Marketing Through Art: The Case of Branded Entertainment

Marketing and specifically advertising have been long capitalising on entertainment media and the cultural industries to sell products and services, and to expand to new markets. However, due to the continuous technological developments and changing consumer demands, marketers and the media are faced with finding innovative ways to reach consumers. In cultural production, where arts and marketing coincide, cultural intermediaries like marketers behave as marketplace actors to pervade cultural artefacts with augmented symbolic meaning. This chapter explores branded entertainment as an increasingly popular and prominent form of marketing communications within the creative industries. In doing so, we apply a sociocultural approach to branding and through the concept of the film marketing brandscape, we discuss how creative and commercial interests increasingly merge. We provide an overview of the development from product and brand placements to branded entertainment and consider wider macro perspectives by highlighting the importance of a stakeholder framework for branded entertainment. In doing so, we discuss the following stakeholders: the brand, the producer, the platforms, the agency, talent, and the audience. We conclude the chapter by highlighting issues of transparency and draw attention to ethical implications, presenting further avenues for future research.