Branded Content Governance Project

As media and marketing merge and new forms of marketing communications proliferate, are regulations, guidance and best practice keeping pace? That is the focus of our three-year international research project, the Branded Content Governance (BCG) Project.  The BCG Project examines the regulation and broader governance of content that is funded or produced by advertisers. The project runs from 2022 to 2025 and is funded by two UK Research Councils (ESRC and AHRC; ES/W007991/1).

• The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
• Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)

The BCG Project is led by three Universities, University of the Arts London (UAL), University of Stirling and Complutense University, Madrid. It is supported by a 90+ international academic network, industry partners (including the Branded Content Marketing Association and Content Marketing Association) and industry, legal, policy and civil society participants.

Activities

We'll produce a detailed mapping of the emerging rules and practices for branded content across the UK, all EU countries, the US, Canada, Mexico and Australia. Our initial reports and all project publications are available on Figshare.

The second stage of analysis focuses on the UK and Spain and investigates how branded content governance is practiced and understood by:

• practitioners,
• policy actors and stakeholders
• and discussed with professional and public media.

Project summary

Branded content is content that is funded or produced by marketers. This includes brands' own media content but also forms of paid advertising that are 'native', blending into the non-advertising communications environment in which they appear, such as editorial-like ‘sponsored content’ hosted by publishers, and 'influencer marketing': paid promotions by social media communicators.

There are powerful pressures driving the integration of advertising and media. We need research to examine what is happening, to ask searching questions on behalf of consumers and wider society, and to put forward well-informed proposals for how rules and practices can be improved. We aim to provide important insights and recommendations for managing and regulating communications in the digital age.

Publications

Read our recent publications. We're aware these documents aren't entirely accessible but we're working to create accessible versions and will replace them once ready.

Online Advertising Regulation: Policy Briefing

Read the briefing on developments in UK policy concerning digital advertising regulation, and find out more about initial research work for the Branded Content Governance Project.

This briefing includes details of advertising policy developments in the UK but sets them in wider context, including EU law and policy, and includes a report on related policy developments in Spain.

• Online advertisting regulation - policy briefing (PDF 5MB)

The UK Branded Content Industry: Report and Survey

Read the survey and analysis of the ‘state of the profession’ for those working in branded content marketing in the UK.

• The UK Branded Content Industry - report and survey (PDF 3MB)

Newsletter

Read our latest newsletters, covering recent activities, in our Figshare repository.

Policy submissions

Project partners and participants

Project participants include key policy stakeholders from industry, trade unions and civil society, involved as research subjects, academic advisers and other contributors to events and outputs.

• Branded Content Marketing Association (BCMA): the global industry body for branded content practitioners, run by practitioners, promoting best practice, sharing knowledge and growing the branded content industry
• Content Marketing Association (CMA): the industry association for marketing, publishing, advertising and social agencies
• Julian Coles, former Policy Director, Internet Commission, member of UNICEF's working group on GDPR and children's rights and Internet Watch Foundation's Ethics Committee
• Jo Farmer, Partner, Lewis Silkin
• Pete Fergusson, CEO, Nemorin Film and Video
• Scott Guthrie, co-chair CIPR Influencer Marketing Panel and Director, Influencer Marketing Trade Body
• Spanish project participants include BCMA (Spain), Asociación de Directivos de Comunicación, Infancia y Comunicación, and Grupo de Sociología de infancia y adolescencia: GSIA

Academic advisors

Project objectives

The over-arching objective is to provide a detailed, cross-national, comparative mapping of the emerging regulation and industry practices of branded content across Europe and selected other countries to inform the assessment and development of governance arrangements by stakeholders. This will be achieved through 6 research objectives.

• Determine the current regulation and governance arrangements for branded content through systematic cross-national comparison and identify and assess indicators of governance effectiveness and industry and stakeholder support.
• Assess the key agencies and processes involved in the new media-marketing ecology, including automation and artificial intelligence, and their implications for governance of the relationships between marketers, marketing agencies, media and communication users.
• Identify how industry practitioners and policy actors assess the suitability, ethics and governance of branded content practices to inform recommendations for governance action.
• Report on media coverage and public mediated discussion of branded content governance in selected general and specialist ('trade') media and online communications, and assess the implications for stakeholder and public understanding.
• Drawing on project research data and wider literature review, produce and disseminate governance recommendations on branded content, including digital/media literacy, online safety, marketing communications and media governance, to inform governance practices for communications.