Most of the marketers I've worked with over the years have a handful of "go-to" questions they look to satisfy in order to hire a new company like ours, or move forward with a new initiative like branded entertainment. And these questions tend to fall into two categories; how is this new and innovative, or how is this tested and true. Not many initiatives answer both, but branded entertainment does.

You see, the idea of embedding a brand's story and proposition directly into some entertaining content, rather than interrupting it, was how TV was presented in it's infancy. Marketers sponsored, and often produced, the shows viewers enjoyed back in the 1950's. There were no commercial breaks. Brands made their case at the beginning or end of a show, or at times directly in it, as a part of the script and storyline. Viewers enjoyed the entertainment value of the show itself, without the distractions of a cluster of commercial interruptions.

At the same time, the way branded entertainment works is very new. The measures of success are an evolution of TV advertising. Like TV ads, we study the impact of a web show on a brand's awareness and perceptions too, but we don't need to wait until the end of a commercial run - we measure this while it's running, with innovative social monitoring tools. And often times we use this learning to edit the content, or the way it's distributed, mid-flight. We also don't need to hang around the office water cooler the day after our show airs to hear what people think, we see it through the multitude of social influence sites and apps that people use to post and share their thoughts and feelings.

So you decide what's important, an opportunity to dabble in something new and breakthrough, or the need to do something with a track record of success.

With branded entertainment, your questions will be answered.