What is branded content?
Branded content is the film you would watch even if nobody was selling anything. A documentary about a craftsperson, paid for by the house that employs them. A series about the people who ride at a fitness studio, made by the studio. A magazine feature, a podcast, a short film, an article on a publisher's site, each one produced or funded by a brand and each one judged by the standards of the form it borrows: is it a good film, a good read, a good listen. The brand is present, sometimes prominently, but it is the context rather than the content.
The practice is as old as the sponsored radio drama, and it has grown with every medium where audiences can skip an ad. The modern version ranges from a brand's own channel, where it publishes the films it commissions, to partnerships with publishers who produce the content in their editorial voice with the brand's money and name attached. What unites it is the deal with the audience: we will give you something worth your time, and in exchange you will know who gave it to you.
Why it matters
Why branded content matters
Advertising interrupts; branded content invites. In a world where most people pay to avoid ads or scroll past them in under a second, a brand that makes something people choose to watch has found the only reliable way to hold attention for longer than a glance. The time spent is different in kind: ten minutes with a film about a founder builds an understanding of a company that no thirty-second spot can, and the audience ends up feeling they discovered the brand rather than being sold it.
It also carries credibility. Content that lives up to its form, a real documentary, a real piece of journalism, borrows the trust of that form, and the brand attached to it is trusted by association. The reverse is just as true: branded content that turns out to be an ad in disguise burns the trust it borrowed, which is why the good work is honest about who paid for it and generous about what it gives.
In practice
How branded content works in practice
- 01
The work begins with an editorial idea, not a message. The brand and its agency ask what story the brand has the right to tell, what audience would want it and in what form, and the answer is often something adjacent to the product rather than about it: the craft, the people, the culture the brand belongs to. A creative director and a writer or director develop the piece as they would any film or feature, with the brand's role agreed up front: how visible, how often, and what it will never do.
- 02
Production follows the form. A documentary is shot like a documentary; an editorial feature is written by someone who writes features. Distribution is planned from the start, on the brand's own channels, through a publisher partnership, with paid support, or all three, and the content is cut into the shorter pieces that lead people to it. Success is measured in time and sentiment as much as in reach: how long people watched, what they said, whether they came back for the next one.
At RIOT
Branded content at RIOT
It is a large part of our work. The Lew Frankfort "Bag Man" documentary for Coach is a film about a man and a company, made to be watched. The seventeen instructor films for SoulCycle are portraits first and brand work second. The Medusa film for Tiffany & Co. treats one subject with the patience of a short feature. And our films for WSJ Custom Content and "The Future, In Focus" for News Corp are branded content from the publisher's side: editorial in form, funded by a partner, made to the publication's standard.
Watch out
What people get wrong about branded content
Making an ad and calling it content. Audiences recognize a sales message the moment it appears, however long the film is, and the label does not change what they see. The other mistake is hiding the brand entirely. Content so subtle that nobody knows who made it is a gift to the audience and a loss to the client; the brand should be present with confidence, in the credits, the framing and the taste.
A third mistake is judging it like a campaign. Branded content works slowly and indirectly, through affinity rather than response, and the brand that demands a sales lift from a documentary has commissioned the wrong thing.
