How to Be Good: The Positive Future of Branded Content
How are you sleeping? I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and think – what am I doing it all for? Is the advertising industry really me? Is this the devil's work? And that gnawing feeling in my guts - should I be aiming for something with more purpose?
In the current climate of endless crisis following crisis it’s a wonder any of us are getting any sleep at all. Who can we trust to take the right steps forward, towards a world where things feel good and positive and hopeful? Not the government apparently. Edelman’s 2023 Trust Barometer shows that 62% of consumers have more trust in brands than they do in the people running their country. A nightmare – and a responsibility that brands need to think long and hard about.
I’m determined to answer my night sweats and, as one of the founders and creative directors of Think Make Create, we try to help brands to tell their best stories and become the positive forces for good that we know they can be. The world of branded content is certainly changing. Audiences are less and less tolerant of the empty sales messages that they have to suffer through in order to watch the content they really want. I just bought the monthly ‘boost’ option on Now TV, to pay not to have the ads interrupt my White Lotus binge. And this is my industry. As a kid of the 80s I used to switch between commercial channels, all two of them, to actually try to catch the ad breaks. I cared about the OXO family, I hoped the girl drinking the Nescafé in the cool Beatle would survive her break-up, I knew every word to the ‘finger of fudge’ song. I still do. These were little films that connected with me emotionally and reflected back a world I wanted to see. We need to get back to that essence of brands being at the heart of our entertainment – and do more.
To connect with Gen Z and Alpha, brands have to accept the fact that this audience hates being sold to. They still have as much desire as any consumer ever did – but it’s also a desire to do more and be more, not just have more. As Mary Portas says in her Ted Talk ‘Welcome to the Kindness Economy’, we need to harness this desire and shift the focus away from extraction and endless growth to one of positive imagination. So brands have to step up and be the content that audiences actively want, not just be the bits in front of it barring the way to their entertainment. And this content needs to be GOOD. I don’t just mean good as in as engaging, entertaining, and as memorable as anything their audience may be paying to stream, I mean good good. I mean doing all of that but this content must have values and purpose at its heart.
Brands need to pivot away from a transactional relationship of trying to directly sell products to their audiences and instead become the beacons that their consumers can navigate by. It’s a seismic shift away from a sell to / buy from dynamic, to one where consumers ‘buy into’ a brand and its unique perspective on the world. Instead of littering every conceivable platform with single-use disposable messages, brands can become the custodians of a positive, inspiring, more sustainable evergreen branding culture. They need to ask not just how do we shift units but what do we care about? And how can our brand have a role in impacting those things in a constructive way?
Amazon’s Ad 2022 report on The Power of Purpose-Driven brands said 79% of consumers are more likely to purchase products or services from brands whose values align with their own. But be warned, audiences are great bullshit detectives. Authenticity is key. These values can’t just be tried on like some kind of marketing invisibility cloak, hiding what’s going on underneath. The ubiquitous ‘sustainability’ brief is a case in point – the amount of times we hear ‘can we have some branded content that talks about sustainability’ and yet the importance of whether the brand itself is actually sustainable or not seems to be completely lost on them. This sense of purpose and value is something that has to come from inside, from the core question - why do we exist and who are we existing for?
Patagonia and LUSH are two brands at the top of the list of putting their purpose and impact on the world as their number one priority. Patagonia is absolutely living up to their mission to be “in business to save our home planet” having recently given 98% of their share stock, worth over £84m a year in dividends, to a new non-profit focused on climate activism. LUSH on the other hand has taken the mental wellbeing of their young consumers so seriously that they shut down all of their social media accounts in 2021 and have never gone back. How does this purpose translate into branded storytelling? A great example is Dove’s Men+Care feature documentary made by Ron Howard and his daughter Bryce about modern day fatherhood. Picked up by Apple TV+ the film and supporting campaign were championing the brand’s support of paid paternity leave for dads. It was a massive success for Unilever not only winning a Gold Cannes Lion but also delivering across all brand metrics including increased brand affinity, purchase intent and awareness of the brand purpose.
Purpose-driven branded content is undoubtedly the way forward – it can’t be worthy, dull and there for the sake of it, we have to harness the powers of imagination and fun and creativity to make it. But it can and must have a core seed within it, even if it's buried deep, to reflect and create a better world. Profitable growth for brands will always be a goal and shareholders can’t be ignored - but pointing the force of capitalism in the right direction is the very least we can do.
Until we have a government that can actually lead the way, brands it’s over to you. Be bold, be original, be imaginative and let’s work together to do something for the greater good. We might all sleep a little better at night.
