Branded content marketing has emerged as a powerful alternative for publishers seeking to deliver high-value content to their audiences while enhancing revenue, especially during major events like the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
This strategy goes beyond traditional advertising by creating engaging and relevant content that resonates with viewers on a deeper level. As publishers look to capitalize on the global excitement surrounding the Olympics, branded content offers a unique opportunity to forge meaningful connections with audiences and generate substantial engagement.
What Is Branded Content?
Branded content is a piece of content marketing media that a marketing professional creates to promote businesses or specific products in innovative ways. Unlike traditional digital marketing efforts such as ads, commercials and banners, branded content marketing isn’t about doing a direct sale, but rather establishing a long-lasting connection with your audience.
Branded content can take many forms, but is typically a partnership with a publisher and/or advertiser that work alongside a brand to create a storytelling narrative that inspires, informs or influences the audience. Through branded content marketing, a business can showcase their personality, ethos, and identity, humanizing the brand and fostering authentic and trustful relationships.
Why Is Branded Content is Important?
Branded content marketing matters because it is a long-term investment in your brand’s reputation. Besides being a great way to attract new customers by grabbing their attention with engaging media, branded content helps businesses maintain its customer base by providing entertaining and educational content that appeals to existing customers.
So, why is branded content so important for your business?
1. Build trust and authenticity
Creating compelling content fosters emotional connections that traditional marketing alone cannot achieve. Brands can create narratives that showcase origins, challenges and triumphs, companies become more relatable and this transparency establishes a foundation for a genuine and honest relationship.
By creating narratives that evoke emotions such as joy, empathy and inspiration, branded content marketing helps companies to resonate deeply with audiences on an emotional level.
2. Focus on consumers
Branded content marketing helps shine the spotlight where it matters the most: your customers.
Optimizing customer experience is a key objective of any successful marketing campaign strategy, and branded content play an important role in this journey. By creating content that is relevant, valuable and enjoyable for your audience, you can foster positive and memorable experiences.
Branded content also serves an educational purpose, offering pertinent information, addressing concerns and questions or engaging in cultural trends. Whether delivered through videos, blog posts, or social media updates, branded content enhances the customer experience, creating a more enjoyable and fulfilling interaction with your brand.
3. Potential for growth
Branded content pieces usually appears on digital platforms such as social media, the company’s website and media outlets. Because the internet is in constant evolution, there are always potential new formats or channels for branded content to emerge and become popular.
As more platforms are born and integrate with one another, so does the reach of a branded content marketing strategy, attracting consumers from different internet sources. To make sure that it is easy for customers to find the brand and its content, it is crucial to optimize all pieces of content for SEO purposes.
4. Build brand awareness
According to the International Journal of Advertising, branded content is 22 times more effective than traditional advertising. Branded content helps increase visibility and recognition of your brand by creating engaging and memorable content that resonates with your target audience. This can enhance brand recall and establish a stronger brand presence in the market.
5. Differentiates the Brand from Competitors
In a crowded market, branded content allows a brand to showcase its unique voice, values, and personality. This differentiation helps the brand stand out from competitors and can be a key factor in a customer’s decision-making process.
Examples of Branded Content
Marketing professionals can create a wide range of branded content pieces, such as:
- Documentaries that connect the brand to impactful stories
- User-generated content for social media
- Explainer series that connect websites with videos and quizzes
- Sponsored articles in news websites
- Case studies highlighting how the brand connects with audiences
Branded Content in Sports
Branded content in sports has become a powerful tool for marketers, leveraging the passion and engagement of sports fans to create memorable and impactful campaigns. This type of content allows brands to seamlessly integrate their message into the sports experience, providing value to fans while enhancing brand recognition and loyalty.
By aligning with the excitement and emotional highs of sporting events, brands can create authentic connections with their audience. Whether through sponsorships, collaborations with athletes, or creating unique sports-related content, brands can tap into the fervent fan base to drive engagement and brand affinity.
Brands can explore different types of sports branded content, such as influencer-driven videos, compilations of unique and impactful moments or personalized profiles of teams and athletes, brands can leverage the power of a well-crafted storytelling to reach a wider audience.
Why the Olympic Games are a Great Opportunity for Branded Content
The Paris 2024 Olympic Games present an unparalleled opportunity for branded content due to their global reach and the intense emotional connection they evoke among viewers from all over the world. With over 1 billion estimated global audience, the Olympics offer brands an unique platform to reach a diverse and engaged audience. The event’s universal appeal and the stories of perseverance, triumph, and sportsmanship resonate deeply with viewers, making it an ideal backdrop for creating impactful branded content. By aligning with the values and excitement of the Olympics, brands can craft narratives that not only promote their products but also inspire and connect with their audience on a profound level.
Moreover, the multi-faceted nature of the Olympics, encompassing a wide variety of sports and athletes from different cultures, allows brands to tailor their content to specific segments of the audience. This versatility enables brands to create highly personalized and relevant content, enhancing engagement and effectiveness. Additionally, the extensive media coverage and social media buzz surrounding the Olympics amplify the reach of branded content, providing ample opportunities for brands to leverage user-generated content and real-time marketing.
Successful Branded Content Initiatives during the Olympic Games
P&G’s “Thank You Mom” Campaign
To celebrate 100 days until the Opening Ceremony of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, Procter & Gamble (P&G) released a new installment of their award-winning “Thank You, Mom” by releasing a new video, “Strong”.
The branded content piece followed the Olympic Games journeys of four mothers and their Olympian children, showing moments, both big and small, when a mother’s strength makes all the difference, building up to the moment when each child finds their own courage to participate in the world’s biggest sports event – the Olympic Games.
P&G’s branded content marketing strategy sought to reach their most important audience, moms. With over 1 billion global impressions, the campaign greatly increased P&G’s brand awareness and it is considered one of the company’s most successful worldwide campaigns ever.
Leveraging Arena Community for Branded Content Strategies
Publishers can leverage Arena Community to forge impactful partnerships with brands and develop robust branded content strategies. Arena Community’s suite of products, including Live Chat, Live Blog, real-time engagement tools, and content moderation, offers a dynamic platform for creating immersive branded experiences. By utilizing these functionalities, publishers can host interactive live events, conduct real-time polls, and facilitate discussions that seamlessly integrate brand messaging, making the content more engaging and relevant for the audience.
These initiatives not only enhance audience engagement but also open up new revenue streams for publishers. By partnering with brands, publishers can create sponsored content and collaborative campaigns that resonate with their readers. Arena Community’s analytics tools provide valuable insights into audience behavior, allowing publishers to tailor their content strategies and demonstrate the effectiveness of branded content to their partners. This synergy between interactive online community features and branded content marketing not only boosts publisher revenue but also strengthens the connection with their audience, fostering a loyal and engaged community like never before.
Learn how Arena can help you enhance audience engagement in sports coverage.
