5 Things Every Content Producer Needs To Know About Brand-funded Content

Branded entertainment is booming - but how can producers really work with brands? In this TellyCast episode, Justin Crosby talks to brand funded content specialist Charlie Read, founder of Upstream, about the five things every content producer needs to know about brand-funded content. From understanding business outcomes and audience insight to building IP with brands, learning their language, and shifting from interruption to engagement, this episode is a practical guide to the fast-growing branded content space.

Charlie's Story of the Week https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/aug/28/bland-easy-to-follow-for-fans-of-everything-what-has-the-netflix-algorithm-done-to-our-films

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Transcript

Justin Crosby: [00:00:00] Hi, I am Justin Crosby and welcome to a new season of TellyCast. This  we're talking branded content with Charlie Reed, founder of Upstream. Charlie's a creative strategist and founder of Upstream drawing on over a decade of experience in the independent agency world. Prior to launching Upstream, he co-founded the Outfit, a creative agency focused on turbocharging vast growth businesses.

He also set up Channel Four's in-house agency 4 Creative, where he married entertainment Insights with effective brand storytelling expertise. He now uses that to bridge the gap between producers and brands. In the branded content space, Charlie's worked with some of the world's biggest brands to help them navigate the content space.

And he's here to share the five things every content producer needs to know about branded entertainment. Today we're gonna cut through the noise and give you a clear playbook for building stronger partnerships with brands. Charlie, welcome to the show. How you doing? Very well, Justin, thanks very much for inviting me.

Not [00:01:00] at all. Great to have you on and great to be talking about branded content, branded entertainment, brand funded programming. We are gonna get into that in a minute in terms of what the right terminologies are. But first of all, tell us about upstream then. Tell us about your business because obviously you've got a really long.

Career in branded entertainment and marketing and and the whole creative space. So tell us about what, what it is you're doing right now. 

Charlie Read: Well, upstream has predominantly been set up to really help, production companies find and diversify their revenue streams into new areas. Particularly we're working with brands and the role of upstream is really to help those businesses future-proof their offerings moving forward.

But I think one of the key things that we do really well as a business is to help brands and production companies. Redesign really how we all work together so we can actually get some great business off the ground and make great work. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah, well it's, it's a crucial time for that. I think we, we've, [00:02:00] you know, had lots of conversation with producers over the last few months about obviously the, the lack of commissioning and the bigger role for brands now when it comes to, uh, entertainment and, you know, amazing work with some brands are doing and where, where this space is all going.

I think the one thing is. For sure his brands are gonna become more and more important. Definitely aren't there? Definitely in terms of entertainment providers. But so tell us about the outfit as well. 'cause the outfit was a business that you run for a number of years after, after channel four that you recently sold as well.

Tell us about that. 

Charlie Read: That's right. Well, I think going back to my time sort of at uh, for Creative For Creative was predominantly an agency set up by Channel four clearly to deal with marketing output, working across their channels and to advertise all the great programming on Channel four, film four E four and more for, but one of the key prerequisites of setting up that business was that it could work with external brands.

And I oversaw sort of 60% of the revenue coming in, working with. [00:03:00] Brands in different ways. And what I really noticed, and this is 15 to 20 years ago, that brands were increasingly recognizing that there's an advertising job to do with traditional advertising. But there's a whole new market opening up where brands wanted to blur the brand.

Trees between advertising and programming and get closer to an editorial space, do a job that advertising couldn't actually do and can't always do very well. Mm. And that really sort of led us down the path of really thinking about what a business when we left Channel four would look like. And that was the outfit.

And predominantly the work which we really pioneered was in the branded entertainment space. Right. We ran that for 15 years and then we sold it last year to a social agency. But I was really also looking for the next big challenge from that sort of point, and you touched on it earlier, Justin production companies are going through a particularly hard time with seismic change in media.

And I think with that inevitably comes huge opportunities. So having started out my career, [00:04:00] originate. At production companies, I felt that it was time to go full circle and help production companies really navigate this new space of working more coherently with brands and interpreting the language of brands to able to really open up new revenue streams for production companies.

Justin Crosby: Yeah, well, I, I think the, there are ways, and we're gonna touch on this in a second, that, you know, there are ways that perhaps producers have treated brands, approach brands, thought of brands that probably isn't. An an approach that's fit for purpose in today's market. But we're, we're gonna talk uh, about that in a, a little while, but coming back to something you just said about, you know, brands wanting to get into that space that advertising couldn't reach.

Can you expand on that a little bit? I mean, I, I, is that more about. Brands wanting more cultural currency and wanting to become more relevant because we all know we all hate advertising. Really at the heart of it. We all try and skip ads. We all try and, you know just avoid ads where they're coming on.

You know, [00:05:00] as a consumer, it's a necessary evil in, in many. In many cases, but, um, what, what, what is that space that brands are looking to to, to, uh, to approach? 

Charlie Read: Well, I think when we started out sort of discovering this space back at, uh, for creative and also at the outfit, I think arguably we were a little bit ahead of our time.

So first off, I think the brands which were experimenting with this space of actually figuring out that actually there could be, as you say, a different way of connecting with hard to reach audiences and do something outside of normal advertising. Which would bring a story to life in a different way about the brand, which people often wouldn't know about and you couldn't usually coherently do in a 32nd television ad.

But yes, we were very much, I think, sort of a kind of ahead of a time. I mean, there's a report in 2023 by Kantar. Where 87% of, um, audiences, or maybe it's 83%, um, were saying that they actively avoid advertising, not necessarily hate advertising, because there is, look at Goggle Box, we can [00:06:00] see that there's a huge part of the populace who still see the ad break, and it still does an amazing job.

But I think we definitely, as part of this seismic change, going through some seismic audience habit change, particularly as we know. With our kids and with anybody under the age of 30, the way they're consuming media is different, and I think that advertising's found it harder to compete in that space across more platforms, across kind of different types of viewing habits.

The fact that everyone's second screening and tuning out of ad breaks is a real problem. So I think there's a fi a recognition now in the market for marketeers that actually as part of a change, it's not just media in the broadest sense with. Production companies and distributors being affected, marketing departments are going through a seismic change as well.

How do they get attention? How do they command attention in a really busy market? And it's a bit of a problem. 

Justin Crosby: Let's, let's talk about terminology then. Branded entertainment, brand funded programming, advertiser funded programming, branded content. What, you know, what should we be calling [00:07:00] it? What's, what is the correct terminology in your.

View that, you know, accurately describes what we're talking about? 

Charlie Read: Really interesting point. Happy to be drawn into this discussion. I think the broadest sense, clearly brand funding is a mechanism by which brands fund content, so that bit is absolutely fine and that is a broad description I'd say, which summarize.

All of those touch points you just talked about, but I think if we look the lens through the lens of a marketeer, branded content's been around for a long time, and often that terminology is sort of used by marketing teams to create product demos. Editorial pieces about, not necessarily the brand, but about the product.

A lot of it is quite tactical. A lot of it is quite performance driven and a lot of it, quite frankly, ends up in the bin. It does a very important role for the brand, but it sits at a different point within the marketing. It's not entertainment. It's not entertainment. No. It does a certain job and actually if you step back and you look at a marketing [00:08:00] funnel, and I'm gonna bore people about marketing funnels, but it's a very important thing for production companies to understand.

But in the old world, and it applies to, uh, the world we're in today, however, journeys are slightly different, but very literally, there's a marketing funnel where you have brand awareness work, which sits at the top of the funnel, and that's traditionally advertising. And 32nd TV ads you then have consideration, which is where you win.

Consumers, hearts and minds, and we have conversion, which is often the performance and tactical side of advertising, and a lot of branded content sits within that consideration and lower funnel activity. So to your point, I really like the word branded entertainment because first of all, it plays to the strength of.

Production companies in indies, what they do brilliantly and entertainment is a thing which engages audiences. And that when you insert that into our terminology, it puts it further up the value chain. Yeah, and I think that's the really big thing about this market at the moment. Whilst there's plenty of room to do lower end tactical social work, I think the real unlock with [00:09:00] production companies in these is getting in further.

Upstream to the top of that funnel by creating work, which generally engages audiences. And that's branded entertainment to me. Yeah. 

Justin Crosby: Okay. Great. And that's, that's helpful and, and, and I think, you know, to your point as well. Production companies really in the main, and obviously it's a very, using this as a very broad brush stroke.

I know there's some production companies out there who are really well versed in doing amazing work within, uh, branded programming. But you know, I think there's also a number of other production companies who may be a little bit guilty of. Only approaching brands when they can't get traditional broadcaster to fund a show.

Mm-hmm. You know, it's like the, the brand is the last gap. Mm-hmm. Fund, you know, the, the last port of call for funding before a a a project dies, you know? So we are gonna be talking about, as we say, going upstream, understanding a little bit more about what brands need and how to talk a bit more of brand language and understand what they need and.[00:10:00] 

Really this is a new customer for a, for a production company. Correct. Production companies have had a broadcaster as production, uh, as a customer for many, many years. That's kind of relationship has remained unchanged for 40 years or so. This is perhaps we are moving into a new area where we might need to understand a new customer from a, a producer's point of view.

So, so let's, let's, let's go into these five. Different things that every content producer needs to know about brand funded entertainment. So number one brands don't fund shows. They fund business outcomes. Unpack what that means for producers. 

Charlie Read: For all. To your earlier point, Justin, about ad funded programming, I think we lived in a, a blissful age 10 to 20 years ago where there was, uh, a very good revenue stream for certain types of production companies around getting brands to fund programming.

But I think as you said, that relationship was slightly flawed because at the end of the day, if we're being really honest, the commissioning [00:11:00] editor wanted to make a program to fill their schedule, and the production company wanted some additional revenue to top up their production budget. Or to fill a funding gap, and whilst that from an economic perspective was completely fair, it didn't work for brands.

I interviewed marketers over the last year and a half around their experience around ad funded programming and having done some of that stuff over the last five to 10 years. It's always been an uncomfortable relationship because from a brand perspective, it's advertising cash, and when it's advertising cash, it has to do something for the marketing department, for the brand.

So when I talk about that sort of top line statement you talked about, it's about reframing how production companies talk to brands and how they start thinking about what's actually important. Two brands because it's not that they want to make programming. They don't wake up in the morning and go, I'd love to create something on ITV.

They wake up and they need to either sell something or they need to do something, which enhances brand reputation. [00:12:00] There's a different set of return on investment, ROI and business objects. They've a job to do. They've got a job to do. Exactly. And when you start understanding that, and actually I think you've talked about in previous podcasts, the brands of the new commissioning editors, I think it's about understanding what was right for commissioning.

Editors need to reframe for what's right for brands. So understanding that language is increasingly important. And when you do that, brands are more open to business and that we do need to get these relationships working closer together. And, and 

Justin Crosby: how do. Producers understand that how, how do they, you know, how do they approach that mindset shift?

'cause it is a crucial mindset shift, isn't it? 

Charlie Read: It absolutely is. And for some people it's really alien. And I think, to be honest, some of the stuff which upstream's doing at the moment, it's taking people on that journey. It's really about getting into the terminology of, again, I think I was saying earlier, what's important to brands and understanding that and shifting what's important to a commissioner.

[00:13:00] Is what's important to a brand? I think understanding sectors, which you might operate in. So for example, let's say you make work, which. It's to do with cars or um, is in a specialist sort of area. I think there's some common synergy to brands automatically and the type of output that you make. So I think sometimes I find that job number one is to sit down with producers and to think about the environment they operate in.

Where does their programming show up? What type of advertisers around them? What are they really about? What are they actually doing? What's in their shows? What's the content? And I think when you start looking through the lens of brand, that's when other opportunities open up. But there's no doubt there's a bit of a guiding hand to do within this to understand, to get the unlock right for production.

Companies have actually, how do they start talking in a, in the language that the marketer will understand. 

Justin Crosby: So, so a good starting point might be for, as you say, if there's a production company who makes a lot of car shows or uh, or shows in the automotive sector, [00:14:00] then it's obviously not a massive leap for them to understand and to start to approach.

Cars in car businesses and related businesses and related industries as maybe their target, you know, their target brands that they wanna work with. And then understanding what the, what the marketeer job is for those bands, whether it's Castrol, GTX, or whether it's I dunno, Tesla, they've, all their marketeers have got jobs to do.

Right? And it's about understanding, producer, understanding what it is they wanna do. Is it a brand, is it a, is it about the model in particular? Is it about. A benefit of that particular product that they might, that the company might want to emphasize. 

Charlie Read: Yeah, and also just a bit overarching, it's really about solving business problems.

That's what it's really about. But to your point, you need to understand what those problems are. If you really look at the advertising sector, there's an awful lot of insight and knowledge out there, which is freely available. There's annual reports which often talk about, um, [00:15:00] brands and what's happening in their sectors, what their threats are, what their problems are.

Mm. So you can actually, with a lot of research and applying, what production companies are really good at is actually figure out what's important to brands. And some of that is again, just about reframing what you do against how you can solve a business problem for a brand. Right. Okay. I think one of the things for me, Justin, actually is.

The word production company is quite an interesting use of terminology 'cause unfortunately from a brand perspective, it implies that you are at the end of the supply chain, that you are executional rather than sort of helping brands solve strategic problems. And actually, I think some of the job production companies need to do is reframe themselves as audience businesses because what they do understand is how to create great content which connects with audiences.

And that is what brands are trying to do. Actually the similarity between them two, they both want to connect with audiences with engaging content. 

Justin Crosby: This is interesting actually because. Traditionally, brands have [00:16:00] had maybe a media agency and they may have a, uh, an advertising agency or an executional agency as well.

So those strategic conversations might happen with happen with not necessarily all of those agencies around the table. It might just actually come to an agency and then they, they're set up to execute that. But we are talking about. A TV production company or content production company having a seat at the table at a strategic level.

And yeah, obviously that needs research in it, that that needs. That needs a company to emphasize their expertise, as you say, within more audience and understanding how to communicate through the medium of visual content, right? 

Charlie Read: Yeah, exactly. There's a lot of agencies in a client mix, and I think one of the things which is going on brand side at the moment is there's huge disruption in how agencies actually work with their brands.

You can see the articles happening in the trade press about the [00:17:00] problems WP and dense you're having at a moment and they own. Big agencies and media agencies, there's a lot of disruption going on that side. Now, what that means is that brands are now looking at basically how they hire services to fix business problems for themselves.

And that disruption, absolutely, to your point, is an opportunity for those buying behaviors of old to change. Now, I think part of it are there will be production companies who will be able to go direct to brands increasingly. A lot of brands are now taking agency services in house, so for Creative was an example of that.

That was 20, 25 years ago. Mm. But the whole reason why Channel Four wanted to bring agency services in house was because they wanted it quicker. Better and cheaper. So brands are taking control of their own agency services. Now, there's something like 80% of brands have some sort of in-house agency. Now, whether it's pr, social, or full creative services, there's different degrees of it all.[00:18:00] 

But what that means is you've got different access points to production company to get into brands. Going to brands is one route. I think the other route is also just getting better at how you talk about your ideas in the context of working with media agencies, also PR agencies, and social agencies. If you turn up not just with an idea, but you are really clear about the problem it solves for brands, you basically, you're just gonna move your idea on further.

That value chain, because it's not about the idea, it's about solving a business problem for a brand. So I think either way you do it. I think part of this is production companies understanding that reframing how they sell their ideas will just mean more opportunities longer term. 

Justin Crosby: Do you think that with social video, the advent of social video and brands becoming, more able and much easier and quicker for brands to be able to tell stories direct to their audience rather than having a broadcast as a, as a gatekeeper. [00:19:00] Surely that that brings more opportunity for production companies because there's gonna be more content that brands can afford to to produce because they're not paying, you know, broad, you know, exorbitant.

Advertising fees, they can actually just build their own audience by creating their own content. So surely there's gonna be more content need to be, needed to be 

Charlie Read: created. A hundred percent. I think that when I was talking to A-C-M-O-A couple of months ago and he was saying, I think. Traditional advertising thinks that there's inevitably sort of four or five television ads you make might make over a period of a year.

Now that might be with a large retailer on the High Street who has various sort of marketing cycles and beats within their sort of business, which they need to hit, whether it's summer. Easter, autumn and Christmas. Mm. Now within the context of below that, to your point about content, there's an estimated 2000 to two and a half thousand other assets on top, which brands now need to make to [00:20:00] fill their funnel.

And we haven't been talked about technology and AI getting in amongst us as well, but there is a volume of assets. But we also are fully aware of things like AI slop, which I think is a fantastic terminology, um, to use out there. And it's all very well that we can turn out more and more of this stuff.

But going back to the brand problem, they still need to create work which connects, I think the opportunity for production companies is going back to your a FP model, whereas there's tendency then. Just to make the program is to now think about content ecosystems, which you can build out around the ip.

And that is really interesting because then you can create something which might do a brand job at the, at the, at the core of the marketing strategy, and that's doing a brand awareness job from the brand. But then around that, you build a world of all that other content which your brand needs, and if you can connect it all the way to the bottom of funnel.

That is an amazing revenue opportunity for production companies. And I think they could also create work which works because there's a [00:21:00] lot of agencies within that, uh, ecosystem for brands and they have various sort of specialisms and it's often not joined up. But if we can create a world where entertainment fuels that entire funnel, then that gets quite exciting.

Justin Crosby: Yeah. Okay. Fantastic. Well, it's great to hear about, you know, exciting opportunities for, uh, for producers. Um, let's go onto your, your, your second point, which is producers already know audiences better than most brands. Tell us about that. You know, how, how can. Producers use that knowledge as a leverage to, you know, to, to help brands solve their problems.

Charlie Read: I think the starting point of this, Justin, is that most production companies get outta the bed in, in the morning and they have a pretty good idea what they want to make. So at their core of their business, core of their DNA is a genre which they really understand, and they've probably been doing it for some years.

It's built within their DNA, they know how to make programming for a certain space, and they're known. By [00:22:00] broadcasters, by commissioning editors to do certain, some type of content really well. Extrapolating that out into the audience bit, I think what production companies haven't really thought about moving forward is actually where does our work often show up?

And back to my earlier point about who advertises around that, which brands are buying around that space, because then you start knowing the audience window which you're in. So you understand that you are making work, which always appears in a peak time slot on Channel four or ITV. You need to go a little bit further to really understand, well what brands are buying around that space and what's that audience, which channel four ITV have at that time slot?

And that starts getting you, enabling you to reframe. You as an audience business, it allows you to start thinking about, well, the work which we do appeal to this type of demographic. So we do this type of content. It appeals to this type of demographic, and we've been doing it for years and years now.

That's really exciting from a marketing perspective because [00:23:00] marketers often don't know their audience and they certainly don't know the types of content which is gonna connect. With those people. So as a production company, if you know the type of content with people wanna watch, you also know how to make it.

That's a very powerful tool. So part of this is really about unlocking that increasingly and being able to frame that actually production companies do do a very valuable job because actually whilst they might not necessarily be a content creator, an Odin audience, they understand an audience and that's really powerful.

Justin Crosby: Yeah. I mean, some of this might be feel a little bit foreign to a, a traditional TV producer though, right? Because their relationship to this point has been a, a purely a B2B relationship with with the, the a commissioner client and the commissioner, they deliver the show. And that's it. And they wait to see the overnights that they, when they come out, however however much further later, and then they find out whether they get a commission or not.

They've never really been [00:24:00] encouraged to understand that audience necessarily. They might know how to make it an amazing show mm-hmm. And to connect with audiences, but they probably maybe don't have the the in depth audience intelligence that they might need. So how, how can they quickly. Get that intelligence because it's, I think you said is a lot of it's out there anyway, even chat, GPT can pull amazing stuff from across the internet, right?

So, yeah. So how, what's the quickest way for a producer to, you know, to tool themselves up with, uh, audience 

Charlie Read: insights? I would ask the commission editor to introduce 'em to the sales team or the broadcaster who they spend a lot of time with, because that's where the insight is, right? Sales teams have this data.

Scheduling teams have this data. It's all, certainly if you look at broadcast, it's already available. That's how a broadcaster makes money. Yeah. They have data and audience insight, and that's what they're selling to brands. So it's just starting, I think, to have [00:25:00] different types of conversations with commissioners, with broadcasters, and start actually caring about this insight.

That's one side. I think the other side is if your work, for example. Is moves into social, and that might be that the broadcaster do all of the marketing and do all the socials, or you might as a production company. If you do it as a production company, clearly you can start getting some insight around what's appealing to audiences.

There's social listening tools. There's data and insights you can gather from your socials, but even from a broadcast perspective, you can still start asking for some of that data. And asking for some of that insight. So whichever way you di it, there's plenty of tools out there in third party sense, which you can access, be able to get insights around, you know, who's talking about your show in social, for example.

And there's also stuff sitting inside broadcasters, which I think production companies could ask a little bit more sort of, um, sort of in, in a, uh, specific manner, but understand a bit more about what's happening with their [00:26:00] show and who's engaging with it. Yeah, yeah. Some production companies got it and some people don't, but.

Broadcasters do hand this information out and certainly, and they, are they 

Justin Crosby: happy? They're happy to share that The sales teams, do you think, I mean, 

Charlie Read: I think they'll ask it in the right way. Why do you want to sort of understand? Yeah, but I think if you built a relationship with commissioning editor, there's no doubt that they would set up a, a conversation with sales teams.

Yeah. But sales teams as well are freely accessible. You know, if you. If you take, uh, partnership teams inside channel for an ITV, they talk to production companies all the time. So it's not an alien relationship to have. I think they quite like the idea of talking to a production company. So I think it's about looking at your network and using the relationships a bit more to actually to.

Start pulling this information in, but also using third party tools and also going out there on social and just seeing who's engaging with your content and start thinking about how you can demonstrate how your work connects with a certain type of of audience. I mean, there's a build from this just in clearly, and [00:27:00] this is where there is an expense involved with production companies where you can bring in creative strategists.

Through businesses like ourselves and other third party businesses who can help make that intellectual argument by using a range of different data sources out there. But it is accessible. Some of it's paid and some of it can be free for your network. Yeah. Okay. 

Justin Crosby: Alright. So let's move on to number three.

Start with a brand's problem and build ip. Together. Tell us about 

Charlie Read: that. Well I think it goes a little bit back to kind of a FP. There is definitely a model for a FP still moving forward. You've got a great idea. You've got a slot and a broadcaster can help you via media agency access brands, but it's very complicated route.

It's slow deals increase in the, I hear fall down often. There's politics in the middle. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. That's the one, that's the one thing that that, that I find a bit frustrating with this whole pla uh, whole sector, because. You know, you have a media [00:28:00] agency and you have a person within the media agency who's, who's who's uh, who's got the brand as a client.

And they may have an ulterior motive of why they want a particular production company to bring them into place. And, and then there's so many moving parts on the brand side, getting things signed off. Yeah. Yeah, it, 

Charlie Read: there's a lack. There's a lack of control and I think that 

Justin Crosby: there's a lot of friction, isn't there?

There's 

Charlie Read: a lot of friction and you know, some production companies I think sort of weigh up the balance because I think there's a feeling that working with brands is incredibly complicated. Now, when I've looked under the hood on this various times, sometimes that's because there's a complex relationship there.

I mean, often the media agency team, whilst there's some brilliant media agencies out there. They often are still building a new relationship with the brand. They don't necessarily understand them. It's the ad agency who are usually the custodian of the brand and really understand them. But media agencies can sometimes be at sort of arm's reach.

So as a production company, you are down here at the sort of bottom supply chain sort of waiting for stuff to happen. And I [00:29:00] think it's a really uneasy environment to be in, particularly when you are really dependent on a show landing. In that quarter or, or for that year. But I'm hearing increasingly that the time to make this stuff is just can go on and on and on.

And to your point about politics, suddenly it can be off. Well, suddenly the funding's been reduced. So part of this is actually looking at the model differently. And back to the earlier point about brands and business objectives. There is a different model out there where you really start with a brand at the heart of what you are doing and you start creating a brief.

Based around what the brand wants. That's a much easier environment to create great work. Now that's not having to sacrifice creative integrity because, and that's certainly not about then making an ad, but it's about balancing the needs of the brand and starting there to understand their strategy. That inevitably means that when you are creating an idea, even if you then go to a commissioning editor and you're getting them to find a slot, you started with a brand [00:30:00] problem at the heart of what you're doing, and that means that you've just got.

More parties aligned early on in the process, and that really, I feel, is the model moving forward. 

Justin Crosby: But you really have to be asked. You have to be invited in, don't you? At that point, you have to be invited to the table by to, to get close to that brand and to solve that brand problem, you need to be invited in by one of these key gatekeepers in this relationship.

Mm-hmm. Whether it's the media agency or the advertising agency or the brand themselves. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that's, that's. First base, isn't it? It's, how do you get to that point? 

Charlie Read: It's, it is first base, but I think back to one of the other things I was mentioning earlier, with the rise of in-house happening brand side, it's there's, it's more, there's more accessibility to reach brands now, and that might be through the PR team.

The social team isn't always necessarily through the marketing team, but I think what production companies also need to do alongside this. Is market themselves differently. So we all know that a lot of production companies look and sound the same. They have great content which separates them. Mm-hmm. But if I was a [00:31:00] marketeer looking in all production companies look like they do the same thing.

Where's the point of difference? Where's their unique value proposition? All the stuff which brands really care about. I don't understand it as a marketeer. So there is a job here for production companies to do, to start marketing to brands position themselves. Position themselves for these conversations.

If you do it in the right way and you get yourself out on LinkedIn and you do good B2B marketing, those benefits will yield over time to your point, if you just wait for someone else to come to you. You can do that, but, but you'll be waiting a long time. Yeah. So I think part of this is businesses starting to learn how to market themselves to brands and make themselves looks available and talk about them.

The areas which we're talking about now in an eloquent fashion, brands are open for business. They don't quite know how to talk to production companies, but if you help them, you're gonna make that door just open a bit more. 

Justin Crosby: Okay, brilliant. So coming, [00:32:00] coming about, uh, uh, talking about, uh, conversations number four.

We've got brands talk a different language than TV and production. Where are the, where are those translation gaps? 

Charlie Read: What are we trying to achieve? Because from a marketing perspective, we are talking about. Metrics, and this is what you need to understand as a production company. What are the metrics which are important to brands?

Is this about an awareness job? Is this about a reputation piece? It is about a new product launch. Is this about Actually we are needing to change behavior around our product because the younger audiences don't engage with it all. We appeal to an older audience, but we need to reach younger audiences.

So really it's about positioning the work which you do. The treatments you put on the table, the ideas about explaining, and I'm not talking about in a heavy handed way, but starting to use the language of business results and, and what this will do now, [00:33:00] it's does feel very complicated from production company perspective.

But again, once you start researching. Brands and you start to understand the types of brands who are right for your content, you'll start to understand what's important to them. And it's just about reframing how you put ideas on the table. It's just not starting with, here's an idea, would you like to buy it?

Because the production, the brand will go lovely, lovely idea. What's it going to do? Yeah. I want to know, as a brand, this will allow me to reach Gen Z. This will allow me to reach millennials. Why will it allow it to do us? Because we make content. 50% of our content connects with this audience week and week out, and we really understand this audience.

We can co-create something together, which will engage and connect with the audience, which your advertising can't do. So it's just, I've now, I've used reframing a reasonable amount, but it's just looking through the lens differently and going Look. If I want a brand involved with this, I need to kind of get on board with the fact that [00:34:00] brands need slightly different terminology at the table.

There's still an idea, there's still a treatment, there's still production. All of that is normal. But to get it over the line and to get brands involved at the beginning, you've really gotta think about what business job it's going to do. Yeah. 

Justin Crosby: Okay. And number five, from interruption to 

Charlie Read: engagement. So in the industry at the moment, and I was talking about that reference, that Kantar report earlier, uh, there is a problem in advertising in the sense that people aren't engaging with advertising like they used to.

And we can see some signs over the last two to three years that various brands are understanding that buying reach, which is. Using media money to buy advertising space is actually becoming less and less effective, and it's getting incredibly expensive. You buy these eyeballs and then the content you are creating doesn't connect with the audience, so it's becoming very expensive.

Engagement is something which has been really moving forward very quickly with brands over the last few years. And I think [00:35:00] it really started in sport and fandoms. And I think people can understand now that people are congregating around big temple moments. And to be fair to entertainment. X factor Big Saturday night shows Anton Deck.

We've always had those tenile moments depend on moments in television and fandoms, but we haven't really necessarily made the most of it all. But brands are starting to realize that being in these environments and creating work, which engages audiences. Build audiences is actually probably gonna be the marketing model of the future.

And you can see some of the signs out there. Foot asylum, which I know you've referenced a few times on show, is a really good example of that. Foot asylum's, a really clever model in the market where I talk about TV to vi till quite a lot now. What they've done is created great content with content creators.

They've put in a really accessible space in the digital environment to be able to engage with. And you can buy a set of sneakers really easily. And that is actually incredibly clever as a business model because [00:36:00] traditionally we've offered linear TV and eventually someone has to buy something across a number of different steps and eventually get to it all.

So actually YouTube allows you to decompress with great entertainment, something which happens in, in the sales funnel. I'd also reference Dish by Waitrose. Um, I think they're doing a fantastic job there. M and S as well. So admittedly, these are quite big brands at the moment who are starting to join it up, but obviously wait show's developed Dish, which is a standalone, but a branded ip.

They're now moving it into they didn the content ecosystems I talked about earlier. They're talking about, you know, podcast. Obviously on TV now they're moving into events. There's a number of different areas which Waitroses can move and that is doing incredibly good job for the brand. And along that journey, of course, they're meal card and recipes and you walk into a Waitrose and there you go, as seen on sort of TV or seen on YouTube.

But this, this is where it's going. And I think that brands are realizing that actually they need to invest in intellectual property, which enables [00:37:00] them to communicate with audiences differently. And I think this is only gonna accelerate increasingly over the next few years. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah, and obviously social video gives, you know, the environment.

For brands to talk directly to those consum consumers as well and their customers and understand them as well, which absolutely. Which they haven't really had up to this point. 

Charlie Read: Absolutely. And I think also as well, I think the traditional way of marketing is often shouting out and very salesy, and I'm kind of trying to buy eyeballs, you know, in an advertising space, in social and on YouTube we can build a relationship and actually holding on to.

A customer is so much more important. You know, acquiring them is one thing, but holding onto to 'em the next thing. And I think brands realize that advertising is often you're churning through eyeballs. You're getting people to engage with you once or buy something and then you let them go. And I think this is the kind of language of what I learned in broadcast when I worked at Channel four.

It's actually how do you as a brand start behaving like a media owner? Now what I mean by that is start thinking about as a [00:38:00] brand, how do I attract audiences? How do I engage with them and how do I keep 'em coming back and ref talking to me as a brand and about as a brand? And I can see that again, really moving forward quite quickly, Evan, next for years.

Yeah. Yeah. 

Justin Crosby: There's some amazing social work that beat that's been done. These there curries, I think have, uh, really reinvented themselves through social Yeah. Recently, which is uh, which is brilliant Exactly. But it's, uh, lots of different. Examples we can give obviously Charlie. Fantastic. Thank you so much for those five tips.

It's been really, really useful. Um, you know, it gives us a different way to think about how we, how uh, production companies work with brands. And finally, one, one final question. We see Can Lion every year being, you know, the big advertising industry event every June, is it something that you think that production companies should maybe pay a bit more attention to?

Because. This is where the, the best work in the world is showcased every year. Is that, is it worth, you know, production companies not necessarily going to lion and looking at, but you know, taking [00:39:00] more of an interest in looking at all the award-winning work on online that, that you can see there. Do you think?

Charlie Read: It's a hot debate, Justin, at the moment, because if you look at the advertising fraternity at the moment, they're realizing that to compete for these awards or take part in them is a, is a very expensive business. Mm-hmm. So advertising agencies traditionally did it to work to get more work from brands and to have a bit of a sort of shop window.

But it's also widely acknowledged that not many brands really think or really care about agencies winning awards. It doesn't mean that much to them. The, the, the, the, the thing which does matter to them is about effectiveness. So things like the IPA, they have effectiveness awards, think box, have, uh, planning awards.

They're all predicated on business results and those, the awards which brands want. So there's a big debate going on at the moment, certainly in commercial production company land, about entering work for Cannes Lion because whilst. Canne is a wonderful place to go and it's lovely to win an [00:40:00] award. Does it actually yield business results for the costs you put in?

And that is a, a debate will be raging over the next five to 10 years. Yes. 

Justin Crosby: Well, it's gonna be interesting what you, you, you touched on AI and how that's going to completely change the advertising industry world. 

Charlie Read: Yeah. 

Justin Crosby: It already is doing and I can see that, you know, the next year that just accelerating.

But that must, might. Present some further opportunities for more traditional TV production companies within that mix. 

Charlie Read: Slightly controversially, but just to put it out there from a marketing sort of perspective. But actually, obviously, marketeers have all sorts of awards and all sorts of publications in their.

You know, particular specialisms and in their sectors, and I think sometimes our industry more broadly, and I'm talking about advertising, I'm talking about production. I'm talking broadcast. It's a little bit of an echo chamber. We all know, we know the world we live in, but actually when we start wanting to reach other audiences and build new connections you need to play in their world.

I often talk about when I'm talking to advertise, not advertising agency, but when I'm talking to [00:41:00] production companies about how they should market themselves. I think that rather than sort of turning up in broadcast or turning up in Campaign Magazine, they should actually be advertising in the grocer.

A grocer is the biggest retail publication, which any marketer who's in retail reads. If you wanna advertise, that's where you go. It's a uncluttered market. Yeah, nobody advertises in there. From the creative services space, that's where you'll get visibility and show up. So I think some of this has been being clever.

When you start thinking about marketing yourselves, of, again, understanding where marketers are and where you show up. So you can go to Marketing Society Awards where all the marketers are, spend time with marketers beyond their tables. They're incredibly. Accessible marketers. I think there's an industry we've built up which have all these layers.

We need to peel that back. Certainly, I know that marketers want to talk to production companies increasingly, but we may need to make it easier for them to connect by talking their language and we can meet together. That is gonna be such an exciting time for [00:42:00] this industry. 

Justin Crosby: Brilliant. Thank you, Charlie.

That's, that's fantastic. Well, now it's time for story of the Week. Mm-hmm. Where my guests get to highlight the TV industry new story that's caught their eye over the past seven days. Charlie, what's your story of the week? 

Charlie Read: Right. Well, you put me on the spot. Had to be seven days. Lot's been going on in seven days and I've been aware on holiday.

Yeah. So, um, but what jumped out to me last week was a long read in guardian newspapers around Netflix, dumbing down the work which they make. And it's an in-depth article. They talked to people who were in the commissioning side. They talked to production companies, they talked to senior execs who used to be at Netflix.

Some people are slightly. Cagey about it all. But there's a recognition that as Netflix are chasing subscribers numbers, they're trying to make the work more and more vanilla so it can appeal to a wider set of audiences. And I think we all know that when we go onto Netflix and we go onto Amazon Prime, the watching is quite.

Easy and the algorithm serves up [00:43:00] more of the same type of work. And what we're missing now are the work which we fell in love with when we joined the TV industry 20, 25 years ago, work, which connects in culture work that you opinion, but you weren't, weren't expecting. You weren't expecting, and you wouldn't know that you'd like.

And I think this is gonna be part of the AI problem is that. There's some great books out there about how AI is dumb in culture, and I think, I'm hoping we're gonna go through Renaissance in the next five to 10 years when people recognize that actually they're fed up with actually seeing umpteen rom-coms, which all have the same storyline, all have the same cast, and basically there's nothing that exciting about them, all the same crime dramas.

I think this is. The point of where PSB can really come in, how can we find an economic model by which great work which connects in culture and gets us to think differently about the content we consume? How do we get that into our, our watching habits? I dunno whether you've got children, Justin, but [00:44:00] certainly my children at the moment.

I think we've gone through, uh, the last five to eight years. Of social media and them just not liking and sitting, still watching long form content. But I can see them coming back. Actually, they're in their early twenties now. If you spend time with, uh, Samsung, the, the TV department, the, the biggest uptake of televisions in sitting rooms are 26, 27 year olds.

Right? And that's the biggest growth market. And actually, when you start. To step back also in the industry and look at the Mr. Beast and Side Men deals. Their audience are also 26, 27 year olds, and we know that YouTube is obviously in the living room, so there's a lot of big shifts kind of going on, and I think that Netflix will, whilst it has a market dominance in the moment, I think the areas will start to struggle on is not having great content or different content which can connect with micro audiences and culturally be relevant to.

You know, not the general populace Yeah. Algorithm could 

Justin Crosby: start to work against it. [00:45:00] Maybe. Hopefully. So. Hopefully so. Well, maybe a little bit of, uh, chink of light there for public service broadcasters. How about, uh, your hero of the week? 

Charlie Read: There was an article uh, in the drum, I dunno if you've you read it.

But it featured an article by Andrew Friedman who has set up a agency holding group, which is predicated on branded entertainment. And it's a fascinating article. He's actually had his business over the last eight years. But like I was saying earlier on with the outfit. I think he felt that he was actually ahead of his time, but he can now see that CMOs are recognizing that they need better content, which earns attention.

There's a recognition again that CMOs with their work, but it's not connecting with audiences. And Andrew has about six businesses under his holding group, and he is doing great things for the cause of branded entertainment. So everything which we're talking about today. Andrew's [00:46:00] your guy. He's definitely my hero of the week.

Right. Okay. 

Justin Crosby: Well, we'll 

Charlie Read: put 

Justin Crosby: a link in the episode description to, to that article and also your story of the week. Yeah. And finally, who or what are you turning to get in the bin? 

Charlie Read: Well, it's not gonna be a person 'cause that always goes down like a a a goes down in the wrong way. So I'm gonna put it back onto film and, uh, as part of my reeducation of my children around feature films and actually sit, still watch a film for an hour and a half.

You'll get a lot out of it. I wanted them to watch Drive the other day with Ryan Gosling, and I had no idea this is, so I got beef with Netflix as well as the film drive, but in 2011, I think that Zane Lowe remade the soundtrack. And so I paid, it was actually on Amazon rather than Netflix, but I paid three pounds, 50 for the pleasure of watching this, and it had Zane Lowe's soundtrack and it just killed the movie in every single way.

And I thought that was a damn shame. So yeah, forget that [00:47:00] Zane Lowe's very talented, but leave the feature film soundtracks to one side. Yeah. 

Justin Crosby: I love, I love a good soundtrack. It can make a movie. Right, exactly. Or it Or it can ruin one too. Exactly. Yeah. Wasn't quite the same. Wasn't quite the same and, and even my kids felt it as well.

Charlie, thank you again for joining. It's been fascinating speaking to you and all the best with, uh, upstream and everything else that you are, you're up to. Thanks, Justin. It's been a real pleasure. Well, that's about it for this week's telecast. Thanks my guest, Charlie Reed from upstream for breaking down the five things for.

Content producers need to know about branded content. If you want to hear more conversations like this one, subscribe to telecast on your podcast app, YouTube, or@telecast.com. We'll be back next week with another show. Until then, stay safe.