Branded content is entertainment or information that a brand funds and puts its name to, made for people to seek out rather than skip. A game is its most active form: the audience gives the brand minutes by choice. It is still marketing, and must be recognisable as such.
How it works
Wikipedia describes branded content, also called branded entertainment, as an "entertainment product made or otherwise funded by an advertiser" that builds awareness without necessarily presenting itself as a promotion first. Serials made by the soap maker Procter & Gamble gave the soap opera its name; BMW's 2001 short films, The Hire, are a later example.
In a game, the brand pays for the build and decides how present it is: the hero, the setting, a product in the story, or only the publisher's name. The game goes where players already are (Steam, consoles, app stores, Twitch), and people play for fun.
Choosing to play does not make it editorial. The US Federal Trade Commission's guide to native advertising says a promotional message "shouldn't suggest or imply to consumers that it's anything other than an ad". In the UK, CAP Code rule 2.1 says marketing must be "obviously identifiable as such".
Where brands use it
Brands that think like publishers take their content into games. Red Bull's magazine, The Red Bulletin, turned a Max Verstappen cover story into a game in which readers collect 40 trophies around an illustrated version of his Monaco home. In 2016 Reuters reported that Oreo's Twist, Lick, Dunk app had earned its owner Mondelēz twice what it invested, through in-app purchases and ads, and that the company planned similar games in a move away from traditional advertising towards its own content.
Across the library, food and drink and entertainment brands commission the most games, mostly for engagement or awareness. Many reach players through apps, consoles and platforms people already use. For the wider field, read what playable marketing is.
When it fits
Choose it when you want time and goodwill more than one message, and your audience tunes out ads. Audible's livestream game on Twitch targeted 16-to-24-year-olds, whom its case study calls "famously hard to reach through traditional advertising". It suits a brand with a character or world that can carry a story, such as Burger King's King or KFC's Colonel, and a piece strange or good enough to earn press of its own. Measure it like entertainment: hours played, reviews, watch minutes, then sales. Allow for production: Burger King's Xbox games went from the start of development in February 2006 to restaurant counters that November (Wikipedia).
When not to use it
Skip it when the message is a price, an offer or a claim people must remember. An ad, an instant win game or a sweepstakes works faster, and advergame players remember less of the product information (see branded game).
Skip it if the idea works only when people miss the brand. In the FTC guide's example, a branded soap in a survival game that takes players to the brand's app when tapped needs a clear disclosure before the tap. With children, take care: the few advergame complaints the UK's ASA has received concern appeal to children and whether games are obviously identifiable as ads.
Skip it if you can't take honest reviews: people judge branded content as content. For presence inside someone else's game, buy product placement or in-game advertising.
Examples from the library
PocketBike Racer — Burger King (2006)
Agency: Blitz Games (developer of record), Stainless Games (subcontracted to build it), CP+B · Platform: Xbox and Xbox 360 disc
Players pick a racer from Burger King's characters, among them the King, the Subservient Chicken and Whopper Jr., and ride pocketbikes on five tracks, such as a Burger King car park and the King's garden. Driving through gates fills a meter for a turbo boost or a weapon, and up to eight can race over Xbox Live. The disc was sold only in Burger King restaurants, for $3.99 with a value meal, from 19 November to 24 December 2006.
Result: Burger King sold more than 3.2 million copies of its three Xbox games and called the collection the best-selling video game of the holiday season. In its results for the quarter to 31 December 2006, the company said the games increased both sales and restaurant traffic.
I Love You, Colonel Sanders! A Finger Lickin' Good Dating Simulator — KFC (2019)
Agency: Wieden+Kennedy, developer Psyop · Platform: Steam (Windows)
You enrol at a cooking school and, over three in-game days, steer a romance with a young, anime-style Colonel through dialogue choices. The story breaks into minigames: a turn-based fight with a spork monster, a cooking-trivia round, a hidden-object hunt and a final cook-off. One route takes about an hour. It has been free on Steam since 24 September 2019.
Result: On Steam, 91% of 11,515 English-language user reviews are positive (October 2026). The game peaked at 4,263 players at once, and SteamSpy estimates 200,000 to 500,000 owners. Critics were cooler: Wikipedia records a Metacritic score of 50 and a Polygon verdict of "less of a game and more of a marketing stunt".
Truth HQ — Audible (2024)
Agency: Twitch Brand Partnerships Studio, produced by UNIT9 · Platform: Twitch
On 17 April 2024 a Twitch channel appeared with no explanation, streaming around the clock from a propaganda ministry out of Orwell's 1984. Three streamers then played custom games as a resistance cell, solvable only with help from their chat, while an AI adversary set traps. Winning broke into the feed and played a ten-minute excerpt of Audible's 1984 audio drama. It cannot be played now.
Result: According to the awards case study in The Drum, the three streams drew over 1 million unique viewers across six hours, a 400% uplift on Twitch's benchmark for sponsored livestreams, and 3.5 million minutes watched against a typical 750,000 across three brand partner streams. 1984 became April's global chart-topper on Audible and the UK's number one audiobook.
FAQ
What does Facebook mean by branded content?
On Facebook and Instagram the term is narrower: a post a creator publishes in a paid collaboration with a brand, marked with a "Paid partnership" label (Meta). When the brand pays to show that post beyond the creator's followers, it becomes a partnership ad labelled "Ad". Elsewhere in marketing, the term covers anything a brand funds as content, games included.
Is branded content the same as native advertising?
They overlap. The FTC describes native advertising as content that resembles the news, reviews, entertainment and other material around it. Branded content is defined by who pays and what the audience gets; it can run as a native ad, on the brand's own channels or, like Burger King's Xbox games, as a product people buy.
Does a branded game need an "Ad" label?
It depends how obvious the brand is. The FTC says some ads are "so clearly commercial in nature" that they need no label, but logos and names on their own are not likely to be enough. The UK's ASA prefers explicit labels such as "Ad". In livestreams, the FTC asks for the disclosure to be repeated periodically during the stream. Check with counsel in each market.