Branded Content: Analysis of Case Studies and Measurement of Its Effectiveness Using Neuromarketing Techniques

Introduction

The progressive and worrisome loss of advertising effectiveness through conventional adverts has been an unceasing topic of research over the last two decades. The breakthrough of Internet, the saturation of advertising, and the dispersion of media and audiences are some of the reasons why the problem has been exacerbated (Baraybar-Fernandez et al., 2017), and the sector has responded by developing new forms of advertising (Méndiz-Noguera, 2007).

Although a link between advertising and sales has been confirmed, only occasionally has a positive relationship been seen between advertising and brand equity (McAlister et al., 2016), which highlights the shortcomings of conventional advertising in terms of the transmission of brand messages. The emergence of Internet brought forth a new age in which engagement with the public (Costa-Sánchez, 2014), the search for brand experiences (Kotler et al., 2009), and emotional messages (Roberts, 2005) were the way forward. Of all the new forms of advertising, the most effective vehicle has been adverts embedded within content, especially in online media (De-Haan, Wiesel, & Pauwels, 2016).

At first, customization of traditional advertising to the online environment brought with it the added problem of being perceived as intrusive and impersonal (Bleier & Eisenbeiss, 2018). For this reason, the development of native online advertising appeared with the aim of having features somewhat similar to journalistic content (Schauster, Ferruci, & Neill, 2016). The objective was to overcome the ease of omitting the viewing of advertisements that technology had already made possible, specifically with the uses of ad blockers, by capturing the interest of the audience (Baek & Morimoto, 2012).

Internet has made it easier for organisations to disseminate their own content created in-house in order to interact with their audience, with the most important advertising innovations being branded content and native advertising (Watson et al., 2018).

Branded content can be defined as the development of content that is produced, or at least fostered, by the brand in order to engage the audience (Del-Pino-Romero, & Reinales-Lara, 2013). They do this by blending entertainment and advertising without the possibility of disassociation (Caro-Almela, 2013).

Branded content is that which is of interest to the audience, and it integrates the brand in a more natural (Lehu, 2009) and sometimes more educational way. The product promoted is no longer the main factor (Miotti & Payne, 2019) in creating dynamic, bi-directional content based on public opinion gathered mainly from the participation of users on social media (Castelló-Martínez, Del-Pino-Romero, & Ramos-Soler, 2014). Brands thereby achieve greater segmentation with a more integrated presence and the target audience finds content that is closer to its interests, tastes and preferences.

The origins of branded content can be traced back to the link between spinach and the character of Popeye, reaching its greatest impact in 2012 with the jump of ‘bird man’ Felix Baumgartner, promoted by Red Bull, with an audience of 170 million live viewers and 300 million views on YouTube in the days that followed (Regueira, 2015). Another global brand that has created value through branded content in recent years is Victoria’s Secret, mainly through content generated in relation to its annual Fashion Show (Mañas-Viniegra, 2018). In all of these cases, branded content is more oriented to storytelling than advertising persuasion (Tur-Viñes & Segarra-Saavedra, 2014), as products and brands become the content itself (Arbaiza-Rodríguez & Huertas-García, 2018).