is the brand. 6. When writing a branded content or branded entertainment audio-visual script, how do you get the brand to be an integral part of the story and not just an integrated product? I would like to receive information from brand managers about what are the values of the brand. Questions such as the identity, the image they want to convey, and the emotions they would like to evoke. Then, I would work putting the brand as the centre of the story’s essence. 7. What could be a reference model of branded content at international and national levels in the three different formats of cinema, television, and entertainment for digital platforms? The first Italian brand content that comes to mind is Dolce & Gabanna. Dolce & Gabbana did a great job of brand work. All appearances are consistent with their unique universe; I’m referring to a commercial with Monica Bellucci. It tells romantic and beautiful storytelling about a perfume. Other examples ‘Stella’ by Gabriele Salvatores or the film project ‘Per Fiducia’ produced by Banca Intesa SanPaolo. 8. Who are the agents involved in writing a branded content script? The team should include the writer or a team of writers, a creative producer, and of course, representing the brand the marketing department. A meeting between all the agents involved is necessary to ignite a branded content project. 9. What kind of information must first be provided to the scriptwriter? Passing on the brand’s history, values, and other relevant information related to the company and its products is essential. Ilenia Provenzi She is a story analyst, translator, and scriptwriter. Provenzi is also a professor of the Script Master at UNICATT.

Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study  127

1. Do brands prefer the narrative genre (animation, adventure, biography, comedy, drama) and the theme when building a story? It depends a lot on which brand I’m with right now. The target audience decides what you tell them. For example, branded content of products for children is unlikely to have drama. The theme also depends on the brand. So, it’s about understanding what the message is; that it’s about telling the viewer. It may depend on how you work in producing a branded content story. Storytelling should empower a specific value and build an identity with a story or work on the brand’s perception that holds on to the past. 2. Do we live in a cultural context sufficiently mature from an audio-visual point of view to allow the viewer to identify the brand as the core and backbone of a story and actively participate in a branded content action? This generation has grown up in a very visual culture, and advertising combines the two characteristics of storytelling and visuals. Young people are perhaps the most mature audience for participation in new forms of storytelling. Concerning participation, the idea of ‘telling a story together’ is widespread, but it is interesting to explore new narrative structures. 3. Do brands today know how to create transmedia contexts where the viewer can gain experience and actively participate in creating content? Yes, absolutely. I don’t see it so much above all in Italy, sincerely. Branded content still needs to be stronger. It reminds me of, for example, an experiment done by Disney, which created a short film with a story around Mickey Mouse’s ears. This film had interactive audience participation and showed the potential of this practice. 4. One of the most critical issues when performing a branded content action is finding exciting content for both the consumer and the brand. Is this mainly a problem of budget, lack of originality or organization in the work teams of the marketing departments, lack of knowledge and mastery of creative writing techniques, or any other element? It is all about creating the right team. Working on a good concept aligned with the company´s goals and hiring professional screenwriters is essential. 5. Could you list three elements that should have a branded content story to get engagement and capture the viewer’s attention? The fundamental element is to find a unique story. It is difficult to find a fantastic story and then tell it differently, memorable and remarkable for that type of brand, a story that captures the public’s attention. Storytelling should be engaging and attractive to the audience. Usually, finding

128  Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study

compelling characters help audiences to feel identified with the story, something that resonates with their circumstances. Compelling brand storytelling not centred on a product achieves the same effect as if the content comes from a film studio. The audience receives a beautiful story; you can get the same effect as if you produce a film or write a book. That is, communicating a vision of life, a message. As a screenwriter, I have to tell real stories, believable stories. I have to look for the audience’s interest. 6. When writing a branded content or branded entertainment audio-visual script, how do you get the brand to be an integral part of the story and not just an integrated product? The brand is at the crossroads of conveying ideas and, at the same time, reaching audiences with exciting content. For example, a company that produces toys for children should understand the childhood world and build a story around it. The screenwriter, director, and talent will add a specific vision concerning the topic. It is interesting to compare the brand´s image and the creative team involved in creating the content, seeking a particular identity. 7. What could be a reference model of branded content at international and national levels in the three different formats of cinema, television, and entertainment for digital platforms? I can think of the short film ‘Come together,’ produced by the fashion apparel brand H&M by director Wes Anderson, whose main character is Adrien Brody. The film takes place on a train during the Christmas period. A snowstorm makes the train’s route difficult. All passengers have a package, a gift from the H&M brand, but the brand presence is not invasive. The machine operator invents a Christmas party on the train and saves Christmas. This short film is very emotional, sending messages as sharing, giving, and being with loved ones. 8. Who are the agents involved in writing a branded content script? The company that commissions the content is the one leading the project. Second, other agents get involved depending on the requirements. Usually, brands count on creative talents such as writers and directors. 9. What kind of information must first be provided to the scriptwriter? The brand needs to communicate what they want to tell and other specifications, such as the tone. In the example mentioned above, ‘Come together,’ perhaps the company is interested in the family audience; therefore, they portray positive values; this is the type of relevant information the screenwriter needs. Another critical piece of data is the budget. The screenwriter needs to know the budget range. Finally, the company should share the brand’s values to inspire the narrative.

Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study  129

Creating Process of Branded Entertainment The Ideation Phase

Nelli (2012) refers to a branded entertainment action’s creativity and production process as an activity in which the brand must be involved from the initial procedure. In the branded entertainment creation processes, other external agents may be interested in its originality and production specialized in branded entertainment, but who develop an intermediary relationship between the brand, as producer of the content, and the broadcasting and dissemination channel of the final content. To the extent that the brand is the one who leads the ideation and creation process, either by the originality of the concept as well as by the investment required to carry it out, it will always have control of the content and will own all distribution rights. This procedure is compatible with working with an agency, production company, or even creating an internal department to execute branded content pieces in the same company. BMW is an example of this practice; the vehicle company created the division BMW Films, creator of the acclaimed series The Hire, considered one of the first success stories of branded content (Del PinoRomero, Castelló-Martínez, and Ramos-Soler 2013, p.28). Lehu (2009), Martí (2010), Nelli (2011), Bonsignore and Sassoon (2014), Martí, RuizMafe, and Scribner (2015), Aguilera and Baños (2016), and Grinta (2017) agree in pointing out The Hire series as an important Branded Entertainment milestone. BMW changed the way of understanding entertainment and advertising forever. In 2001, the car brand set up its own production company. It produced five short films directed by acclaimed artists hailing from the film industry, such as John Frankenhaimer, Ang Lee, Alejandro González Iñárritu, David Fincher, and Guy Ritchie. Hollywood actor Clive Owen would star in all the films. The short films were broadcast over the Internet and on a microwebsite. In 2001, digital audiences were not as mature as today, but the campaign had a huge impact. The results were two million registered users on the web and 11 million views in the first four months. All the short films start on the same premise: a private driver takes unknown clients in his BMW car, which always responds in extreme action situations. In 2002 BMW decided to produce three more short films after the previous success. One of the short films in The Hire 2 series directed by John Woo received the award for best action short film from the Los Angeles International Short Film Festival. This award demonstrates that the short movie offered a natural integration between content and brand and met the quality standards of the film industry (Martí 2010). Before choosing a branded entertainment action, the company must conduct internal work to determine its strategy and whether this type of action is the right choice according to its objectives. In 2015, ADECEC (Association of Public Relations and Communication Consulting Firms) presented a report entitled ‘Storytelling and Branded Content’ with 16 success stories and an approach to strategic creativity applied

130  Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study Table 6.1 Characteristics of Branded Content Characteristic

Description

Purpose driven. Unique.

The content must solve a communication problem. The differential values of the brand are the essence of developing content. The brand must be present without being intrusive. It must provide a value of interest to your target audience. It will be educational, informative, or entertaining content, depending on the brand’s goal. TV programme, movie, theatrical, musical, app, book, live events, among others. Success stories are those that serve as catalysts to generate a community. Content creators should adapt their creative pieces to timely distribution plan. It must show consistency in the consumer’s contact points with the brand. It must respond to a strategy through owned or earned channels. Objectives and key performance indicators must be measured and aligned.

Relevant. Definition tipology. Format definition. Participative. Accessibility. Transmedia. A communication plan goal. Measurable. From ADECEC (2015).

to the branded entertainment technique. Its guide explores characteristics that such content has to offer, which are summarized below as a starting point in the ideation phase of a branded content action.​ The ADECEC report (2015) agrees with Nelli (2012) in including the branded content technique as part of the communication plan where the action should respond to specific objectives in its ideation phase. The branded content action also needs some parameters to measure the campaign’s development; in this sense, measuring effectiveness is essential when planning activity of these characteristics. The brand must establish a brief with sufficient information for the creative team. These specifications are essential to pursue the objectives of these actions; milestones that must be set in the short, medium, and long term (RodríguezRabadán 2019). The following qualitative study presented in this chapter focuses on analyzing the critical elements in developing a branded entertainment action. Experts in the field such as Fumagalli, Perbellini, Sassoon, and Provenzi discuss vital parameters. The Scopen report (2017) highlights that in the sector, the creative agency and brand are the best of allies both in the ideation phase and in the execution process of a branded content action together with the help of the production company. Scopen (2021) highlights a greater maturity of the sector and the involvement of communication departments in creating these pieces of content.

Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study  131

Interestingly, the acclaimed Cannes Lions advertising festival left the branded entertainment category unfilled in 2015. Mark Fortner, the organization’s judge, claimed that the campaigns submitted for that category did not show an integration of the brand or product with the story, nor did they show an association of the brand with the material that came naturally (Grinta 2017). Fortunately, this category currently enjoys numerous proposals that meet the indispensable quality requirements for a branded content and entertainment action (Pereira 2018). In 2017, a Spanish brand, Banco Santander, was awarded in the Cannes Lions Branded Entertainment Grand Prix category for its short film Cuánto by MRM/McCann, achieving a recognized prestige at the international level and aligning brand strategy with creativity. MRM/McCann’s Cuánto campaign for Banco Santander presents a futuristic world between science fiction and thriller genres. The story tells the life of a wealthy woman victim of a materialistic world where selling memories is possible. In this campaign, Banco Santander picks up the zeitgeist latent in today’s society and reflects the place of money in our value system, the addiction to shopping, and the importance of the experiences we each live. Materialism becomes the antagonist of the story, a danger that threatens to steal the protagonist’s happiness, break family harmony and destroy her most beautiful memories. Banco Santander presents a narrative with high production values, a universal theme, and an exciting and original concept capable of connecting with audiences of all cultures and beliefs. Still, most importantly, the agency MRM/McCann knew how to understand the brand’s concerns. In 2017, after the economic crisis, Banco Santander wanted to connect with a young millennial audience and change the negative perception of this generation towards banking into a positive perception. In the end, Banco Santander opened more than 900,000 bank accounts for its target audience. Santander Bank’s message reached the consumer. They wanted to tell them that they were there to help them, to allow them to fulfil their dreams, live experiences, and enjoy life. Millennials got the message through a relevant piece where money is not essential, but the experiences we live in our lives are the actual value (Rodríguez-Rabadán 2019). The starting point of a branded entertainment campaign is the communication department, which is aware of the company’s marketing strategy and general objectives. Second, the advertising agency can accompany the brand in the ideation phase of the campaign and suggest typologies, formats, means of distribution of the campaign, and creative content. In turn, the agency and the brand must establish which measurement factors will be considered in evaluating the action’s development and success in the short, medium, and long term. For Asmussen, Wilder, Williams, Stevenson, Whitehead, and Canter (2016), the main objectives for which a brand opts for a branded content action may be: to build brand image in the medium and long term, to create relationships with individuals at the community level, to connect with new audiences, stimulate interaction, increase credibility and build trust, to change the perception of the brand, to create a more significant cultural presence, and finally, to connect the

Figure 6.1 Dashboard. Rodríguez-Rabadán (2019, p.181). Intellectual-property Registration as Scientific Work M-004182/2014.

132  Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study

Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study  133

needs and interests of audiences with the brand. Currently, BCMA (Branded Content Marketing Association) has validated measurement processes such as those offered by Ipsos MORI in its various offices worldwide. In turn, particular intelligence companies such as DM Squared in England can measure the impact of branded content at the editorial level on digital platforms. At the scientific level, Rodríguez-Rabadán (2019) developed a dashboard for the first time in the industry to evaluate measurement systems based on the marketing goals set by the company.​ Organizations should consider ways to evaluate a branded campaign’s performance before starting it, and it is essential to have several elements aligned. The proposal of the following dashboard aligns the objective of a brand with selecting the key performance indicators that best suit the campaign’s purpose and yield relevant data. For this, several technological tools are available, from consulting firms that offer paid services or the data dashboard of digital platforms that can help track campaigns. We live in a society increasingly focused on data, but the question is how to interpret such data for decision making even during the campaign development. The acronyms B, O, and P stand for ‘Benchmarking,’ ‘Objectives,’ and ‘Performance.’ Brands should have a specific budget for branded content actions. Still, to have a benchmark, it is advisable to carry out pilot tests and pre-test studies, learn about market case studies and obtain reference data under the same parameters and values. At a strategic level, this dashboard summarizes four primary areas of work: brand image, engagement, sales, and leads. The brand can perform a branded content action to impact some of these business areas. For this, the marketing team should carry out previous work in agreement with the business area of the organization to delimit the objectives. To the extent that the appropriate metric values are determined and reference figures are available, the company’s business intelligence team will be able to assess whether the branded content action has a measurable and effective quantitative impact. The following dashboard could be a reference tool to plan branded content from a strategic level and carry out a business intelligence tracking exercise. Rodríguez-Rabadán, Del Pino-Romero, and Fajardo (2022), continue exploring the field of branded content measurement. The originality of this research lies in its very nature. Its contribution is to shed light on a fundamental aspect: the need to measure—and how to do it—the effectiveness of branded content. Tools do exist, but they are still scarce, scattered and not homogeneous. Brands choose to carry out a branded content action as an alternative or complement to traditional advertising because the phenomenon that generates branded content is to achieve the assimilation of the brand by the consumer and become part of their beliefs (Savar 2013) but branded content is not persuasive and does not aim to directly provoke the desire to purchase a product. That is why the more accurate the system for measuring its effectiveness, the more assurance brands can have that branded content as a communication tool is, in fact, a sure value. The measurement systems are, therefore, explored

134  Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study

in greater depth in this study and an attempt is made to find synergies in the existing procedures for measuring branded content that may be useful for the agents involved. The research provides an exhaustive analytical comparison, expressed graphically and textually, to highlight the points in common and the main advances when it comes to adopting good practices. The Branded Entertainment Development Process: An Empirical Approach

Currently, there are examples of branded entertainment in most genres: action and thriller, as we have seen in the case of The Hire for BMW, and romantic comedy in the short films of Estrella Damm. Bonsignore and Sassoon (2014) point out that comedy is a compelling genre because the audience accepts humour and irony well. Other genres applied to branded entertainment include science fiction genres such as Banco Santander’s Beyond Money or horror genres such as the hybrid experience Hotel 626 and Asylum 626 of the Doritos brand, launched from 2007 to 2009. This experience combines a video game and a virtual visit to a ghostly hotel. The snack brand realized that its audience had migrated to the digital environment and decided to go with it. The brand launched its own in-house production company SnackStrong Productions; a media group focused on creating gaming experiences to support marketing in the content launch. This game-changing digital media giant aimed to help Doritos to execute a multifaceted marketing campaign that seamlessly combined cutting-edge digital techniques with blockbuster events. Modelled after a Hollywood studio lot, the campaign’s online venue put consumers in the director’s chair, inviting youth to create their Superbowl ads, vote for new product flavors, and even pitch video game concepts to Xbox Live. Digital Ads (2022) Two of the most successful campaigns were Hotel 626 and Asylum 626, immersive digital interactive experiences in the video game format to captivate young teenagers. Through fear, they connected with their target group with more than four million users in more than 136 countries. The impact on Doritos sales was sensational, where they managed to relaunch the brand to historic levels with branded content without the need to show the product (Digital Ads 2022). In the dramatic genre, the Evan campaign of the Sandy Hook Promise (2016) stands out, content to raise awareness among young people about the danger of guns. Evan is a short film by BBDO New York. The goal of the branded content was to prevent violence before it happens. While Evan is writing love notes to a young woman, a young man plans a shooting in the background. The content seeks to raise public awareness to be alert to possible signs of risky behaviour and prevent worse consequences (The Drum 2022).

Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study  135

In the romance genre, the gripping story of From the Start by Greek chocolate maker Lacta is worth noting (Pereira 2018). As Lions (2022) indicates, ‘From the Start’ is a web series that tells the story of a man who doesn’t believe in love, falling in love with the girl he sees in a dream, which he has every time he eats a piece of Lacta chocolate. Each of the five episodes starts from the beginning, with him meeting her in a majestic place overlooking the sea. The dream lasts as long as the piece of chocolate melting in his mouth, but he soon realizes that he can move the plot forward by cutting to the chase, wanting to spend as much time with her as possible. Before long, he becomes obsessed with her until he becomes convinced that the girl of his dreams exists in the real world and is determined to find her. The campaign began with a TV commercial: a man eats a piece of Lacta chocolate, having flashbacks of how his passionate love story began. The tagline: ‘Every bite of Lacta chocolate is like falling in love, right from the start.’ The TV ad developed into a five-part web series on YouTube and Facebook; it didn’t take long for the audience to realize that what seemed like the past was just a glimpse of the future. The series, shot on the island of Kea and starring Greece’s most famous protagonist, captivated the audience and got everyone talking about the effect of eating Lacta chocolate. Lacta even released a 360 VR video that magically transported viewers and allowed them to experience the dream for themselves. The series became so popular that an Alpha channel in Greece picked it up and aired it as a telefilm on Valentine’s Day, with a 17% audience share. The episodes were watched by two million viewers in a country of five million Internet users and had 250,000 likes and shares. Lacta’s YouTube channel became number one in Greece, with the highest number of uploaded views and the highest number of subscribers in the country, and is the fastest-growing channel during January and February, according to Social Bakers (2017). The buzz around Lacta’s magical flavour also did wonders for its sales, with an unprecedented turnaround from −10% to +4.3% over the previous year. In 2022, Rodríguez-Rabadán, Galán-Fajardo, and Del Pino-Romero (2022) analyzed the effects of branded entertainment fiction on the audience. The study shows a direct relationship between the short films’ entertainment level and the purchase intention of the product (in this case, Estrella Damm beer). The authors developed a questionnaire to analyze viewers’ attitudes towards the story’s entertainment and quality. It contained questions such as ‘I liked the short film I saw,’ ‘the story is plausible,’ ‘the short film gave me something new,’ ‘the subject of the short film captured my interest,’ and ‘the subject of the short film inspired me,’ ‘the short film I saw inspired me,’ ‘while watching the film I felt that I was living the experiences of the characters,’ ‘while watching the film time passed without my noticing,’ ‘I discovered something new about the qualities of Estrella Damm beer.’ From this study, researchers deduced that investing in the writing process and having specialist scriptwriters who know the craft to develop entertainment pieces that meet the

136  Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study

highest quality standards impacts the product’s purchase intention. According to Scopen (2022), 75% of companies in Spain still do not have specialized branded content teams. The interviewees (Parodi; Fumagalli; Perbellini, and Provenzi) relate the ability to create interesting content to production costs. Fumagalli and Perbellini agree on the need to endow the creative writing development phase with larger budgets and to devote special attention to the scripting process. Provenzi and Sassoon add nuances by focusing their attention on the need to think about the audience, find interesting stories, and offer relevant content for the final recipient. Rodríguez-Rabadán (2019) Such arguments coincide with the authors Del Pino-Romero, CastellóMartínez, and Ramos Soler (2013). They place the viewer in the communication axis and argue that the user is no longer an option but an obligation. Brands should focus on the consumer as the central axis of their strategies. The argument, plot, and characters must connect with the alterations a person goes through in real life, Provenzi (2017) and reflect their world and the zeitgeist, the spirit of a time that reflects the latest issues of interest in society (Bonsignore and Sassoon 2014); Pereira 2018). The content must provide an entertainment experience that brings value to the viewer and is relevant so that the audience decides to invest their time in it regardless of a prior interest in the brand (ADECEC 2015). Parodi (2017) highlights the importance of offering a central idea, a message that brings value regardless of the product that is the object of the advertising campaign. Pereira (2018) emphasizes that the heart of all branded entertainment lies in the narrative and the ability to connect emotionally with the viewer. Mastering the writing process is fundamental to amplifying the branded entertainment experience, whether the story is about a cause, a product, a person, or a particular objective. Audiences should resonate with the story, share it, and make it become news. According to the line of thought of Pereira (2018), a juried member of the Cannes Lions advertising festival in the branded entertainment category, the expressive resources in creating a branded entertainment piece are identical to those employed in the Hollywood industry. It has to show a central theme and offer an original universe, an exciting world to discover as a starting point. Added to this complexity is the ability to integrate brand essence and values organically. Bonsignore and Sassoon (2014) reflect on the capacity of branded content to generate emotion. The authors expose the power of the narrative to be a vehicle for emotions; in this way, the brand creates a natural association to a story, influencing the psyche of the human being and acting on our memory and the way we see the world. This theory leads us to argue positively the statement that Pereira (2018) made: branded entertainment uses the resources of the traditional narrative of the entertainment world to express the values of a brand without distorting the essence of the scriptwriting rules but by adopting them.

Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study  137

What exactly creates emotion in a story, why do some have the capacity to affect us and remain in our memory while others are indifferent to us, and in what way can those who create Branded Content stories control all this with a minimum of awareness. Bonsignore and Sassoon (2014, p.29) The team responsible for creating audio-visual branded entertainment content must have a scriptwriter trained in entertainment who masters the expressive resources of the script and knows how to work the dimension of the character and its transformation. The turning points are also essential to creating a script that connects emotionally with the viewer. The content of a branded entertainment script can connect with the viewer on a rational, emotional, and behavioural level so that the viewer decides to spend their free time viewing the content regardless of purchase or interest in the product. The content is not intrusive (Martí and Muñoz 2008). This dynamic between brand, content, and viewer generates a bond, commitment, and engagement, as explained by Bigné, Hayder, and Martí (2014).

Considerations of the Brand as an Integral Part of the Branded Entertainment Story The brand must offer information to the scriptwriter to gather the essence of what will serve as inspiration for the writer and identify with specific values. Something in which the writers Perbellini and Provenzi, and RodríguezRabadán (2019) agree. To unleash creativity, it is also necessary to know in advance the budget to raise the dimension of the story. According to Bonsignore and Sassoon (2014), the writer must know the objectives and essence of the brand information that the brand must provide. Second, the writer begins a creative process typical of the ideation process giving free rein to the imagination and where the brand will serve as inspiration. The latter will manifest itself in the story as a more fully integrated element in the narrative. Del Pino-Romero, Castelló-Martínez, and Ramos-Soler (2013), and Grinta (2017) agree that the right strategy to develop entertainment pieces is to generate a story whose central axis is about the brand values with an active presence in the content. Pereira (2018) highlights the importance of showing the brand as another film component occupying an untransferable place in the story. Finally, for Martí (2010), branded entertainment articulates the narrative around the brand or product where the brand or product is not present in an aggressive or intrusive way. Branded Entertainment Distribution and Audience Engagement

Distributing a branded entertainment audio-visual piece is mainly done through owned and earned media. Any branded content action usually triggers a budget for its broadcast in paid media as a promotional element and attraction to the

138  Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study

distribution platforms. The digital revolution and the development of new technologies allow brands to broadcast their content on their communication channel. These digital channels must prepare actions for audience participation. Asmussen et al. (2016) and Marti and Muñoz (2018) agree about the approach to creating engagement links; the orientation towards the connection with the audience and interaction will facilitate the generation of commitment links towards engagement. Martí (2010) points out, as a characteristic of entertainment in the service of advertising, a vital component of virality as it tries to reach as many viewers as possible. Nelli (2012) provides nuances in planning branded entertainment distribution where the brand must be involved in selecting the optimal platforms for content distribution and the agents dedicated to the media. For Nelli (2012), there are three possible typologies. First, projects based on a platform that offers a live experience; second, projects with a narrative structure distributed on traditional audio-visual media and digital media; and third, properly digital identity projects specially designed for social networks. Grinta (2017) points out the need to plan branded entertainment advertising campaigns from the multi-channel and multi-experientiality in the new paradigm of communication. Nowadays, it is not only necessary to have a global vision of the complexity of the content distribution scenario but also the transmedia expansion potential of each narrative. According to Rodríguez-Rabadán (2019), Perbellini, Parodi, Fumagalli, and Sassoon believe that brands do not take advantage of the transmedia content possibilities. This type of narrative is still in the initiation phase. However, international references have started to blossom, like the Disney brand, an organization Martí (2010) also identifies as a pioneer in branded content. This barrier may find a reason in the coexistence of two generations: on the one hand, a digitally native audience is open to participation, and another is passive and accustomed to traditional media, as Fumagalli (2017) differentiates. Jenkins (2006), Martí (2010), and Scolari (2013) analyze a new culture of media convergence where viewers experience content on various platforms and in transmedia universes connected through multiple media. Branded content can use in addition to video, and all present media: text, photos, audio, post, blogs, and film productions, among others, assures Bonsignore and Sassoon (2014). The essential thing in this sense is to use each communication channel appropriately to avoid distorting the message that the brand wants to convey from a transmedia perspective. In this new paradigm of communications, the brand can find a vehicle of expression through the possibilities of branded entertainment. According to Asmussen et al. (2016), viewers may feel interested in branded content because it can connect with their interests, demonstrates high production quality, is non-intrusive, and provides exciting narratives.

Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study  139 Branded Content Smart Canvas Toolkit: a Methodology

Based on the literature review and professional experience, the following pages offer a strategic and creative work tool for developing branded content action. This methodology brings together the theoretical contributions mentioned above. It also considers practical guides such as the proposed branded content guide for media planners by IAB Canada (2019). The following dashboard includes authors with a relevant focus on content marketing and storytelling; this proposal continues a line of work by scholars such as Matthews and Wacker (2008), Pulizzi (2014), Gray (2016), and Walter and Gioglio (2018). The following canvas comprises of four work templates with a specific itinerary to cover the most relevant aspects to delimit the goals to achieve with a branded content action. The methodology accompanies all the agents involved in the development and decision process at a strategic level. Second, it offers resources to identify which creativities can resonate more with the brand’s style. Third, it provides branded content formats and typologies that may be of interest. The template summarizes the primary creative resources when writing storytelling for a branded entertainment format and working templates to build editorial branded content.​ Strategic Phase

Before starting a branded content expert’s work, the organization should draft a briefing based on the goals of the overall communication plan. According to the ANA (Association of National Advertisers), the agency briefing is a written document in which the advertiser provides a comprehensive and coherent picture of the brand’s marketing situation and defines the agency’s competencies. The ultimate purpose of the briefing is to ensure that both the client and the agency arrive at the exact definition of the problem, the objectives pursued, and how the set goal is to succeed in finding satisfactory solutions without wasting time. Usually, the brand includes aspects such as: the internal and external situation of the company, description of the brand or product, strengths and weaknesses, list what competitive advantages the brand offers, knowing what its positioning compared to the competition, identifying the target audience and offering a budget and timing. Once the branded content expert has this information, the branded content team can start working on template number one of the Branded Content Smart Canvas Toolkit to identify the most appropriate approach at a strategic level. First, it is advisable to include the client’s information and a working title for the project, even at an internal level. This advice will make identifying the various creative and derivative proposals easier. This title does not have to be definitive or known to the public, but it is useful internally. Point one contains the ‘target audience’ section. This segment provides the opportunity to show a reference to our target audience. At all times, the content must speak to an audience. The consumer is no longer a simple customer

Figure 6.2 Branded Content Smart Canvas Toolkit: Strategy.

140  Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study

Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study  141

but a viewer who likes to participate and feel treated with respect. That is why it is essential to answer questions such as: who are you, where do you come from, what do you do, and what are your interests? Point 2 is a space dedicated to answering the problems faced by the audience. It is essential to clarify that it does not refer to the company’s challenges as a business, brand obstacles, or other business challenges. Point 2 gathers in detail the concerns of your receiver, your audience: • • • •

what makes your viewer happy? what are they thinking about during the day? what are they afraid of? what do they aspire to on a personal, social, and professional level?

To the extent that we know what matters and worries our viewers, we can generate relevant content that captures their interest. This canvas takes the approach of decentralizing the brand’s communication axis and putting the viewer at the centre of the communication. Point 3 refers to the purpose. Currently, content communication that reflects the sense of the organization achieves a much greater echo and a much more profound impact. This section should reflect the deep ideals that make the organization want to be part of society. For example, Apple states as its purpose empowering the creative exploration of self-expression (Rowland 2020). Identifying the drive needs to be clear from other related concepts, such as the company’s vision and mission. The purpose responds to the reason for existence, making an organization strive for something beyond achieving an economic benefit. Vision aims to identify where you want to go in the coming years and what is the path to the near future. In this sense, Apple Inc., in its corporate vision, shares the idea of wanting to make the best products on earth and leave the world a little better than we found it. Finally, the mission refers to companies’ specific actions to reach the goal set. The BC Smart Canvas TM method assumes that part of this information is provided by the brand, especially that which requires a deep knowledge of the product and organization, such as the information related to the purpose. In this sense, for those organizations or mixed work teams responsible for branded content are part of the internal marketing team, they can use handy work tools to analyze some points such as the purpose. The methodology proposed by BCMA Spain (2022) is worth mentioning to find the meaning of branded content: The purpose is the reason for being of a company. It is the soul of an organization. It is what makes a brand relevant and necessary. The purpose should not be confused with objectives or goals that are only necessary to achieve the purpose.’ BCMA (2022)

142  Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study

The PRISMA Method (2022) highlights several phases in this search for purpose: identify the brand’s essence, and analyze the context. Third, assess the branded content project to know if it communicates the sense while maintaining the brand values. The Prisma Method generates a unique visual representation for each step with all the information. The method offers an interactive interface where the platform launches a questionnaire to know the DNA of the brand and identify with a relevant purpose in detail. The fourth point refers to the content solutions for the audience’s problems. For example, if the target group of Converse sneakers consumers are looking to feel part of a community, the iconic urban style brand solves that concern. Converse offers a live music space in digital format where these young people can connect, feel identified with a way of life, share musical tastes and socialize. Converse followed this approach by creating music branded content in live event format, audio, social networks, and video platform. Converse’s Rubber Tracks is a community-based professional recording studio in Brooklyn, New York. Emerging musicians of all genres can apply for free studio time. If selected, artists record at no cost and retain the rights to their music. In addition to the Brooklyn studio, they collaborate with local recording studios in San Francisco, Boston, Toronto, and Los Angeles to offer free recording time to local musicians (Converse 2022). This point is not about what problems the brand might face but how your content proposition is called upon to solve an unmet need of your target group. According to Pereira (2018), advertising has been moving towards emotional, inspirational, and change-generating messages about current issues. These problems concern contemporary society such as equality and diversity (Procter and Gamble), sustainability and care for the environment (Apple), the consumption of ecological products (Chipotle), authentic beauty (Dove), and the place of women in society and sports (Nike). Currently, many brands seek to collaborate in the construction of a more humane community where advertisers associate their image with inspiring, responsible messages and ideas that are more conscious of the concerns of society. In this sense, we agree with Pereira (2018) in identifying branded content as a communication tool with the necessary elements to transform its message and go beyond the brand itself to be part of a culture and obtain a significant impact in the medium and long term with consumers. Rodríguez-Rabadán (2021, p.34) The fifth point focuses on the values that brands can embrace. Ideas, emotions and inspirations such as freedom, sustainability, diversity, passion, making a better future, dreams, impact, innovation, discovery, security, passion or trust are some brand core values that might reflect the essence of the organization. The sixth point aims to analyze the type of branded content that can best adapt to the line of communication of the product or brand, whether it is

Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study  143

informative, educational, entertaining, or inspired by purpose-driven branded content. For instance, The Furrow magazine is an example of informative content, a magazine on the subject of the organization’s sector. The Furrow is considered one of the first branded content. The educational content could be a recipe book for a brand in the food sector, such as the recipes per tweet of the chicken broth tablet brand Gallina Blanca. When it comes to entertainment content, it could be a short fiction film or a video game like the one launched by the U.S. Navy to achieve interest and engagement among Americans. Utility branded content could have entertainment or educational components, not a sole factor. An example was the Lebanese newspaper An Nahar’s campaign ‘The Blank Edition.’ This Lebanese newspaper launched a blank edition to raise awareness of the need to write a new story. The journal invited the population to write a new history. Thus, the newspaper connected with its purpose of not serving a political party or a specific ideology but promoting freedom and shouting to the world about the need for change. The seventh aspect of the BC Smart Canvas focuses on selecting the possible formats in which brands could distribute their content, either in owned, earned, or paid media. BCMA Spain (2022) launched the FOCO platform, an acronym for content formats in Spanish. The purpose of this space is to clarify the different possible arrangements when developing branded content. BCMA groups content formats by nature, considering editorial, audio-visual, sound, experiential, or interactive digital. By channel, the classification could be print (books, magazines), digital (fiction or non-fiction digital publications), cinema, television (fiction, non-fiction, live), SVOD, VOD, radio, podcast (fiction, non-fiction, corporate, audio-books), songs and records, voice assistants, physical experience (shows, contests, games), digital experience, social networks, interactive web, video games, mobile, and other devices. Each of these channels enables different kinds of content, as summarized in the examples mentioned in parentheses. The eighth point focuses on analyzing in more detail aspects of the Benchmark. Who do you admire, and what do you like about other companies and content campaigns that have worked? This exercise requires an effort to keep up to date with current events and to know why specific campaigns have been successful and can connect with the audience. From the study and analysis, you will be able to find good ideas and inspiration, know how to adapt to changes, provoke, and finally find a unique voice that reflects the brand’s spirit in a personal and authentic way. The ninth aspect refers to the editorial calendar. In this aspect, the commitment to content creation must be sized according to the distribution strategy of the branded content, whether it is own media or mainly paid media. The main focus here is when it will be published, who will publish it, and where it will be published?

144  Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study

The tenth point defines the main objectives of branded content. For some brands, it will be exposure to the brand, greater attention, and interest, better understanding and memory of some distinctive aspects of the product, improved favourable predisposition, awareness, positioning, achieve behavioural changes. According to IAB (2019), some of the best application of branded content helps achieve the following aspects: 1. Awareness. Help drive awareness and draw new audiences and potential new customers to your brand. For instance, a bank could discuss the importance of saving instead of opening a checking account today. 2. Build an emotional connection. Storytelling could respond to elicit behavioural change or provoke an emotive response between brand and audience. An automotive brand could create a story about the car being passed down from father to son to elicit feelings of nostalgia. 3. Attention. Grab and maintain the target audience’s attention by using long-form content that interests viewers. A brand can create a web or video series with its storytelling and cliffhangers, hooking viewers weekly. 4. Influence positioning the brand as a thought leader (or partnering with publishers that are subject matter experts) by educating the audience about a specific subject matter relevant to the brand. A food and beverage brand could use influencers who share their favourite recipes using the brand’s products while giving the intended audience tips. 5. Performance. Driving leads by reaching consumers at all stages in the purchase funnel. It is not exclusively a long-tail tactic. An example could be an article about deforestation that could drive readers to an eco-friendly product site. The last aspect in the strategic section focuses on a programme to measure the campaign’s effectiveness. Finally, depending on the type of campaign, the format, and the platform, there are specific KPIs to monitor the performance. Some of these are: reach (unique visits, geography), engagement (bounce rate, click patterns, page views, time on page, links to your published content, organic ranking positions, subscribers, leads), or sentiment (comments, social sharing). Tools to measure effectiveness exist but are still scarce, scattered, and not homogeneous. In 2018, the BCMA presented a methodology for evaluating the effectiveness of branded content called Branded Content Suite. It is a proposal developed by the consulting firm Ipsos based on the analysis of KPIs that allows the construction of benchmarks and that tries to cover the measurement of the effectiveness of branded content. However, despite the tool’s relevance, methodologies for the in-depth analysis of branded content are still scarce. The research provides an exhaustive analytical comparison, expressed graphically and textually, to highlight—as mentioned above—the points in common and the main advances when it comes to adopting good practices. We end the description of the approach of this research by mentioning some of the

Figure 6.3 Branded Content Canvas. Creativity Phase.

Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study  145

146  Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study

metrics used to determine the effectiveness of branded content: from Content Mirror to BEAM TM (Branded Entertainment Assessment Model Trademark), launched by the Ogilvy agency in 2012, through the Realeyes technology, an emotion measurement system established by the BE ON agency specialized in branded content, and stopping at the aforementioned Branded Content Suite paid measurement tool of the BCMA and Ipsos MORI (2018). In short, the evaluation of branded content effectiveness and measuring results must examine the action from start to finish. This task includes knowing the marketing goals, budgeting, comparisons with sectorial reference data, the agency’s previous work, the advertising strategy to be followed, key concept messages, distribution planning, and the media strategy with meticulous accuracy in the monitoring of data on the development of the campaign. Creative Phase

Branded Content Smart Canvas® presents a second template focused on creativity. These questions can help scriptwriters, marketing managers, art directors, creatives, producers, and all those involved in creating branded content to develop a brainstorming session.​ Here are a couple of examples of how these creative boxes can resonate with brands and become the inspiration to start a branded content campaign. What are the origins of my company? This question could be very simple and even straightforward. Under this premise, Honda has built a creative concept entitled  Power of Dreams. The vehicle brand has created numerous branded entertainment documentaries to present inspiring stories about dreamers and the story of its founder, among others. Honda’s website focuses on the founder and his vision, acknowledging the origins as the communication pillar. Honda celebrates the ‘history’ of Honda, the dream of its founder. Based on its roots, the brand has launched several branded content campaigns, all centred on the same idea: comics, infographics, contests, social media-driven campaigns that generate engaging content and participation, and documentaries about the power of dreams…. Honda’s website shares great examples of specific ways to develop ideas centred on this theme: ‘the origins of my company.’ Soichiro Honda, always dreamed of the future, usually while he was creating it. The dream began when Soichiro first saw a car. He dedicated the rest of his life to making it a reality. Regarding the question, is there a powerful image that comes to mind? The engineer Tom Dickson took the risk to present a blender machine from a different angle. BlendTec company created a YouTube channel and uploaded a series of videos: ‘Will It Blend?.’ It was a wonderfully successful experiment; the videos have been a powerful (and fun) awareness driver for the brand since 2006. The CEO and lead engineer, blended devices such as iPhones, iPads, golf balls, and all sorts of crazy stuff in his blender. Under the slogan ‘Will It Blend?’, he got the attention of a wide audience. It went viral,

Figure 6.4 Branded Entertainment Fiction Canvas.

Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study  147

Figure 6.5 Branded Content Editorial Canvas.

148  Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study

Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study  149

and he was invited to different TV shows. Will It Blend? had a huge impact on sales. His YouTube channel has almost 300 million views. Branded Entertainment Audio-visual Fiction

Organizations, advertising agencies, and creative teams can work on branded entertainment fiction as long as they have a defined strategy. The creative process described above can serve as a launching pad for ideas, inspiration for elaborate visual concepts, and catalyst for the next phase. Once the team decides to develop a branded entertainment fiction, screenwriters should work on the architecture of the story. For this purpose, this canvas presents the main elements that a fiction audio-visual script must offer. The features described here summarize the primary expressive resources of the screenwriting developed in more detail in the corresponding chapter. This guide serves as a worksheet to synthesize the main points to consider.​​ Editorial branded content plays an essential role in adapting brand messages in the world of journalism. This worksheet offers a tool to identify the essence of a news item, know the main parts to work on, and how to present an article professionally. Delivering news either in own, paid, or earned media should not alter the structure and style of the writing. The editorial branded content is that which informs or teaches something that the audience does not know and whose form and language are very similar to conventional journalism. Its objective is to provide information that the consumer receives as useful and relevant, adding value to the brand. Toledano, Selva, and Díaz-Masa (2021, p.43) These pages go through some tools and ideas to try to boost the success of a branded content action. In accordance with Nelli (2012), the main factors that can determine the success of editorial branded content rely on the quality of the content, consistency with the editorial tone, continuity in the distribution platforms, integration between the content and its dissemination, promotion of the content and stimulation of user behaviour.

Bibliography ADECEC. (2015). Retrieved from https://bit​.ly​/3IynSWD Aguilera J.y. , & Baños, M. (2016). Branded Entertainment. Cuando el Branded Content se convierte en entretenimiento. [Branded Entertainment: When Branded Content becomes entertainment]. Pozuelo de Alarcón: ESIC. Aguilera, J., Baños, M., & Ramírez-Perdiguero, J. (2015a). Branded entertainment: Entertainment content as marketing communication tool. A study of its current situation in Spain. Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 70, 519–538. Recuperado el 1 de junio de 2019 de http://bit​.do​/e8cCt.

150  Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study Arantzamendi, M., López- Dicastillo, O, Vivar, C., (2012). Investigación cualitativa. Manual para principiantes. [Qualitative Research. Manual for beginners]. Pamplona: Ediciones Eunate. Asmussen, B., Wider, S., Williams, R., Stevenson, N., Whitehead, E., & Canter, A. (2016). Defining branded content for the digital age. The industry experts’ views on branded content as a new marketing communications concept. A collaborative research project commissioned by the BCMA and conducted by Oxford Brookes University and Ipsos MORI. [Definiendo el branded content en la era digital. La visión de los expertos de la industria sobre branded content como un nuevo concepto de las comunicaciones de marketing. Un proyecto en colaboración bajo la comisión de BCMA y dirigido por Oxford Brookes University y Ipsos Mori]. Londres: Ipsos Mori. Recuperado el 5 de junio de 2016 de http://bit​.do​/e8cCL. Bigné, E., Hyder, A., & Martí, J. (2014). Brand engagement. [Involucración de la marca]. In L. Moutinho, E. Bigné, & A. Manrai (Eds.), The Routledge companion to the future of marketing. [El futuro del marketing por the Routledge companion]. (pp. 250–268). New York: Routledge. BCMA. (2022). Retrieved from www​.prisma​.bcma​.es. Bonsignore, P., & Sassoon, J. (2014). La nuova frontiera della comunicazione d´impresa. [la nueva frontera de la comunicación de empresa]. Milán: FrancoAngeli. Converse. (2022). https://www​.converse​.com​/experiences​/rubbertracks/. Del Pino-Romero, C., Castelló-Martínez, A., & Ramos-Soler, I. (2013). La comunicación en cambio constante: Branded content, community management, comunicación 2.0, Estrategia en Medios Sociales. Madrid: Editorial Fragua. Digital Ads. (2022). Doritos case study. Recuperado de https://bit​.ly​/3Rz6cxX. Fumagalli, A. (2017). Personal interview. Gray, K. (2016). The story engine: An entrepreneur’s guide to content strategy and brand storytelling without spending all day writing. Gray. Grinta, E. (2017). Branded entertainment. La rivoluziones del settore marcom inizia da qui. [Branded Entertainment. La revolución del sector de las comunicaciones de marketing empieza aquí]. Milán: FrancoAngeli. IAB. (2019). Branded content guide. A guide for media planners and buyers. Recuperado el 27 de febrero de 2022 de https://bit​.ly​/3z8HNIp. Interactive. (2022). Jueves, 20 enero 2022. El Branded Content quintuplicará su valor en los próximos 3 años. Retrieved from https://bit​.ly​/3PvtQtn. Jenkins, H. (2006). La cultura de la convergencia de los medios de comunicación. [Convergence Culture]. (Hermida, P., trad) Barcelona: Paidos. Lehu Jr., J. M. (2009). Branded entertainment. [Branded entertainment]. (2nd ed.). Londres, Reino Unido: Kogan Page Limited. Lions (2022). Retrieved from https://bit​.ly​/3Ptoxun. Martí, J. (2010). Funny marketing: Consumidores, entretenimiento y comunicaciones de marketing en la era del branded entertainment. Madrid: Wolters Kluwer. Martí, J., & Muñoz, P. (2008). Engagement Marketing. Una nueva publicidad para un marketing de compromiso. Prentice Hall. Financial Times. Madrid: Pearson Educación. Martí, J., Ruiz-Mafe, C., & Scribner, L. (2015). Engaging consumers through branded entertainment and convergent media. [Atrayendo a los consumidores a través del Branded Entertainment y los Medios en la Convergencia]. Hershey, PA: IGI Global. Matthews, R., & Wacker, W. (2008). What’s your story? Storytelling to move markets, audiences, people and brands. New Jersey: FT Press. Nelli, R. (2011). L´evoluzione delle strategie di branded entertainment [The evolution of branded entertainment strategies]. Milan: Vita e Pensiero.

Branded Content Creating Process, an Empirical Study  151 Nelli, R. (2012). Branded content marketing. Un nuovo approccio alla creazione di valore. [Branded Content Marketing. Una nueva aproximación a la creación de valor]. Milan: Vita e Pensiero. Parodi, H. (2017). Personal interview. Pereira, J. (2018). The art of branded entertainment. [El arte del Branded Entertainment]. Londres: Peter Owen. Provenzi, M. (2017). Personal interview. Pulizzi, J. (2014). Epic content marketing: How to tell a different story, break through the clutter, and win more customers by marketing less. New York: McGraw Hill. Rodríguez-Rabadán, M. (2019). Teoría y práctica del branded entertainment. Exploración de sus orígenes, recursos creativos, eficacia y efectos en el consumidor. (Tesis doctoral, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid). https://bit​.ly​/3s5X9dN. Rodríguez-Rabadán, M. (2021). El papel de la técnica publicitaria branded content para generar nuevos vínculos de compromiso entre marca y sociedad. The role of branded content as an advertising technique to generate new engagement between brand and society. Questiones Publicitarias, 27, 31–37. https://doi​.org​/10​.5565​/rev​/qp​.350. Rodríguez-Rabadán, M., Galán Fajardo, H., & del Pino-Romero, C. (2022). Mediterráneamente. Estudio de eficacia cuantitativa del branded content en las películas publicitarias de Estrella Damm. Revista Mediterránea de Comunicación/Mediterranean Journal of Communication, 13(1), 165–184. https://www​.doi​.org​/10​.14198​/MEDCOM​.20590 Rodríguez-Rabadán, M., del Pino-Romero, C., & Galán Fajardo, H. (2022). Identification of tools for measuring branded content: A proposal for evaluating its effectiveness. In Examining the future of advertising and brands in the new entertainment landscape. New York: IGI Global. https://www​.doi​.org​/10​.4018​/978​-1​-6684​-3971​-5. Rowland, C. (2020, September 23). Apple Inc.’s mission statement and vision statement (an analysis). Panmore Institute. https://bit​.ly​/3Of1vX3. Savar, A. (2013). Content to commerce. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons. Scolari, C. (2013). Narrativas Transmedia. Cuando todos los medios hablan. [Transmedia Narratives. When all media speak]. Barcelona: Centro Libros. Scopen. (2017). III Edición Content Scope España 2017. Madrid. Scopen. (2021). Content Scope for BCMA. VI Edición España 2021. https://bit​.ly​/3pAD3q7. Scopen. (2022). VII Edición Content Scope España 2022. Madrid. Retrieved from https:// bit​.ly​/3IQHGVJ Social Bakers. (2017). Recuperado de. https://www​.socialbakers​.com​/resources​/reports​/ greece​/2017​/january/. Toledano, F., Selva, D., & Díaz-Masa, J. (2021). La transformación digitla de la comunicación: Nuevas fórmulas de creación, producción y distribución de contenidos de marca. In P. Olivares-Santamarina & R. Gago Delgado (Eds.), El Branded Content en la comunicación posdigital: Estructuras, aplicaciones y casos de éxito (p. 43). Valencia: Tirant Humanidades. The Drum. (2022). Evan case study. Retrieved from https://bit​.ly​/3O9gj9R Vogler, C. (2002). El viaje del escritor: Las estructuras míticas para escritores, guionistas, dramaturgos y novelistas. (The writer’s journey: Mythic structure for writers). (Conde, J., trad). Barcelona: Robinbook. (1998). Vogler, C. (2007). The writer’s journey: Mythic structure for writers (3rd ed.). Studio City, CA: Michael Wiese Productions. Walter, E., & Gioglio, J. (2018). The laws of brand storytelling: Win and keep your customer’s hearts + minds. New York: McGraw Hill Education.

7

Professionals Involved in the Design, Writing, and Production Process of Branded Entertainment

The Training of the Branded Content Expert Currently, digital job portals and professional social networks such as LinkedIn offer jobs for branded content specialists, content marketing managers, transmedia experts, inbound marketing managers, and social media managers. These are positions in which workers must perform functions related to the specialty of branded content. On the other hand, universities in marketing, business, and communication and business schools in business management and digital marketing have incorporated subjects and specialties in branded content into their programmes. The labour demand requires profiles prepared in these areas. In Spain, the Branded Content Forum is held annually at the Callao City Lights cinemas in Madrid, an annual meeting with the most relevant agencies and professionals in the world of communication and advertising to share best practices, trends, case studies, opportunities, and current affairs. Motilla, Bellón, and Arjona (2022) bring together the most relevant presentations to highlight that branded content continues to grow exponentially. María Rodríguez-Rabadán, advertising creative at RB Brandfilms and executive director of the Official Master’s Degree in Transmedia Communication at UNIR, presented the impact of this official, international training programme, which qualifies for doctoral programmes at the 5th Branded Content & esports Forum. The students are the new generation. More than 247 professional experts in branded content have already graduated, and we have an annual forecast of opening 300 places per year. Unlike other masters, this discipline is taking root, and UNIR promotes it. This shows that interest in branded content is growing, said the executive director of UNIR’s Master’s Degree. Motilla, Bellón, and Arjona (2022, p.24) The Master’s Degree in Transmedia Communication at UNIR is part of the innovation project of the Faculty of Business and Communication to offer training for the most recent and cutting-edge professions, being pioneers in this field.​ DOI: 10.4324/9781003310686-8

Professionals Involved in Design,Writing, and Production Process  153

Figure 7.1 Speakers at the V Branded Content Forum. From Right to Left, María Rodríguez-Rabadán (UNIR and RB Brandfilms), Fedra Valderrey (BlueMedia Studio), Lorena Garrido (BTOB Livebrands), Laura Ramos (Arena Media), Silvia Fernández (SunMedia), and Abel Delgado (Havas Media Group).

Content is becoming increasingly important in any organization. The field of multimedia content creation offers job opportunities in the audio-visual sector, where jobs related to digital and multiplatform development will increasingly stand out. The companies offering positions in strategy, creation, and management of online content, Digital Marketing Management, transmedia production, branded content creation, and social media might find great profiles in branded content students qualified in these skills. New consumer habits, digitalization, and new business models demand content creation, management, and analysis specialists in multiplatform digital environments. The infinite possibilities offered by existing Internet platforms make it possible to develop transmedia narratives capable of connecting with audiences in different media. UNIR’’s master’s degree is official, and endorsed by Aneca, the Spanish educational quality body, following European regulations. The faculty consists of professionals and academics, achieving an optimal balance between science and practice. The programme has many lecturers with Ph.D’s accredited and endorsed by Aneca and leading specialists in their field. It also offers contact

154  Professionals Involved in Design,Writing, and Production Process

with the day-to-day reality of organizations with industry professionals who contribute their experience in constant updating. The programme offers an excellent differential value in the commitment to content strategy, creation, and management. This itinerary focuses on offering training in these main subjects: Editing and Management of Multimedia Content in Multiplatform Environments. In this subject, different content specialized in Storytelling, Branded Content, Multimedia Creation, Transmedia Projects, Image Treatment, and Social Media, among others, are taught. The block dedicated to Analytics, Marketing, and Digital Project Management offers a cross-cutting knowledge of business and marketing to understand the behaviour of audiences, the design of a digital marketing plan, the measurement of objectives, and multimedia business models. In addition, the master’s degree has guaranteed internships and the completion of a final project focused on creating a multimedia project. Leading industry professionals participate in offering workshops in Branded Content and Transmedia Project Creation. Thus, students acquire training through the itinerary also proposed by Perlado and Barbosa (2021) with knowledge such as consumer behaviour and purchasing, knowledge of the media ecosystem, review of case studies and best practices in branded content, the usability of social networks, content marketing, and influencer marketing, development of creativity, writing, storytelling, and transmedia narratives. Handling tools such as photo editing packages (Adobe Creative), WordPress, and other content management programmes. Web analytics, SEO, SEM, and measurement of the effectiveness of branded content with quantitative and qualitative control of behaviour in owned, earned, shared, and paid media. Students enrolled in this degree are senior working professionals who are looking to stand out and specialize in order to give a boost to their professional careers. They come mainly from areas related to Information Sciences, i.e., graduates in Journalism, Advertising and Public Relations, Marketing, Business Administration and Management, Communication or Audiovisual Communication, or degrees that can be considered equivalent. The quality of the content, the 100% online learning dynamic, and UNIR’s commitment to excellence make this master’s degree an international benchmark for all those who want to master the creation and management of multimedia content, Branded Content and Transmedia, a specialty with an excellent future projection (Rodríguez-Rabadán 2021). Perlado and Barbosa (2021) examine the functions these employees perform, the training they need to master to undertake such work, and the competencies and skills that the professional must have. It is a refreshing attitude to undertake this profession. ‘Branded content specialists must create attractive content to the user and align with the company’s brand strategy’ Perlado and Barbosa (2021, p.194). Among the tasks, they highlight the following:

Professionals Involved in Design,Writing, and Production Process  155

design and develop branded content strategies identifying a brand’s goals and align them within the ideation and development process of the branded content campaign creativity to propose informative, educational, or entertaining content undertaking the brand values production, distribution, and promotion knowledge to execute branded content campaigns teamwork with transversal teams in executing this type of campaign. Mastering digital environments to boost engagement among audiences, build communities, and know how to measure the results of the behaviour of campaigns in online media. Official training programmes seek to train students in general and specific competencies. According to ANECA (2005), a set of cognitive, psychological, sensory, and motor skills that allow them to adequately carry out a professional role, performance, activities, and tasks. To adequately develop the professional work of a branded content specialist, the professional must possess the following competencies: Have analytical and interpretative skills and communication skills, which could result in the ability to transmit information, ideas, problems, and solutions to both specialized and non-specialized audiences. Ability to develop and defend arguments. Potential for autonomous learning. Development of learning skills to undertake further study autonomously. Ethics, development of an ethical commitment as a professional. Professionalism: the ability to apply knowledge to their work professionally. Problem-solving and decision-making skills. Specific competencies: the individual adaptation to organizational objectives and orientation to results. Ability to adapt to change. Flexibility. Capacity for analysis, synthesis, and critical judgment, primarily focused on communication and marketing. Capacity for creativity and innovation, understanding creativity as the mental ability to imagine and conceptualize original and unique ideas, and innovation as the process where organizations incorporate new ideas. Persuasiveness. Ability to assume risk in communication projects and, in particular, in branded content actions. Ability to work in a team. Communication skills, both oral and written, specifically, among other things, in presenting a branded content project and relating effectively with other agents. Mastery of information and communication technologies at a user level and the service of branded content projects. Ability to identify, value, manage and protect the company’s assets and intangibles, add value to products and services, and reinforce its reputation. Ability to organize and time tasks. Ability to coordinate and plan the management of branded content projects. Leadership in communication projects. Strategic thinking, balancing innovation with commercial objectives. Perlado and Barbosa (2021, p.198)

156  Professionals Involved in Design,Writing, and Production Process

The Working Phases of Branded Content The BCMA association and Scopen, a consultancy specializing in communication, carry out a biannual report on branded content at an industrial level in Spain. The study reveals that the agents involved in branded content campaigns are mainly four agents involved in the process: creative agencies such as McCann, media agencies such as Arena Media, communication agencies (LLYC), independent branded content specialists (such as RB Brandfilms), brands/advertisers such as BBVA in the banking sector, media such as the Prisa group, and production companies such as El Cañonazo, El Terrat or Be a Lion, among others. According to Scopen (2022), the professional profiles most involved in decision making when creating a branded content campaign are the marketing and advertising director in the first place, the brand/product manager in second place, followed by the social media director and content director. Other profiles are involved, such as the digital director, communication director, media director, general manager, corporate social responsibility, and human resources. ‘Creative agencies are the agents involved in fewer phases, while media agencies and branded content specialists are involved in more phases’ (Scopen 2022). The agents involved in creating a branded content action can play a greater or lesser role depending on the moment in the branded content creation chain and its characteristics. In this sense, each project can give rise to a fusion of different multidisciplinary teams depending on the complexity and characteristics of the project itself. This chapter takes into account common considerations from the study of authors such as Valero (2015), Daly (2018), Dzamic and Kirby (2018), Motilla, Bellón, and Arjona (2022), BCMA (2022), and Scopen (2022). Based on their considerations, the following phases in the execution and development of branded content are: • • • • •

Creation. Where the creative approach and ideation of actions is determined. Production. Where the execution of actions takes place. Distribution. In this phase, the channels and platforms on which actions are seen are determined. Promotion. In this phase, communication actions are carried out on channels and platforms to amplify and publicize the actions. Measurement.

These lines align with the latest strategic proposal by BCMA (2022) and Llaneza (2022) in their practical guide for developing a content strategy. The methodology presented in Chapter 6 of this volume, Branded Content Canvas Toolkit, is more oriented towards creativity and generating entertainment or editorial branded content. On the other hand, the BCMA guide stands out for its entire strategic approach, ‘especially in a context where branded content is affected by over-information and where it is necessary to be relevant and effective’ (La Publicidad 2022). The Branded Content Strategy Committee, made

Figure 7.2 Branded Content Creation Process and Players Involved in the Execution. Own elaboration.

Professionals Involved in Design,Writing, and Production Process  157

158  Professionals Involved in Design,Writing, and Production Process

up of more than 20 industry professionals, have made a considerable effort and reached a consensus on a practical guide based on their experience for the construction of a content proposal from the point of view of the strategic planner, the creative, the marketing director or the data expert from start to finish. This roadmap serves industry professionals in the realization of the entire process chain. After bringing together professionals from the communication and media industry (Llaneza 2022).​ More than 20 professionals from the advertising industry have worked together to create this strategic roadmap. That makes this document very valuable. First of all, they understand branded content as a communication asset, and under this concept, various formats are available to deliver the message. It is a paradigm shift in advertising, why brands are now betting on branded content, and the loss of interest in intrusive advertising. The digital era has impacted the way to reach audiences; nowadays, only brands that broadcast relevant and credibility-based content can reach the consumer. Only brands that legitimately communicate their values can reliably connect with their audiences. Consumers are more demanding when paying attention to brands and will only pay attention to brands that provide value. Branded content is only an effective response in this context if it is responsible and coherent. To this end, this guide presents a working methodology divided into several phases, which are detailed below. The Strategic Process

First, the strategic process, a phase that involves the planner working in an advertising agency and the marketing department, brand managers, and executive directors of an organization in charge of projecting a brand in the market. This phase deals with the brand analysis and the definition of objectives. The role of the brand in a content project is also an essential part of the guide. It is not just a matter of having a good idea that the brand wraps up with its seal and investment, but rather a co-creation process where the brand’s purpose and personality must be present from the beginning of the project—(La Publicidad 2022). Direct competition must be analyzed (all those brands that compete in the same market niche on a commercial level) from a product, market, and communication level. The brand also competes with content and entertainment producers; therefore, the brand must know the content of streaming platforms, the web, influencers, and all the platforms to which consumers have access. Finally, the brand also competes with other sources of content. In this section, there is also the need to know the consumers’ profiles in depth: what they are interested in, who they are at a socio-demographic level, what ideas the customers adhere to, likes, and what they want (Llaneza 2022). From there, the brand’s objectives and viability have to be defined. It is interesting to know what the brand has done: previous branded content campaigns and its communication background to know what the organization has done and the brand’s projection. It means the construction of a brand with

Professionals Involved in Design,Writing, and Production Process  159

imaginary visuals, reputation, and meaning. Knowing this information would set the basis for drafting a branded content campaign integrated with these other communication messages. Knowing the external context, the essence of the brand, the consumer, and the project the brand would like to achieve with this investment in branded content is essential. In this aspect, the brand must provide information to know in detail what objectives are to be covered with these actions and identify which KPIs can measure and monitor the campaign. Once these parameters are straightforward, the company must be consistent with the budget that offers viability to the project. The professional profiles in charge of this phase must provide a strategic view that understands how to provide solutions to the brand’s challenges and the connection with the processes involved. Planners, marketing managers, and other professionals specialized in strategy can intervene from different fields and is necessary for co-creating brand content with added value. The brand analysis they carry out is thus mainly divided into three blocks: context, brand and competition, and, of course, audience. After this, the logical argumentation triggers how branded content complements the rest of the brand’s communication actions and the viability based on the available resources. This first block could be helpful for any advertising campaign. This analysis is essential to prepare the first deliverable in phase 1 of the campaign: the briefing. This document contains all the main points to start working on; it will be a master document that will set the course of the campaign. The Content Creation Phase

Just as the first phase focuses on the organization, this phase is the creative phase marked by three milestones: ideation, production, and distribution. How do experts start building content? There are many strategies for all brands. From the brand’s values and the audience’s interests, creatives can extract relevant ideas. In branded content, brands talk about ‘audience,’ not ‘consumers,’ because on the other side are people who will pay attention to the content: The starting point should be the intersection between what the audience is interested in and what the brand is interested in, without talking about targets. It is about building relevant audiences and communities for the brand to create a solid and consistent content strategy. (Alegressa 2022). In this creative process, it is important to know the territory a brand has capitalized on or look for a new one. At a strategic level, there is the ‘sweet spot,’ where a concept can be worked on, always coherent and in perfect convergence and coexistence with the brand’s communication history.

160  Professionals Involved in Design,Writing, and Production Process

The content’s shape is essential in terms of knowing how, where, and how the content is structured, a point on which the guide suggests using the Google H Model. Concerning formats, Google proposed a way of organizing content: HELP content related to solving users’ needs, such as tutorials, offering instructions for use, in short, usefulness. HUB content is entertainment content, practical, and alludes to people’s motivations. Finally, HERO content is spectacular content that generates a powerful bond with the viewer on special dates such as Christmas (Llaneza 2022). In addition, brands and creative teams should pick which format to use: mainly audio-visual, audio, interactive, or experiential. The production phase must be of high quality. The agents producing the content can be the brands themselves autonomously, with co-creation, production companies, user-generated content, and co-branding synergies with other brands. The Distribution Phase

Third, the distribution phase should be related to the role of content and the reach and interests it pursues. Another decisive element when designing distribution platforms is the narrative, which can indicate the best way to disseminate content to audiences. The Promotion Phase

Fourth, the content promotion block. It is essential to be able to promote branded content work. Own media, earned media, and paid media in harmony. It is crucial to work with a media plan and a calendar to have an agenda and schedule to achieve an impact on the media and audiences in the way brands are pursuing. The Measurement Phase

Finally, the block on measuring effectiveness. Measurement must be part of all phases of the process, and it will allow companies to make the right decisions before, during, and after the branded content creation phase. The industry should overcome the barriers that exist in BC measurement. There are numerous measurement tools, but the best way is through three guidelines: research process, observation, and listening to audiences. The deliverable of this phase is a dashboard with the campaign results. Measurement has to be at the beginning because research has a connection to measurement, as Marga Ollero, leader of BCMA’s Research and Measurement Commission, explained. Measurement is left alone and last and sometimes without time when it should have been planned from the beginning of the project. Both should be in the whole process. Companies should pay attention to research, quantify the performance, and measure the results from the ideation to the project’s planning, production, and closure. There are ways

Professionals Involved in Design,Writing, and Production Process  161

to measure the most appropriate content for our audiences. Here we must learn a lot from media professionals who know the content’s design to engage the audience. The production phase is where we see what we have to measure. Branded content also has to contribute to the medium in which it gets distribution. ‘Just as the brands think about the audience, let them not forget the medium; you cannot measure if you don’t invest time and money’—(La Publicidad 2022). Creating a strategic process will differentiate the brand from others, creating unique and differentiating content per the brand’s objectives. Companies can create an appropriate framework through previous planning to form teams, manage budgets, maximize ROI, and control messages focused on transmitting brand values and purpose through original content.

The Agents Involved in the Process of Creating Branded Content The Brands

Brands are the main drivers in the investment, ownership, and creation of a branded content action. Scopen (2022) asked organizations the following question: ‘In which phases of a branded content action does your company usually get involved?’ The answer was overwhelming: • • •

93.7% in the creation 80.4% in production working together with branded content specialists and production companies 53.8% in distribution working with media agencies, and 64.3% in promotion working with branded content specialists and media agencies.

This analysis reinforces the idea of the brand as the main driver and owner of a branded content action. Brands embarking on branded content projects can be multinationals, family businesses, start-ups, and freelancers looking to create a personal brand. In 2013, the hotel chain Marriott pioneered the creation of branded entertainment and connected the traveller experience to brand storytelling. It hired two Walt Disney Company executives, Karin Timpone and David Beebe, to create original content. In 2015, Marriott produced the TV show The Navigator Live, the short film The Two Bellmen, a digital travel magazine, and several virtual reality actions. The results were impressive, with a high level of engagement and content licensing deals. Also, in 2015, the company hired more entertainment industry experts: Matthew Glick from CBS as Creative & Content Global Marketing Group and Marc Graser from Variety as editorial director; they also launched the M Live Studio. This grand content studio had nine screens, showing everything from the social media campaigns of Marriott’s 19 brands to real-time booking

162  Professionals Involved in Design,Writing, and Production Process

information to Marriott’s editorial calendar. Each seat in the glass room represents a different department, such as PR/Comms, Social Media, Buzz Marketing, Creative & Content, and even one for MEC. This media-buying agency amplifies well-performing content at a moment’s notice (Mouka 2019). For Marriott, the key to success relied on hiring suitable professional profiles, investing in content at a time of growth, pitching interesting messages to audiences, building community, and generating interest in the business. ‘Marriott’s success story relies on the fact that they managed to build a great culture of storytelling, using stories to build relationships and make people care’ (Mouka 2019). Marriott’s second short film, ‘French Kiss,’ surpassed six million views and generated over $500,00 in revenue for the hotel. Brands or advertisers can have one leading brand that houses numerous brands, such as the Procter & Gamble group, a pioneer in creating branded content in audio format with its famous soap operas of the 1930s and television. Since then, the company has been creating original content as part of its marketing. From radio to television to digital, P&G has always been on the leading edge of the owned media movement. Procter & Gamble is home to numerous brands in baby care products such as Dodot, feminine hygiene care (Evax), grooming (Gillette), health care (Vicks), and fragrances (Old Spice). Implementing a branded content campaign can be aimed at nurturing the leading brand or any individual brand or product of that company. It depends on the organization’s strategic decisions, product development, marketing objectives, budget availability, and distribution platforms. Such organizations establish long-term relationships with advertising agencies to which they entrust their account. They have excellent bargaining power as a parenting company can advertise many options and brands. In this sense, the work volume can help improve the contractual conditions of an agency. Some of these organizations are creating in-house branded content studios incorporating professional profiles like those seen above, specializing in writing, entertainment, and digital. Companies like the BMW car brand with BMW Films to create the fictional series The Hire, the hotel chain Marriott with M Live Studio, the energy drinks company Red Bull with its RedBull Media House studio, and finally, among other examples, the email marketing platform MailChimp with MailChimp Presents. This modality allows organizations to have greater control in the creation of recurring content, direct messages to audiences with coherent storytelling, be relevant and current according to the evolution of the company and the real needs of consumers, and build affinity and closeness to the brand. The Advertising Agency

The advertising agency is an essential strategic partner in the new media reality. Nowadays, advertisers ask for not only advertising campaigns but also communication strategies. Agencies offer multidisciplinary profiles to

Professionals Involved in Design,Writing, and Production Process  163

provide solutions to advertisers’ different challenges in a new communication spectrum based on the integration and fusion of media, supports, and formats. Castelló-Martínez and Del Pino-Romero (2018) highlight four main groups of professional advertising providers according to the supply side of the activity. • •

• •

National advertising agencies. These are mainly global advertising groups that compete in attracting creative campaign business for national clients and only sometimes offer media management services for their clients Local advertising agencies. In every major city, numerous agencies offer advertising services to local businesses in the area. These services usually consist of local media management, graphic production, and the design of digital actions such as websites, SEO and SEM, and social media management Media agencies. They are providers of media planning, strategy and management services directly for clients Specialized agencies. They focus on a specific industry discipline, such as direct marketing, promotional marketing, events, or sponsorship, or a specific sector, such as sport, food, and finance.

The economic and commercial relationship between advertiser and agency is complex. ‘The integral management of an advertising account entails coordinating and implementing the creative function with planning, research, and media management’ (Castelló-Martínez and Del Pino-Romero 2018, p.132). The advertising agency and the media agency must work in a coordinated way, sometimes simultaneously and with a constant communication process with the client, whether a single company that offers the two services or independent specialized supplier companies. If the advertiser hires two suppliers: one for creative and one for media, the work process is sometimes more complex to ensure good communication and coordination. The work process usually starts with delivering a brief from the advertiser to the agency. Ideally, the client should approve both strategy and tactics defined by the creative agency and the media agency. Both the creative and media agencies should maintain a fluid relationship with the advertiser’s approvals of the partial deliverables throughout creating an advertising campaign. The forms of remuneration may vary depending on a commission system, fees, or mixed methods. • •

Commission. The agency receives a commission from the media related to the amount of the media contract. It is usually 15%.  Fee system. The agency receives total compensation based on the scope of the agreed services. With this payment, the agency must distribute the payment to cover the costs of creativity, media plan, sponsorships, and billboards. This system provides guarantees to the client regarding the choice of media.

164  Professionals Involved in Design,Writing, and Production Process

•

Hybrid system. The advertiser and the agency agree on a fixed commission of around 7% or 8%. Agencies can receive a fixed remuneration for the tasks it performs for the advertiser.

In addition, both partners can negotiate a bonus system based on achieved sales targets. Although this bonus can be an incentive for creative tasks, it is challenging.  Nowadays, the agency revenue model is experiencing a new reality. The entire compensation system is lowering, so agencies have had to learn to cut new deals for themselves. Undercutting one another to win business is commonly seen in agency battles for a new account. A problem with this method is that the agency may end up winning the business, which is no guarantee that the percentage fee or flat fee negotiated will be good enough or fair enough to keep the business growing (Valero 2015, p.115) Each advertising agency has a different structure depending on its specialization area and the departments’ work dynamics. Even so, we can point out a model organization chart with different departments and functions that usually cover all agency work areas. • • •

• • • •

Account department. It is in contact with the client and serves as a bridge between the agency and the client.  Creative department. They are in charge of designing the campaign’s message and elaborating the creative proposal, whether audio-visual, visual, radio, interactive, or adapted to each media. Production department. They execute the creative conceptualization from the creative department to make it suitable for distribution. For example, they are in charge of the production of the shooting of an advertising spot previously designed by the creative department. Research department. They are in charge of searching for and providing helpful information at a strategic and creative level and in the media plan. Media department. This group plans how the campaign will find distribution.  Traffic department. They perform an internal control function of all the processes that work simultaneously. Financial/administration department. They are responsible for financial management, accounting, contracting with suppliers, and budgetary control.

From these traditional structures, a new concept of advertising agency emerges where functions, professional roles, and work dynamics between advertisers, agencies, and specialized teams merge. Branded content is not traditional advertising; it has become a process of Exchange between consumers, brands, and a medium with the media agency as a catalyst. (Dzamic and Kirby 2018). 

Professionals Involved in Design,Writing, and Production Process  165 The Producers

Production companies are independent entities or in-house divisions of a media outlet or an agency that will execute the assigned production (Valero 2015).  Due to exponential branded content growth, numerous brand entities, networks, and agencies have acquired production companies. Producers could be part of a large production company, a boutique, or freelancers. Producers will take the idea and start the development process, a phase where ideas find viability and other possibilities in the transmedia narrative world eventually.  The producer makes things happen, generates business, manages talent, is creative, and designs stories, plans, and finances. The producer must be able to coordinate a large team. A producer must also be at the service of others (Acinas 2022). For the producer to do his or her job, he or she needs to have an approved budget and be in line with brand and agency guidelines.  Evaluating continuity is critical to developing a medium- and long-term strategy and nurturing a fan community with audiences. Producers examine the engaging potential, budgeting, and production requirements to deliver a high-end. Production companies start working on a working budget to have a structure in place and present it to the final client. Once the different parties involved in the project agree on the financial elements, brands and producers, and any other parties involved in the decision-making process of a branded content campaign, greenlight a final budget to go to pre-production, production, and postproduction (Valero 2015). Each pre-production period is different depending on the specifics of the project. Producers recruit experts to carry out the deliverables, whether a film, a podcast, a video game or a live experience. The production phase is the moment to actively shoot the audio-visual content, work with the acting team on the set, and work with engineers, animators, and designers. Each project might differ and require unique elements. Finally, postproduction is when producers edit the material, including graphics, music, and other creative elements, to finish the content and have it ready for distribution and promotion. It is difficult for a brand to work directly with a content production company. Agencies usually bid to win an account to secure advertising work for some time. Agencies are the ones who, once the concept of a branded content campaign is approved, go to some of the content production companies they usually work with and agree on a production service. The agency is usually the mediator between the brand and the production company. The production company will have to present a workflow schedule to fulfil a delivery commitment. This player involved in the process is in charge of executing the actions, post-producing the content, and giving the deliverables to the agency or the brand if there are no intermediaries. Once this process ends, the media agency is in charge of distribution and transmedia expansion. Nowadays, the demand for branded content actions opens up new opportunities for hybrid business models. One example is the creative agency and branded content production company RB Brandfilms, which offers consultancy

166  Professionals Involved in Design,Writing, and Production Process

and production services for the strategy, ideation, and production of branded content campaigns, especially branded entertainment and can work either directly with the brand or through an agency. It is headquartered in Madrid and has partners in Los Angeles and London. The company RB Brandfilms works in partnership with the advertising production company Adhokers to bring on board an established production team, which is well established in the advertising industry and delivers high-quality results.​ The Media Agency

Media planning executes the communication project through mass dissemination in various media most cost-effectively and efficiently possible to maximize the advertising investment return. Media agencies had access to media owners and publishers thanks to technology as content marketing proliferated in recent years. There have been three elements that had a significant impact in terms of being more Media agencies that have put content marketing ahead of the game thanks to access to insights and data and a closer relationship with tech and publishers (Dzamic and Kirby 2018). Today, many media are in an increasingly fragmented environment where it is more challenging to get the consumer’s attention. Media planning and buying allow for designing, investing, and implementing advertising actions in the

Figure 7.3 RB Brandfilms Website.

Professionals Involved in Design,Writing, and Production Process  167

most appropriate media to achieve the most significant possible impact with an advertising campaign. Traditionally, advertising agencies have had a media department, but in recent years technology has made it possible for many of these tasks to be carried out electronically.  The media planner deals with a complex process of gathering statistical knowledge, interpreting data, making decisions, understanding the fundamentals of marketing and advertising, and identifying the most effective way to deliver a message in a fragmented and competitive environment. The media planning process is rigorous yet flexible and dynamic to understand the media landscape and identify the best investment opportunity.  The digital revolution, new technologies, and IT processes’ automation have greatly influenced advertising planning development. In the late 1980s, globally, the computer made it possible to review prices electronically and place orders online. Traditionally, the advertising agency had a media planning department, but with the new technologies, other players have appeared on the scene offering independent media buying services outside the agency. The proliferation of different media, in addition to conventional media, broadens the spectrum of possibilities by offering a multitude of media.  In media planning and buying, the companies in charge of this task are: • • •

Media buying centres. They buy advertising space in different media. It is an intermediary body between the agency and the advertiser. Media and advertising agencies. They buy media and schedule and execute campaigns. Media, advertising, and auditing agencies. They offer a global communication plan and services to evaluate the results of a campaign.

Companies Specialized in Measurement Systems

Companies such as Kantar, Nielsen, or Ipsos try to connect with audiences and analyze the behaviour of campaigns in the media. Measurement, media planning, content optimization, and metadata control are essential variables that are taken into account by the agents involved in this phase. According to the latest Nielsen report (2022), data is a marketer’s guiding light: ‘Data should be plugged into scalable marketing solutions that brands of all sizes can use to approach all decisions precisely to arrive at reliable, growth-driving outcomes’—(Nielsen 2022, p.4). Data is crucial in order to understand the different variety of channels available. There is a need to improve measurement confidence, there are many solutions available in the market, but it is vital to align campaigns with the correct KPIs and measurement tools to deliver optimal campaign results. ‘Even as branded content has become mainstream for many advertisers, there is no measurement standardization’ (Warner 2022). New hybrid

168  Professionals Involved in Design,Writing, and Production Process

partnership models are emerging, and distribution platforms are entering the space. It is becoming more common to see brands working with creative talent and finding new measurement tools to analyze content performance directly. For example, brands are dealing with streaming providers like Netflix or Amazon and receiving data performance from the distributor. It is crucial to identify metrics to capitalize on the actual value of branded content and how it profoundly engages with customers. Kantar’s executive vice president of advertising and media effectiveness highlights the need to measure human emotion and see what drives engagement as a valuable KPI (Warner 2022). 

Bibliography Acinas, B. (2022). Face-to-face interview. Alegressa, A. (2022). At El Publicista (2022). Primera guía práctica para la construcción de una estrategia de contenido. [First practical guide to building a content strategy] Retrieved from https://bit​.ly​/3fU2D7H. ANECA: Agencia Nacional de Evaluación de la Calidad y Acreditación. (2005). Libro Blanco de los títulos de Grado en Comunicación. [National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation (2005). White Paper on Bachelor’s Degrees in Communication]. Madrid: ANECA. Anunciantes. (2020). Observatorio de la Publicidad en España. Spanish Advertisins Observatory. https://bit​.ly​/3gEdfI8. BCMA. (2022). Retrieved from https://bit​.ly​/3OAWGJH. Castelló-Martínez, A., & del Pino-Romero, C. (2018). De la publicidad a la comunicación persuasiva integrada [From advertising to integrated persuasive communication]. Madrid: ESIC Editorial. Daly, J. (2018). The Hollywood Way. At A Cannes Lions Jury Presents: The art of branded entertainment. London: Peter Owen Publishers. Dzamic, L., & Kirby, J. (2018), The definitive guide to strategic content marketing: Perspectives, issues, challenges and solutions. London: KoganPage. Llaneza, A. (2022). Retrieved from https://bit​.ly​/3UxbnPV. Motilla, A., Bellón, R., & Arjona, K. (2022). V Foro Branded Content &esports. En constante crecimiento y expansión. Julio-Agosto 2022. (pp. 20–24). Madrid: Periódico PublicidAD. Mouka, M. (2019). Marriott international: Becoming a media company. Medium. Recuperado de https://bit​.ly​/2Bpg7Re. Nielsen. (2022). Global annual marketing report 2022. The era of alignment. Retrieved from https://bit​.ly​/3GOIvPh. Perlado, M., & Barbosa, C. (2021). Los profesionales del branded content: Funciones, formación y competencias del perfil profesional. [Branded content professionals: Roles, training and professional profile competencies]. In J. Olivares-Santamarina & R. Gago Gelado (Eds.), El branded content en la comunicación posdigital: Estructuras, aplicaciones y casos de éxito. [Branded content in post-digital communication: Structures, applications and success stories]. (pp.185–207). Valencia: Tirant humanidades. Rodríguez-Rabadán, M. (2021). Retrieved from https://bit​.ly​/3fSmILw. Scopen. (2022). Content Scope. V Edición España 2020. Informe Ejecutivo. [V Spain 2020 Edition. Executive Report]. Retrieved from https://bit​.ly​/3tgM34K.

Professionals Involved in Design,Writing, and Production Process  169 PWC. (2018). Entertainment and media outlook 2018–2022 España. https://pwc​.to​ /3GS8JAm. Ramón, A., & Segovia, C. (2016). Comunicación integrada de marketing. Madrid: ESIC. Valero, D. (2015). Branded entertainment: Dealmaking strategies & techniques for industry. Plantation. Florida: J.Ross Publishing. Warner, F. (2022). Retrieved from https://bit​.ly​/3Uc7sXX.

Conclusions

There are numerous interpretations of the term  branded content,  which has evolved rapidly in recent years. This volume has addressed some crucial aspects, such as the origins, creative resources, effectiveness, and effects on the consumer from a theoretical and practical perspective. After an exhaustive review of the existing literature on the subject set out in the theoretical framework, this research concludes that branded content finds its origins in the disciplines of Marketing and Communication Sciences, using the techniques of advertising and audio-visual communication. Branded content is an advertising technique for creating informative, educational, or entertaining content, mainly originated by the brand. This content combines the brand values and provides a relevant experience for the consumer without necessarily seeking an immediate purchase stimulus. Branded content is provided to consumers for free or a fee through traditional or digital channels in all forms of communication (text, images, video games, audio, art, new technologies, or a live experience). This study also points out the differences between branded content and branded entertainment. The latter is the expression of branded content taken to entertainment content in all communications, formats, and platforms. Sometimes the novelty of the branded content technique can lead to confusion with other terminologies, such as content marketing, product placement,  and  product integration. For  this research,  branded content  is not synonymous with these other practices. As argued in these pages, content marketing is a theoretical discipline of study, and branded content is a concrete advertising technique under the umbrella of content marketing. Branded content means the practice of the execution of branded content actions in different typologies, be they informative, educational, or entertainment. This approach is fundamental both to talk about its nature and its characteristics. In line with these clarifications, this study points out that  product placement responds to the punctual and accessory or integrated presence of a brand in the spatial or narrative context of the content. The more active inclusion of the brand in the fictional narrative has given rise to variants within the technique towards a metamorphosis of the practice itself, in a natural process of integration known as  enhanced product placement and product integration. DOI: 10.4324/9781003310686-9

Conclusions 

171

The migration from integrated product placement to branded entertainment involves a substantial change in the approach to strategy and content, as the brand becomes the creator of the content, being in control of it and participating in its essence. Therefore, branded entertainment and product placement are two different techniques. Hudson and Hudson (2006) suggested lines of research to discern the limits between product placement and branded entertainment. This book attempts to clarify the meaning of product placement and branded entertainment. These techniques  have coexisted since their origins, dating back to the end of the 19th century. Branded entertainment was not born as a result of the evolution of product placement in a given time frame, but instead, they are two different techniques with different creative designs and different objectives, which have been coexistent since their inception. The level of involvement of the brand in the story can impact how an action is planned toward a product placement or the design of a branded entertainment action.   The empirical experiments collected in this volume argue positively for considering product placement as a technique different from branded entertainment. The results of the quantitative analysis Rodríguez-Rabadán, Del Pino-Romero, and Galán-Fajardo (2022) conclude with the following evidence: the physical presence of the product or brand placement in a branded entertainment narrative does not affect the viewer’s understanding of the story’s values. Nor does a higher number of repetitions of the product’s appearance on screen negatively influence the purchase intention. The test shows that a greater or lesser presence of the product on screen is not a determining factor in the viewer’s perception of the story’s values. The test shows that a greater or lesser presence of the product on screen is not a determining factor for the viewer to perceive the brand as intrusive and annoying in the story’s context. The experiment also shows that the product’s presence on screen is independent of understanding the story’s values in a branded entertainment piece. On the other hand, the study participants affirm that beer occupies a place in the story; it is not an accessory as it could be the presence of a product as product placement. Finally, the experiment affirms that the entertainment generated by the branded entertainment short films in the study is not linked to repetition of the visual stimulus of the brand (visual presence of the product) in the short film.  According to Sjoenell and Xenopoulo (2018), the jury of the Cannes Lions advertising awards holds a similar position to the one given here. The branded entertainment advertising campaign for Lacta chocolate, From the Start (2017), is an example of this technique with significant international recognition and impact. In this action, the  brand placement  of the chocolate bar occupies a significant visual presence in the audio-visual content. Even so, the jury of the prestigious awards considered that the brand values were perfectly integrated into the story and did not consider the brand placement intrusive. This was the decisive factor in awarding the gold and silver prizes in the entertainment

172 Conclusions

category. When faced with placing a greater or lesser product presence in a branded entertainment action, the answer is different for each brand and each story. As Sjoenell and Xenopoulo (2018) mentioned, in the creation phase, an opinion must be formed, and an idea about the brand must be had in order to tackle the project.  The findings of the quantitative study of the Estrella Damm brand support the position of this study regarding brand placement and branded entertainment  as two different techniques. This empirical analysis directly affects the taxonomy of branded entertainment, as it offers reasons to place the advertising technique of branded entertainment separately from brand placement. This volume devotes a chapter to analyzing the expressive resources of the script and, thus, to study how the brand is integrated into a branded entertainment audio-visual narrative action. After reviewing the literature and the data resulting from the experiments carried out in the empirical framework, it is concluded that audio-visual  branded entertainment  scriptwriting has specific characteristics typical of film scripts. Hardy (2018) points out that branded entertainment competes with original content created by film studios, audio-visual production companies, and digital content agencies. Branded entertainment’s quality must meet the highest standards of professionalism from its ideation, script, and production. The qualitative study shows that it is essential for advertisers to form teams with script specialists to guarantee a good result. This volume considers the film script as an object with a value from its writing phase. It takes, as its starting point, the definition provided by Nanicelli (2013): a script is a verbal object that seeks to suggest the plot, characters, dialogue, shots, editing, and any other constituent element of the film piece.  On the one hand, the short films Vale (Amenábar 2015) and Las Pequeñas Cosas (Rodríguez 2016) by Estrella Damm present plot, storyline, narrative structure, and character creation following the principles of the expressive resources of the film script. A well-articulated narrative can transmit sensations, values, and feelings through a story. Estrella Damm’s beer in the story is not an element that could be an accessory but has a unique and irreplaceable purpose. The brand tries to identify itself with the Mediterranean style, summer, gastronomy, and the things that make people enjoy life, values that the viewer perceives positively, as the quantitative analysis of this work shows. Beer does not just appear at one point in the story but is embedded throughout the plot as an indispensable element of the film’s fabric. In this way, it achieves a natural integration with fiction. Beer is included in the dialogues; sometimes, the characters invite each other to drink an Estrella. The viewers subject to the empirical study analysis deduce that this beer could not be exchanged or the scenes in which they interact with it could not be deleted without harming the story or the dialogues. Estrella Damm’s short-films quantitative analysis demonstrates the importance of offering a consistent narrative and artistic quality in constructing the

Conclusions 

173

film script. With this, brands find empathy with the viewer and generate a positive attitude towards the brand. Participants in Rodríguez-Rabadán, Del Pino-Romero, and GalánFajardo’s (2022) experiment felt inspired after watching the short films. They perceived that they lived the experiences of the characters. On the other hand, the story’s subject caught their interest, it brought them something new, it entertained them, the short film seemed plausible, and the time passed without them noticing. Moreover, they discovered qualities of the brand that are new to them without being intrusive.  On the other hand, the qualitative research technique focused on interviewing experts used for this doctoral thesis has been the correct first approach to the study of the practice of branded entertainment. First, to learn about the process of ideation and execution of this type of action. Second, to examine the creative and executive components that influence the ideation and writing process. Implementing a branded entertainment campaign is another option to consider as part of a brand’s communication plan. Typically, the company is in control and takes on the content producer role. The brand must know, indepth, the opportunities offered by the branded entertainment tool in order to measure the usefulness, investment, and effectiveness of its execution and to be able to select the appropriate collaborators in the creation and distribution process. The agents involved in the creation and production chain of branded entertainment content must work together to achieve a high-quality content experience that is competitive with the standards offered by the entertainment industry. Agencies, production companies, scriptwriters, directors, and creatives must work together, either internally if the brand creates a branded content department in-house or externally, outsourcing the services to agencies and entertainment production companies. The creation of a branded entertainment script responds to the brand’s criteria. First, the brand must transmit information to the other agents involved in the creation process. This information must include the campaign goals, the challenge the company is facing, the economic resources it has available to invest in the creation and distribution of the branded product, and the financial resources it has available to invest in the creation and distribution of the branded product. The brand’s target audience, the values with which the brand identifies itself, and the medium- and long-term strategy—among other data—that it can provide. A branded entertainment action’s ideation and writing process in its audiovisual entertainment format (whether in short, medium, or feature film format; television series; web episodes; or transmedia content) follows the audio-visual narrative. The creation team must have a specialist in audio-visual scriptwriting to develop a fictional narrative that articulates the brand in an integrated way together with the expressive resources of the script. One of the most significant reasons why the brand chooses to implement a branded entertainment action is the ability to connect with its target

174 Conclusions

audience or audiences in a non-intrusive and non-invasive way, always from an entertainment approach. The story serves as a vehicle for transmitting values. Traditionally, the narrative remains in the viewer’s memory thanks to the emotion it awakens in the receiver. The brand benefits from the storytelling’s ability to establish bonds with the viewer in the medium and long term. A piece of branded entertainment must offer a high-quality entertainment experience relevant for the audience to spend their time with, offering possibilities for participation, interaction, multi-channeling, experimentation, and tools to share it in digital environments. Brands can benefit from the opportunities offered by new technologies and communication channels to deliver transmedia experiences to expand the story and its immersive possibilities. The planning of distributing a branded entertainment action contemplates mainly owned and earned media. It frequently uses digital platforms thanks to the possibilities they offer to control the broadcasting of the content, amplify the experiences, participate and interact, share the content with the community, and measure the effectiveness of the action. Based on the branded content expert interviews, entertainment actions start on a script with a central idea, a message that serves as the narrative creation core. The brand offers its identity, transmits values, and gives off an emotional force capable of connecting with the public through branded entertainment. Film scripts can be a good vehicle for transmitting the brand’s values in a non-intrusive and entertaining way. For that, they have to respect the expressive resources of the format itself, find collaboration with professionals who are experts in the craft of entertainment ideation and production, and get involved in the process from the initial phase to provide an experience of value and relevance that it offers the viewer. Brands choose to carry out a  branded content  action as an alternative or complement to traditional advertising, pursuing a better consumer brand assimilation and becoming part of their beliefs according to Savar (2013). However, branded content is not persuasive and does not directly provoke the desire to purchase a product. This particularity means that branded content actions look for a medium- and long-term impact as part of a wide-ranging strategy. The generation of brand value through a  branded content  action can set up several objectives, such as: increasing the notoriety of the company or the brand in such a way that the content gives visibility to the brand, activating consumer behaviour in line with the company’s medium- or long-term objectives, maintaining dialogue and an affective connection, increasing the credibility of the brand, facilitating the opportunity to turn the consumer into a co-creator, and, finally, building brand preference through content that specifies the characteristics that differentiate it from other products. A branded content action’s effectiveness must come as part of a context in the overall marketing plan developed by the company in the medium and long term. There is still a period of experimentation and testing. The lack of legal regulation of this technique, the lack of sectoral reports on the effectiveness of branded

Conclusions 

175

content actions, and the difficulty of obtaining data on successful case studies are barriers to this technique as an alternative solution to intrusive advertising. Another area of interest focuses on analyzing the effects a branded entertainment action produces on the consumer. In light of the findings described in the empirical framework and the good results of the success stories highlighted throughout these pages, good branded entertainment practices can positively affect the consumer in terms of understanding brand values, attitude, and purchase intention.  Branded entertainment offers a high capacity to generate engagement with the consumer as one of its benefits due to its non-intrusive nature, its ability to generate content that provides value worthy of interest, and to create mediumand long-term links with the viewer (Hardy 2018). Over the last decade, there has been a growing body of theoretical and empirical research demonstrating the interest of brands in using the power of stories to convey a message. The rapid evolution of marketing communications, technology, and new consumer behaviours are intrinsic to the constant search for updated research in this field. Possible lines of research arising from this doctoral thesis are detailed below. According to Lundqvist, Lilkander, Gummerus, and Riel (2012), Farrán (2013), and Vizcaíno (2016), the subject deserves more work to deepen its theoretical corpus, to better understand its origins, its evolution, its history, and the possibilities it offers. Maintaining continuity in developing a solid and well-founded theoretical framework on branded content and branded entertainment is essential.  Throughout the literature review, several cases have been identified as good practices regarding  branded content and branded entertainment. More and more brands are deciding to invest in actions of this type. It is interesting to mark a future line of research in the compendium of the most relevant branded content cases and analyze the evolution of branded content actions at a national and international level. This line of work could be advantageous to understand their evolution and delving deeper into the factors that make them benchmark actions in the industry. This volume studies brand storytelling and its ability to elevate the brand to a storyteller. Companies do not seek to represent attributes through their brands but rather to identify themselves with values. Within this context, the approach addressed in this reading is to relate brand storytelling to the emergence of branded entertainment since, with this technique, the brand becomes a storyteller. On the other hand, the appropriation of stories by the brand has a vast horizon. According to Lundqvist, Lilkander, Gummerus, and Riel (2012), Farrán (2013), and Vizcaíno (2016),  brand storytelling  deserves new studies both in its theoretical corpus and in the effects it can produce on the consumer. This research analyzes the relevance of engagement in current marketing strategies. It takes into consideration Belch and Belch’s (2018) concern about the lack of consensus on achieving a definition, operability, and dimension of the term  engagement.  It would be interesting to continue both theoretical and

176 Conclusions

empirical studies that demonstrate the degree of correlation between branded content and engagement and the positive impact that these actions generate on the consumer. This work shows an analysis of  branded entertainment  applied to film scripts, but the possibilities offered by entertainment and its various formats are infinite. Likewise, there are new lines of work in the study of narrative applied to video games, mobile applications, theatre, interactive content, and all forms of communication that use a story to transmit brand values. Likewise, more effort must be made to discover the possibilities branded entertainment presents using new technologies, virtual reality, and transmedia environments, a field that has yet to be explored. This study devotes a section to film scripts to provide a holistic view of the subject, distinguishing two kinds of sources in the literature review. On the one hand, a set of bibliographies deals with the Theory of Screenwriting, and, on the other, practical manuals offer tools for the profession’s performance. This research finds out that volumes on the Theory and Practice of Screenwriting, such as the one offered by Maras (2009), are scarce, and it would be interesting to offer new studies along these lines—moreover, many of the practical manuals on screenwriting lack scientific rigor. A possible line of interest is to analyze empirically how the manuals help scriptwriters in their writing process and how the methodologies they propose are valid in the dramatic construction of the script, from its origin to the culmination of the project. This compendium highlights several effective measurement systems for branded content  campaigns currently on the market. However, there  is still a latent concern in both academic and professional environments to offer more complete solutions in the immediate future. Local and global researchers, associations, and non-profit institutions should work towards a consensus in this field of study, offer methodologies that offer confidence and security, and use representative figures with the same criteria in numerical values and percentages. Finally, it is essential to remain attentive to the organizational processes in the gestation and execution of branded content  actions. As a future line of research, observing the organizational structures in the branded content campaigns’ creation and detecting possible options for standardization in the team conformation might help to execute a campaign of these characteristics. This book takes place at a time when the practice of  branded entertainment is booming globally. In the coming years, this discipline will benefit from the interest of academics and practitioners. These lines of research will serve as an inspiration to improve the theoretical corpus of this field of knowledge.

Bibliography Belch, G., & Belch, M. (2018). Advertising and promotion: An integrated marketing communications perspective. New York: McGraw-Hill Education.

Conclusions 

177

Farrán, E. (2013). Storytelling como herramienta y mejora de la eficacia en publicidad. Análisis de los casos Aquarius y BMW en televisión (1992-2010). [Storytelling as a tool and improvement of advertising effectiveness. Analysis of the Aquarius and BMW cases on television (1992–2010)]. (PhD Thesis) Castellón: Universidad Jaime I de Castellón. Hardy, J. (2018). Branded content. In J. Hardy, H. Powell, & I. Macrury (Eds.), The advertising handbook (pp. 102–122). Oxon: Routledge. Hudson, S., & Hudson, D. (2006). Branded entertainment: A new advertising technique or product placement in disguise? Journal of Marketing Management, 22(5–6), 489–504. https://doi.org/10.1362/026725706725706777978703. At: Martí-Parreño, J., Ruiz​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Mafe, C., & Scribner, L. (2015). Engaging consumers through branded entertainment and convergent media. EE.UU: IGI Global. Lundqvist, L., & Gummerus, R. (2012). The impact of storytelling on the consumer brand experience: The case of a firm-originated story. Journal of Brand Management, 20(4), 283–297. Maras, S. (2009). Screenwriting: History, theory and practice. Londres: Wallflower Nanicelli (2013). Rodríguez-Rabadán, M., Galán-Fajardo, H., & del Pino-Romero, C. (2022). Mediterráneamente. Estudio de eficacia cuantitativo del branded content en las películas publicitarias de Estrella Damm. [Mediterranean. Quantitative effectiveness study of branded content in Estrella Damm advertising films]. Revista Mediterránea de ​ ​ ​ Comunicación/Mediterranean Journal of Communication, 13(1), 165–184. https://doi.org/10 ​ ​ .14198/MEDCOM.20590. Savar, A. (2013). Content to commerce. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons. Sjoenell and Xenopoulo. (2018). From product placement to idea placement. At Pereira, J. (2018). The art of branded entertainment. London: Peter Owen. Vizcaíno, P. (2016). Del storytelling al storytelling publicitario: El papel de las marcas como contadoras de historias. [From storytelling to advertising storytelling: The role of brands as storytellers]. (PhD thesis). Madrid: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.

Index

**Page numbers in italics reference figures. 5th Branded Content & esports Forum 152–153 Abaad 42 Adhokers 166 Adolfo Domínguez 41 advertisers 2–3 advertising 30, 158; branded content 33–35; branded entertainment 31–33, 42–45; definitions 33; evolution of 35–38; social and cultural dimension of 38–41; spectacle advertising 72 advertising agencies, involvement in creating branded content 162–164 advertising storytelling 100 agency briefing 139 agents involved in creating branded content: advertising agencies 162–164; brands 161–162; companies specialized in measurement systems 167–168; media agencies 166–167; producers 165–166 AIDA (Attention-Interest-Desire-Action) model 52, 54 alcoholic beverages 40, 76; see also Estrella Damm Ameritrade 63 An Nahar, ‘The Blank Edition’ 143 anachrony 107 Apple 41, 141 Apple Homepod 74 application of branded content 144 archetypes 87–88; filmic storytelling 103–104, 110 The Associated Advertising Club of America 39 Asylum 626, Doritos 134

attention and perception advertising 55, 144 Attention Economy 4 attitude-based advertising models 52 Audi, ‘Forever and Ever’ 21 audience engagement 137–138; see also engagement audiences 118–119 audio-visual branded content 68, 71, 73 audio-visual culture 117, 122, 125, 127 audio-visual fiction 149 audio-visual media 80–81 audio-visual narratives 100–101 audio-visual scripts 121 awareness 144 Banca Intesa 120 Banca Intesa SanPaolo 126 Banco Santander 131; ‘Beyond Money’ 78 Barbie 46 Barbie (2023) 73, 99, 111 Barilla 125 BBVA bank 65–66; Valora View 65; ‘We learn together’ campaign 65–66, 78 BCMA see Branded Content Marketing Association BE ON 146 beats, scripts 86 The Beauty Inside (2012), Intel 73–74 beer 40 behavioural engagement 70 benchmarks 132–133, 143 Benetton 73 Bertha Benz: the journey that changed everything (2019) 110–111 ‘Beyond Money,’ (Cuánto) Banco Santander 78, 111, 131



180 Index ‘The Blank Edition’ 143 BlendTec 146, 149 BMW 23, 162; The Hire 22, 73, 109, 111, 124, 129; The Hire 2 23, 129 BMW Films 129 brand engagement 70–71 brand image 47–49, 72, 132 brand infatuation 70 brand integration 20; Cast Away (Robert Zemeckis 2000) 24–26 brand placement 97; see also product placement brand resonance 68 brand storytelling 45–47, 175; see also storytelling brand utility 61, 76, 143 brand value 174 branded content 170; as advertising 33–35; application of 144; brand image building 47–49; characteristics of 130; definitions 8–14, 97; editorial branded content 62– 64; educational branded content 64–67; informative branded content 62–64; vs. product placement 18–21; purposedriven branded content 76–79; working phases see working phases of branded content; working phases of 156–161 Branded Content Canvas 145 Branded Content Editorial Canvas 148 branded content formats 80–81 Branded Content Marketing Association (BCMA) 8, 13, 35, 81, 132; Branded Content Suite 144; Foco portal 61, 80, 143 Branded Content Smart Canvas Toolkit 139–140; creative phase 146–149; strategic phase 139–146 branded content specialists 155 Branded Content Suite 144 branded entertainment 67–76, 171–175; in advertising 31–33, 42–45; audio-visual fiction 149; brand integration 20; creative strategies 49–50, 71–72; definitions 10–12, 10, 14–16, 97; development process 134–137; distribution and audience engagement 137–138; effects on consumers 50–51; image building 47–49; online video format 71; origins of 21–23; Procter & Gamble 22; vs. product assimilation 24–27 Branded Entertainment Fiction 147 brands, involvement in creating branded content 161–162, 171 Bravo 78

Bticino 119 budgets 122–123, 137 Bulgari 80 The Bulgari Connection (2001) 22 Campofrío 23 Cannes Entertainment Lions 69 Cannes Film Festival 68–69 Cannes Lions advertising festival 131 Carrefour 77 Cast Away (Zemeckis 2000) 24–26, 121 CB&Fire chocolates 74 Chanel No. 5 125 characteristics of branded content 130 characters 110; scripts 87–88; see also archetypes Chevrolet 21 children’s learning 40 Chipotle 23 Cinderella, Chevrolet 21 cinema 85; storytelling and 99–101; see also film cinematographic narrative 101 Cinergía 23 ‘climb Your mountain,’ Reforcer 63 Coca-Cola 74 Coca-Cola Music Experience 74 ‘Come together,’ H&M 128 Cómicos 23 commission, remuneration 163 communication axis 72 communications 138 competencies of branded content specialists 155 competition 158 connected viewers 31 consumer learning perspective 53–55 consumer psychology 51 consumers 1–2, 43; effects of branded entertainment 50–51; psychological processing 54–55 content creation phase, branded content 159–160 content marketing 16–18 Content Mirror to BEAM TM 146 content platforms 61–62 content solutions 142 convergence 2–4, 138 Converse 142 Crack the Case campaign, Heineken 55 creation process for branded content 157; ideation phase 129–134 creative phase, Branded Content Smart Canvas Toolkit 146–149

Index  creative process, considerations of the brand 137; see also Branded Content Smart Canvas Toolkit creative strategies, branded entertainment 49–50, 71–72 creators, scripts 118 CSI Second Life campaign 55 Cuánto (Beyond Money) 131 cultural dimensions of advertising 38–41 culture 122, 125, 127 customer-based brand equity 68 DAGMAR (Defining Advertising Goals for measured Advertising Results) model 52, 54 dashboard 132, 133 Deloitte 63 development process, branded entertainment 134–137 diegesis 105 digital editorial format 80 digital interactive 80 Disney 119 distribution of branded entertainment 137–138, 174 distribution phase, branded content 160 Dolce & Gabanna 126 Don Matteo 121 ‘Don’t mess with mother Earth,’ Apple 41 Doritos 134 Dove brand 41; Dove Self-Esteem-Project 67; Real Beauty Sketches campaign 66–67 Dove Self-Esteem-Project 67 Downtown Resource Group 65 editorial branded content 62–64, 149 editorial calendar 143 educational branded content 64–67, 142–143 El País 66 emotion 136–137, 144 emotional engagement 70 engagement 69–71, 123, 126–128, 132, 120 entertainment experience 174 Estrella Damm 40, 105, 110, 135, 172; Las Pequenas Cosas (Rodriguez) 68; ‘The Little Things’ (Rodriguez) 91–94; Vale (Amenabar) 68, 88–91 E.T. (Spielberg 1982) 24 ethics 40 Evan campaign 134 excitement 123

181

Fashion films 120 FedEx, Cast Away (Robert Zemeckis 2000) 24–26 film: BMW 23; Cast Away (Zemeckis 2000) 24–26, 121; E.T. (Spielberg 1982) 24; The Lego Movie (2014) 73, 117–118; Matrix 102; ‘Quiz Show’ (1994) 119; Snow White 119; Soul in Suffering (Curtiz 1945) 24; story 98; see also short films film scripts see scripts filmic narratives 100 filmic storytelling 100–102, 110; archetypes 103–104; diegesis 105; genre 108–109; metaphors 104–105, 110; myths 102; rites 102–103; role of space and time 106–107 filmlets 21–23 FOCO 80, 143 ‘Foco’ portal 61 ‘The Follow’ (2001) 22 Food Waste Hacks handbook, Hellmann’s 64 ‘Forever and Ever’ 21 free system, remuneration 163 ‘French Kiss,’ Marriott 162 From the Start (2017), Lacta 171 From the Start campaign 27, 135 Fumagalli, Armando 118–121 The Furrow 22, 62, 143 Gallina Blanca 143 Gas Natural Fenosa, Cinergía 23 Gatorade 117–118 genre 118, 122, 124–125, 127, 134– 135; filmic storytelling 108–109; narratives 116 The Gibson Family, Procter & Gamble 22 Google H Model 160 Greenpeace 75–76 GTA Online 75 The Guiding Light, Procter & Gamble 22 H&M, ‘Come together’ 128 Heineken, Crack the Case campaign 55 Hellmann’s 64 HERO content 160 heroes, scripts 88 hierarchy of effects models 51–52 The Hire, BMW 22, 73, 109, 111, 124, 129 The Hire 2, BMW 23, 129 Honda 146 horror genre 134 Hotel 626, Doritos 134 HUB content 160 hybrid system, remuneration 164

182 Index ideation phase, creating process 129–134 identity 79 Illy 123 image building 47–49 IMC (Integrated Marketing Communications) strategy 42 In an Absolut World 55 indirect advertising 54 influence 144 information obesity 3 information saturation 3 informative branded content 62–64, 142–143 Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) strategy 42 integration, media and advertising integration 31 Intel, The Beauty Inside (2012) 73–75 interactive and intermediate action advertising 55 interactive multimedia 31 Internet 2 interviews: Fumagalli, Armando 118–121; Parodi, Ugo 116–118; Perbellini, Mara 124–126; Provenzi, Ilenia 126–128; Sassoon, Joseph 122–124 intoxification 34 investment 70–71 Ipsos MORI 8, 133, 146 irony 123 Jack Daniel’s 24 John Deere Company 22, 62 Jungian school 88 key performance indicators (KPIs) 144 Lacta, From the Start (2017) 27, 135, 171 Las Pequenas Cosas (Rodriguez 2016) 68, 172 Lavidge and Steiner model 52 leads 132 Lebanon, Undress522 42 The Lego Movie (2014) 73, 117–118 Lions Entertainment 69 ‘The Little Things’ (Rodriguez, 2016), Estrella Damm 91–94 local advertising agencies 163 Los Santos +3°C, Greenpeace 75–76 Louis Vuitton, The Trunk 80 M Live Studio 161 macro-distribution 35 magazines 22

Mahou 74 MailChimp 162 marketing 43 marketing mix 42–43 Marriott 161–162 mass production 35 Master’s Degree in Transmedia Communication (UNIR) 152–154 materialism 78 Matrix 102 Mattel 111; Barbie 46 measurement phase, branded content 160–161 measurement systems: companies specialized in 167–168; dashboard 132–133 measuring effectiveness 144 media agencies 163; involvement in creating branded content 166–167 media and advertising integration 31 media channels 3 media companies 63–64 media planning and buying 167 medica convergence 138 Mercedes-Benz 110–111 metaphors, filmic storytelling 104–105, 110 Michelin Guide 22, 62 mimesis 105 mission 141 monomyth 88 ‘Mont Blanc’ 124 motivation-based advertising models 52 MRM/McCann, Cuánto 131 mythology 88 myths, filmic storytelling 102 narration 109 narratives 98–101, 109 Narratology 100, 105 national advertising agencies 163 The Navigator Live, Marriott 161 Nestlé TV channel 3 New York Times 117 Nike 110 non-disruption 5 ‘not for trust,’ Banca Intesa 120 objectives of branded content 144 Ogilvy 49 Ogilvy Sao Paulo 66 Old Spice 73–74 online video format 71 original video content 117 Oso 73, 111

Index  paradigm 85 para-social attachment 56 Parodi, Ugo 116–118 ‘Per Fiducia’ 126 Perbellini, Mara 124–126 performance 144 Pernod Ricard, ‘The time we have left’ campaign 76 Pirelli 120 planned distant action advertising 55 plausibility 105–106 players in creation of branded content 157 ‘Pocket Bike Racer’ (2006) 22 printing presses 35–36 PRISMA Method 142 Procter & Gamble 22, 162 producers, involvement in creating branded content 165–166 product assimilation 21; vs. branded entertainment 24–27 product placement 171; vs. branded content 18–21; origins of 24; see also brand placement promotion phase, branded content 160 Provenzi, Ilenia 126–128 psychological processing 54–55 purpose-driven branded content 76–79, 141 quality content 4 ‘Quiz Show’ (1994) 119 radio 22 RAIN Group 64–65 rape, Undress522 42 rational engagement 70 RB Brandfilms 166 reactive or reactive advertising 55 Real Beauty campaign, Dove brand 41 Real Beauty Sketches campaign, Dove brand 66–67 Red Bull 3, 23, 73, 80–81, 162 Reese’s Pieces 24 Reforcer 63 rites, filmic storytelling 102–103 romance genre 135 RSCG 50, 72 Rua Vieja 76–77 Ruavieja campaign 73 Rubber Tracks, Converse 142 sales 132 Sandy Hook Promise, Evan campaign 134 Sassoon, Joseph 122–124

183

‘The Scarecrow,’ Chipotle 23 scenes, scripts 86 Scotch-Brite company 55 screenplays, scripts 84–88 script development 125 scripts 84–87, 117–118, 172, 174; audiovisual scripts 121; characters 87–88; writing 121, 123–126, 128 sequences, scripts 86 short films 73, 78; ‘Beyond Money’ (Cuánto) 78, 111, 131; BMW 23; Cinergía 23; engagement 120; Evan 134; ‘Forever and Ever’ 21; ‘French Kiss’ 162; Las Pequenas Cosas (Rodriguez 2016) 68, 172; ‘The Little Things’ (Rodriguez, 2016) 91–94; The Two Bellmen 161; ‘Vale’ (2002) 85; Vale (Amenabar 2015) 88–91 SnackStrong Productions 134 Snow White 119 Soap Operas 21–22 social dimensions, of advertising 38–41 Solonieve 63 sonsumer socialization theory 40 Soul in Suffering (Curtiz 1945) 24 space, filmic storytelling 106–107 spatial mobility 106 specialized agencies 163 spectacle advertising 72 Starbucks, brand integration 20 ‘Stella’ 126 stories 99–100, 109, 122–123, 125 storylines 109 storytelling 45–47, 68, 73, 98, 127, 128, 175; cinema and 99–101; see also filmic storytelling strategic phase, Branded Content Smart Canvas Toolkit 139–146 strategic process, working phases of branded content 158–159 structure, script 84–86 surprise, capacity for 123 The Switch (2016) 110 target audience 139 target markets 42 television 37, 73–74, 81, 119; Don Matteo 121; The Navigator Live, Marriott 161 theme 127 ‘Think. Then buy.’ 41 ThinkMoney 63 time, filmic storytelling 106–107 ‘The time we have left’ campaign, Pernod Ricard 76

184 Index ‘To be wherever you are’ 78 Toshiba 124; The Beauty Inside (2012) 73–75 Tous, Oso 73 transgressive strategy 50, 73 transmedia context 117, 119, 122, 125, 127 transmedia narratives 2 Trappa 74 The Trunk, Louis Vuitton 80 trust 48 The Two Bellmen, Marriott 161 The Ultimate Virtual Selling Toolkit, RAIN Group 64–65 Una fotografia irrepetible 74 Undress522 41–42 Unilever 41, 66–67 Unique Photograph 74 Unique Selling Proposition 39, 49–50, 72–73 U.S. Navy, video games 143 Vale (1996) 98 ‘Vale’ (2002) 85 Vale (Amenábar 2015) 68, 88–91, 105, 172 Vale (Amenábar 2017) 107

Valora View, BBVA bank 65 value proposition 71 value/s 76, 176 Verbatim Championship 23 verisimilitude 105–106, 110 video games 23; Doritos 134; ‘Pocket Bike Racer’ (2006) 22; U.S. Navy 143 The Virtual Selling Skills and Challenges Report, RAIN Group 65 vision 141 Volkswagen Group, ‘Forever and Ever’ 21 Volvo 125 ‘We learn together’ campaign, BBVA bank 65–66, 78 web series: The Beauty Inside (2012) 73–75; From the Start (2017), Lacta 135, 171 Welcome Home (2018) 74 Woo, John 23 working phases of branded content 156– 158; content creation phase 159–160; distribution phase 160; measurement phase 160–161; promotion phase 160; strategic phase 158–159 writing scripts 121, 123–126, 128