Branded content: practices and governance

This chapter examines the forms, evolution and implications of branded content practices, ranging from brands’ own media to sponsored content and programmatic native advertising. The ways in which marketers are adopting branded content is explored in the context of the ongoing convergence of paid, owned, earned and shared media. How branded content is developing in different national and regional contexts is influenced by formal regulations and by the cultures and practices of media and marketing practitioners and users alike. Following a mapping and analysis of practices, the chapter discusses how analysis of branded content governance can advance media and marketing industries research. Such governance arrangements range across formal laws and rules to various kinds of self-regulation, 'norm entrepreneurship', and more 'liquid' organisational arrangements, identities and practices.