Already in the third decade of the 21st century, two elements have led to a structural transformation of the advertising industry: branded content and artificial intelligence. After all, these are two new ways to reach the consumers, through the creation of advertising content and technologies. A mix that is revolutionizing how we understand creativity and the relationship with the consumer, in shirt, the advertising industry.
Connecting with the public and even more so with the new generations is not easy if brands and agencies do not make use of new developments in communication to create engagement and more critical and active receivers. Consumers, usually saturated with messages and products, no longer have to flee or avoid intrusive advertising, but in this change of the advertising paradigm, they are the ones who approach brands and their advertising creations in search of a positive emotional bond that unites them to a particular brand. Thus, an intimate bond is generated that favors brand-consumer that serves as a loudspeaker for the brand, its value and its message.
In this context, both creativity and professional creatives are reaffirmed as the differential value of today's advertising agency, which requires well-trained professionals who are not afraid to use new ways of communicating by using entertainment and an incipient technology as the AI that is unregulated but is clearly here to stay.
Brands can decide to take sides in decisions that generate a change in the world, they can create interesting content in a globalized world full of noise. Even the main OTT (Over The Top) platforms such as Netflix, Apple TV, HBO, Disney+ or Amazon Video offer a premium version just to avoid unwanted messages. People are currently using ad-blocking software not to be bothered by interruptive advertising when they browse the web. This gives us a clue about how much people want to move away from advertising
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The aim should therefore be to try to ensure that the level of customer satisfaction matches the brand's stated objectives. The progressive decline in audiences in conventional media and the effectiveness of conventional advertising formats has led to the creation of new formats and the use of AI that seek to generate content of interest to the audience in which to integrate the brand in a natural, unobtrusive and emotional way. There’s a need for a change of mentality, advertising creatives and brands need to start thinking about providing desirable content to their consumers, all the workforce has to be put into to reach consumers again by creating quality and entertaining content.
There are three key points to understand why a volume on branded entertainment and AI would be necessary to address the considerable change that brands and conventional advertising are facing in the short term:
- Because of the continuous developments in the field of Communication, collective studies that analyze the phenomenon from different perspectives are important.
- Because different cases relevant to the advertising industry in particular and communication in general are reviewed, covering a wide geographical and temporal spectrum.
- Because entertainment, brand-supported content and the use of AI in advertising are some of the most interesting topics in advertising today, both for professional and academic audiences.
Given this, the main objective of the volume would be to lay the scientific foundations on the use of AI and branded content, understanding it as an essential tandem for the understanding of the advertising (and social) reality. Thus, the manuscript stands as a point of support for the academic and, in turn, professional environment.
The volume is primarily aimed at teachers and academic researchers in the field of communication all over the world. However, we believe that the book will be of particular interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students at international universities who wish to broaden their knowledge on topics related to branded content, digital communication, consumer engagement, the use of AI in advertising… These topics are introduced in various academic programmes all around the globe.
Although the main potential audience could be academics, there is no reason to exclude a corporate sector, private organizations and for sure a professional audience from the communication field, in particular advertising creatives and brand’s marketing directors, to whom this book will be useful to embrace and implement a new approach to the messages they spread to their target audiences. And of course, we can’t leave out a more general public who may be interested in understanding the ways in which communication, brands, media and technology may be influencing their daily lives.