Welcome, folks.
In Episode 16 of The Speakeasy, Banijay Entertainment’s Global Head of Branded Entertainment Business Development, Carlotta Rossi Spencer, joins Joe and Gabriella to unpack the crucial distinction between branded entertainment and advertising, explore how they measure success, and reveal how Banijay's BBE division works with brands to find the right story, genre and platform rather than simply selling airtime.
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Snippets from The Speakeasy
Why the best branded entertainment starts with values
The instinct in most marketing conversations is to start with the product: what are we selling, and how do we get people to buy it? But Carlotta flips that on its head. For branded entertainment to actually work, she says, brands have to resist the urge to treat it as an extension of their advertising, because the moment content exists purely to move a product, audiences disengage.
The test she applies internally at Banijay is deceptively simple: would this show hold an audience even if the brand walked away? That's a recognition that today's audiences, particularly younger ones, are choosing brands based on what they represent rather than what they sell.
Values-first content is a fundamentally different discipline to traditional advertising, closer to genuine entertainment than to a 60-second spot with a brand's logo stapled on top.
How Banijay actually measures success
Branded entertainment has a well-documented measurement problem, but for Carlotta the solution is, rather than treating measurement as a single, standardised metric the way performance advertising can, Banijay leans into the fact that success looks different depending on what a brand is actually chasing. Sometimes that's classic entertainment metrics: how many people watched, how long they stayed, completion rates north of 90% on shows like The World Cook. Sometimes it's a much more direct commercial signal, like Dulux tracking litres of paint sold off the back of a campaign.
The through-line is that brands need to know what they're optimising for before the content gets made, whether that’s positioning, perception, sales, or some blend of the three.
The case studies: proof over theory
Carlotta explored a lot of case studies - from Hong Kong tourism to paint.
One example was Eon Next's partnership on a digital spin-off of The Secret Life of 4 and 5 Year Olds. On paper, an unlikely pairing between a beloved factual format and an energy provider, but one that worked because the brand's messaging (energy consumption, sustainability) was baked into content that never stopped feeling like the original show.
The second is Dulux's work on Changing Rooms, which Carlotta cites as a rare case where branded entertainment produced a measurable, direct sales lift: five million additional litres of paint sold. Together, these examples make the case from opposite directions: one shows how branded content builds long-term brand equity through authentic storytelling, the other shows it can also move product when the format and message are genuinely aligned.
Neither works without the other lesson: entertainment first, commercial outcome as a consequence rather than the objective.
Why branded content is becoming a standard line item
Commissioning budgets are shrinking across the board, and that scarcity is pushing brands from optional partners to genuinely necessary funding sources for premium content. Carlotta's read is that this is a redistribution of the marketing mix that's likely to stick.
She predicts that rather than the traditional split where the overwhelming majority of budget goes to advertising, brands will increasingly shift meaningful share. She floats a 60/40 becoming something closer to 40/20/40 toward entertainment and experiential formats.
Combine that with rising ad-blindness and ad-blocking, and the incentive for brands to fund content people actually choose to watch, rather than content people are served, only strengthens. She expects branded entertainment to stop being a specialist play reserved for a handful of forward-thinking brands and become a default line in how any major brand plans its content strategy.
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