Format / Branded content
If the brand shows too much, it does not work. If it does not show at all, it serves no purpose. That balance is decided in the script, not in the edit.
LITE plan free forever. The agency and the production company join without taking a licence.
Updated: September 2026
This page explains how branded content gets made and how it differs from a commercial. Here the brand does not interrupt somebody else's story: it funds it and appears inside it, with a presence that has to be enough to claim the piece and discreet enough for someone to watch it willingly. Play has two pieces that work separately or together: Play Platform, where the project gets approved, versioned per channel and carries its cost; and PLAY /Services, which works the concept before shooting. You can start free with the platform alone.
The format has a contradiction built into it, and everything else comes out of that.
At every review somebody asks for more brand presence, and each time it is added the piece looks more like an ad and less like something anyone would watch by choice.
The level of presence decided in the brief, not renegotiated at every review round.
An idea that works usually makes someone slightly uncomfortable. If five departments review it with no shared standard, the result is a correct piece nobody watches.
Review on the piece itself, with the brief's objective in view at every version.
It does not sell directly, so it gets measured in views and compared with a commercial, which is playing a different game. On that data, it does not get repeated next year.
Real cost per piece inside the project, to compare with equivalent formats.
The whole budget goes on producing the long piece and nothing is left for the cutdowns, the subtitles or the per-channel versions that would give it a life.
Per-channel variants planned and budgeted from the brief.
Play is a Production-Tech company: software and a production team in the same house. With this format the work before the shoot weighs more than with any other.
Your agency or your production company makes it, and you use Play to run approvals, per-channel versions and cost in one place.
Free on the LITE plan
See Play PlatformYou commission the piece from the concept, with creative direction, shoot, post-production and the distribution versions.
Per project, on a transparent rate card
See PLAY /ServicesThe platform is your campaign system and our team produces inside it, with the afterlife planned in.
Platform included, production per project
Talk to the teamThe three ways are doors into the same place, and you can move between them without migrating anything. Most teams start at way 1 or way 2 and end up at way 3 once the content volume grows.
Different relationships with the viewer, and different production demands.
| Variant | What it offers the viewer | What the production demands |
|---|---|---|
| Brand documentary | A real story worth watching in its own right. | Research, real people and a long shooting period. |
| Episodic series | Coming back, episode by episode, for the content itself. | A repeatable format and a budget planned by season. |
| Short fiction | A scripted story where the brand is the context. | Casting, direction and production close to a commercial's. |
| Useful content | Learning to do something the brand knows well. | Rigour in the content and a format repeatable in batches. |
| Creator collaboration | The voice of somebody the audience already trusts. | A rights agreement and a balance between their tone and the brand's. |
| Cultural or sponsorship piece | Associating the brand with a territory or an event. | Third-party releases and music or archive licences. |
What gets a branded content piece to the end in one piece.
The objective and the level of brand presence are written into the project, so each round gets argued against what was agreed.
The long piece, the cutdowns, the versions with and without subtitles, each with its own history and its own approval.
Music, archive, locations and the people who appear, with their licence stored next to the material.
Every department comments in the same thread, anchored to the second, rather than sending corrections separately.
Budget and spend inside the project, to compare branded content with the formats it competes against.
The agency, the production company and creators join without taking a licence, on every plan including the free one.
The balance between story and brand is decided in the script and the storyboard, which is where correcting is cheap.
Casting, locations, permits, shoot and post-production, with a single Account Manager.
The cutdowns, the subtitles and the per-channel versions are budgeted from the brief, not as a final extra.
Crews in more than 20 countries, to shoot wherever the story asks, with the logistics sorted.
The flow is the same whether you produce or we do. The only thing that changes is who carries out step 3.
You open the project and describe the need. KAMI AI helps turn it into a structured brief, with formats, markets and dates, so that everyone is working from the same thing.
This is where you pick a way: your team produces it, your agency does, or PLAY /Services does with local talent. If you commission it from us, you get a fixed quote on a transparent rate card before anything starts.
Shoot, edit and versions in the same project. Approvals happen through videofeedback and public links, with no email chains. If PLAY produces, your Account Manager oversees every stage.
The finished piece and the raw footage stay in your library, tagged and ready to reuse on the next campaign.
Recurring shoots across multiple European markets under one coordination system: Barcelona, Rotterdam, Manchester, Oslo, Warsaw, Dublin, Madrid, Istanbul, Lyon and Stockholm, among others.
A centralised system for creating content quickly and consistently across multiple formats, channels and locations in Spain, with a single point of contact adapting each message to its audience and platform.
The full case studies, with the detail of each production, are on the services page. Download the full case studies.
The platform is paid per workspace. The piece is quoted per project, with the distribution included from the start.
0 €
149 €/month /workspace
Custom
Access to Play Platform is included at no cost with every PLAY video production service. In other words: you can come in through the platform door and pay only for the software, or come in through the production door and take the software with it.
Annual billing works out at 10 months. Extra storage at 29 €/TB per month. In branded content, PRO brings what lets you defend the format: real cost per piece and analytics, which is what makes it comparable with the formats it competes with for budget. See the full plan comparison.
A commercial interrupts in order to sell; branded content offers something somebody would watch anyway, with the brand inside it. The objective changes, the duration changes and the way of measuring it changes, so comparing them on the same metric leads to the wrong conclusions.
Enough for the piece to be attributable, and not so much that people stop watching it by choice. It is worth deciding in the brief and writing it down, because if it gets renegotiated at every review the presence only goes up.
It depends heavily on the format: a brand documentary and a useful-content piece have nothing in common. It is quoted per project on a transparent rate card, and it is worth putting the distribution in from the start rather than leaving it to the end.
Not with a commercial's metrics. Play contributes the cost side: real cost per piece inside the project, which combined with your own audience and brand metrics lets you compare the format with the ones it competes against for budget.
By having the objective and the level of brand presence written into the project and reviewing against that. With every department commenting in the same thread and on the piece itself, the discussion stops being a pile of separate corrections.
Yes. PLAY Talent is a network of more than 1,200 vetted professionals, and creators join the project as external collaborators at no licence cost, with their rights settled on the record.
Open a free LITE workspace and write the brief with the objective, the level of brand presence and the list of distribution pieces. Having that settled before producing is half the work.
The format it usually competes with for budget
The other route to not looking like an ad, with different rights
Several accounts, margins and extra capacity in campaign season
Creative, global production and full post-production
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Open your workspace free and write the brief with the objective, the level of brand presence and the distribution pieces. Settling that first is half the work.
No card required. Unlimited external collaborators on the free plan, and the platform included with every production service.