The rise, growth, and future of branded content in the digital media landscape

Abstract The advertising field has witnessed a dramatic transformation over the past decade. This contribution to the IJA 40th anniversary special issue deals with (digital) branded content; any output fully/partly funded or at least endorsed by the legal owner of the brand which promotes the owner’s brand values, and makes audiences choose to engage with the brand based on a pull logic due to its entertainment, information, and/or education value. We sketch the rise and growth of native advertising and content marketing as two major branded content types in the digital era and describe how the topic has been covered in academic advertising research in the past decade. We conclude with a future outlook for advertising research and practice in hope of encouraging further academic research on the topic and providing insights to practitioners to further develop their digital branded content.