Millennials and Branded Content: 8 Ways Brands Can Engage Millennials

4 min readMar 4, 2021

Millennials and Branded Content: 8 Ways Brands Can Engage Millennials

Engaging the Millennial consumer is crucial to Corporate America’s marketing plans. Branded content plays a key role in this effort. Get the research substantiating branded content efforts and read about 8 surefire ways brands can connect with millennials. Source: www.portada-online.com According to a recently released quantitative study “Storytelling: The Current State of Branded Content” by IPG Media Lab, Forbes and S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, branded content’s impact is superior to display advertising in terms of recall, brand perception and intent/consideration. The study results include findings on how millennials react to branded content: “longer form branded content drives millennial purchase consideration: 18–34 year olds responded better to long articles, driving higher engagement consideration rates and aiding recall.” As consumers shift their attention to mobile devices at the expense of traditional media channels, they gain more control over their content consumption experience, opting to ignore, skip, and even block advertising they did not opt-in for. This is especially true in the tech-savvy Millennial segment. While marketers scratched their heads to overcome the hostile ad-blocking environment, branded content has risen as a smart advertising alternative, which has indeed changed the way brands connect with consumers. But there are unique challenges in creating and distributing sponsored content intended for the Millennial generation. Here are seven steps you can take in connecting your brand with the free-thinker and highly connected Millennial users via content they actually want to consume.

1. Partner with a trusted publisher

Identify publishers trusted by your Millennial audience and partner with them. This step is critical because sponsoring content on publishers that do not offer a safe or enjoyable user experience, or worse on publishers that are not regarded as reputable by your consumer, is bound to affect your brand negatively.

2. Produce relevant content

Research the likes and dislikes of your Millennial consumer, then plan your content around topics that are most important to them. Apply user-data information as a guide to shape your content offering. Leverage your partnering publisher’s familiar voice to tell your brand’s story in a way that resonates best with this audience.

3. Offer valuable content

Content Marketing

Fight the urge to produce salesy sponsored content. Rather, look for building brand loyalty by offering Millennials entertaining, educational, inspirational, or otherwise valuable content. Millennials are prone to associating their appreciation for a prized piece of content with the sponsoring brand. Take advantage of this. The production of valuable content definitely pays. According to the above cited study of IPG Medialab, an increase in the effectiveness of branded content over time was also measured. Aided ad recall showed a 17 percentage point improvement when measured against a similar 2013 study conducted by the IPG Media Lab.

Fight the urge to produce salesy sponsored content.

4. Share their values

Beyond your brand’s values, your sponsored content should elevate the values of your Millennial consumer. A study by the Pew Research Center concluded that…[read the full article at www.portada-online.com]