As a consequence of the pandemic caused by Covid-19, the consumption of digital platforms and social networks has grown exponentially, especially the social network analyzed in this paper: Twitch. This platform of increasingly diverse content and audience brings together a largely young audience. For this reason, new advertising formats such as branded content are particularly relevant, as this target is increasingly demanding less advertising and more content, something that both the platform and the advertising format can offer them. Therefore, Twitch and branded content have an important compatibility. In short, this paper aims to determine the suitability of Twitch as a platform for developing branded content actions through interviews with expert researchers on the subject and through the analysis of the biggest success case of branded content in 2021.
TopIntroduction
“Live streaming is an online practice expanding in both production and consumption at immense speed, and Twitch and its streamers appear to be at the forefront of that revolution” (Johnson & Woodcock, 2019, p. 336). The same is true for branded content, an advertising format to which more and more budget is being allocated (Scopen, 2021). According to Choi (2015), “branded content is a new form of marketing communication media that unifies conventional distinction between advertising (commercial message) and content (program), and it is distributed as editorial content although it has a commercial purpose” (p. 117). In the end, as Arroyo-Almaraz and Baños-González (2018) indicate, in this format the means to convey the brand message is the content itself, the production.
Branded content is nowadays one of the corporate and advertising communication actions most frequently used by advertisers when it comes to materializing their content strategies, due to the advantages it offers to transmit the brand's storytelling, values and corporate positioning through a narrative discourse designed ad hoc for the brand. (del Pino-Romero & Castelló-Martínez, 2015, p.112).
The changes produced in the media ecosystem and the communication paradigm shift have developed different strategies and advertising communication content that not only seek the traditional advertising result, but the objective is to offer valuable content to the audience and establish relationships with it (Núñez-Gómez, Mañas-Viniegra, & Hardy, 2022, p. 125).
And it is in this context that the emergence of branded content as an advertising format is framed. In fact, Ezan (2014) points out that new digital technologies offer numerous opportunities to build loyalty among digital natives by involving them more in the construction of branded content. However, there are no studies linking these two concepts (Branded Content and Twitch). For this reason, this chapter aims to share with the scientific community the case of the biggest success of branded content in 2020 (developed on Twitch) and to offer the vision of expert researchers on the union of this platform and format to evaluate its use.
The case of the Unboxing of PS5 and Netflix on the Twitch channel of Ibai Llanos has become a case of successful branded content and a reference case, and it is precisely the study of this case that will be presented in this paper. However, it is not the only case of Branded Content on this platform. Another example is Ron Barceló's weekly magazine “quéfuertetía”.
It should be taken into consideration that, given the very nature of the platform, the branded content that will be broadcasted on it will be, to a greater extent, entertainment content. “The creation of informative, educational or entertainment content in the service of the brand presents a real opportunity in the generation of medium and long-term links with the consumer and viewer” (Rodríguez-Rabadán, 2021, p. 31). However, Costa-Sánchez and Túñez-López (2019) point out that entertainment branded content generates more interest in users than informative content. In fact, “the advertising strategies that promote branded content associated with entertainment have generated differentiated visibility for the brands, strengthened the engagement of the public, and increased the effectiveness of market results” (Covaleski, 2015, p.114).