London, UK – Today, the Branded Content Marketing Association (BCMA), the leading global authority for branded content and influencer marketing, has published a new best practice guide to creating meaningful branded content. The BCMA’s latest resource for the marketing industry has been produced in partnership with Havas Play – Havas’ network dedicated to earning consumers’ attention and creating enduring business impact through meaningful experiences at the intersection of entertainment, sports, technology, and fandom.
“The Best Practice Guide to Branded Content Made Meaningfully” will function as a living document, which will be continually updated to reflect culture, society and changing attitudes to what we define as ‘meaningful’. This guide is intended as both a resource that companies can consult to increase the meaningfulness of their branded content initiatives, as well as a commitment that organizations can take to hold themselves accountable for the ethics and transparency of these efforts.
The best practice guide expands on four key principles for creating meaningful branded content:
- Safety: Prioritizing the safety and mental wellbeing of staff, colleagues, and client, and ensuring that content does not encourage taking risks or acting irresponsibly.
- Honesty: Adhering to the Institute of Advertising Ethics’ principles & practices to ensure content is created to the highest standards of truth, transparency, and protection.
- Representation: Actively encouraging casting for the widest and most diverse representation as possible and providing bias training to the moderators of creative sessions to ensure everyone is heard.
- Sustainability: Using AdGreen’s carbon calculator and supplier lists to measure carbon footprint throughout production and identify renewable energy partners to reduce emissions to the absolute minimum.
Organizations that make the public commitment to adhere to these guidelines pledge to make these principles transparent and visible across their ecosystem, and to hold suppliers, partners, and freelancers to these standards. The principles have initially been designed to provide guidance for the North America market and will be adapted by the BCMA and Havas Play for implantation in other global markets.
