What is Branded Entertainment?

• October 28, 2021
• Shlomi Ron
• no comments

First off, what is Branded Entertainment?

“For us, it’s true original content that is being financed or co-produced with a brand partner for the purpose of entertaining an individual.”

-Chris Stefanyk
Head of Global Brand Partnerships, Wattpad

If you’re looking at the landscape of visual storytelling you may find two core areas:

1. Branded Content, that is larger in scope and is designed to inform audiences using newsletters, podcasts, blog posts, photos, videos, or infographics.
2. Branded Entertainment that is designed to entertain audiences using filmed entertainment products such as long-form cinematic films across genres (e.g., documentary, action, comedy, etc.), video games, or TV shows.

Both types allow brands to combine medium and message in support of larger brand narratives and achieve a wide range of business goals.

Unlike product placement where products are integrated into a finished script, in branded entertainment, brands are involved from day one in shaping the entire visual storytelling experience around their values (see The Lego Movie).

To help me further unpack this exciting space and in particular branded entertainment, I had a great time chatting with Chris Stefanyk, Head of Global Brand Partnerships at Wattpad.

It’s all in the latest episode of the Visual Storytelling Today podcast.

A bit about Wattpad

Wattpad is a leading social storytelling platform and home to a community of more than 94 million people who spend over 23 billion minutes a month engaged in original stories.

Chris and the Brand Partnerships team work with the world’s biggest brands to connect with Wattpad’s massive global community of more than 90 million people, of which more than 80% are Gen Z.

Wattpad’s Gen Z expertise and insights have helped brands like National Geographic, Microsoft, Unilever, Ben & Jerry’s, Sony, Netflix, Lionsgate, and many others connect with this group. Brand Partnerships has been recognized with industry awards, including Content Marketing and User-Generated Content awards from Digiday (2018 and 2019), a Shorty Social Good Award (2019), and an Influence THIS Award (2019).

We talked about his impressive journey in visual storytelling, what is branded entertainment, his process, notable projects, challenges, his top 3 tips – and much more (see full topic list below).

Watch the full video recording of this interview:

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Topics we discussed:

Use the time stamp markers on the above video to easily navigate.

• 0:00 Introduction
• 3:15 What is your backstory?
• 7:21 What is visual storytelling?
• 9:26 What is branded entertainment?
• 10:10 What is branded content?
• 11:36 What’s the process?
• 13:45 Repurposing content
• 16:07 Data analytics
• 17:05 Examples
• 20:03 Target emotions
• 20:46 CPG examples
• 22:58 Short vs. long form films
• 26:09 Business goals
• 27:53 Integrated approach
• 29:55 The audience role
• 31:46 Success metrics
• 33:33 UGC vs. pro studio
• 35:50 Distribution channels
• 36:57 Next projects?
• 38:58 Streaming service?
• 40:29 Top 3 tips