Within the environment briefly described in the introduction, traditional advertising gradually lose its appeal to audiences (Aitchison, 2004). In fact, due to its features -in most cases ads are not a piece of artistic creation- it is perceived as just an interruption, and intrusive in media fruition. Conventional commercials stop the movie narration, as well as a digital video fruition, or a reading experience. Clearly this is not for creative ads, with strong ideas, made by top directors, with popular testimonials or special effects. But these are rare exceptions, tending to become border line cases between advertising and branded entertainment (as later described).
From a behavioral point of view, Millennials rarely watch tv, but prefer streaming and on-demand entertainment; 85% of them regularly watch videos on Youtube (Arnold, 2018). In most cases users are not searching for advertised products, nor for information about them. In most cases advertising is not a piece of artistic creation, nor it is attractive itself. So, it’s just an interruption. Almost 86% of tv viewers skip commercials (Mission, 2019) and many consumers use ad-blockers (dato), or prefer to subscribe to entertainment platforms for ad-free options. Besides, traditional advertising is not considered reliable, as only 1% Millennials is convinced by advertising in their buying behaviors (Fifty Square Feet, 2016).
Users become always more demanding, and companies continuously search for alternative ways to reach them, to get their attention, and engagement. This ulteriorly shifted the attention of both managers and creators towards hybrid formats and messages. Hybrid messages can be defined as: “all paid attempts to influence audiences for commercial benefit using communications that project a non-commercial character” (Balasubramanian, 1994, p. 30). These messages combine advertising and publicity, and so offer a double benefit to companies: they are fully controlled by the company as paid advertising, but they are not configured as such, and so are differently processed by customers, who tend to consider them as publicity, more credible than traditional advertising, and so can be more influenced by them (Balasubramanian, 1994). Product placement, branded content and its spin-off of branded entertainment are three main tools to effectively deliver hybrid messages.