The surge in streaming platforms is creating new opportunities for brands in TV beyond traditional 30-second commercials and product placements—turning them into content creators in their own right.

While many streaming platforms now offer ad-supported tiers, it’s increasingly challenging for brands to break through the clutter and reach consumers en masse in the way they once were able to on linear TV. To this end, marketers such as Mars Wrigley are creating their own series, designed to avoid forced product placements that might alienate skeptical audiences and allow them greater say in distribution strategy.

Also read: A guide to streaming advertising in 2023

Even though this isn’t necessarily new, the blurring lines between forms of digital video—streaming, social and short-form—have created opportunities for brands to develop a web of marketing built to catch audiences no matter where they consume entertainment, and in numbers to potentially match that of traditional TV.

Follow Me

With “Follow Me,” a reality competition show hosted and executive produced by YouTuber Bethany Mota, who has a following of 9.5 million on the platform, Mars will feature brands including M&M’s, Skittles, Snickers and Orbit in many of the episodes. The show pits contestants against one another to make the most viral social media content, sponsored by big brands, until a winner is crowned and given a $50,000 grand prize. Other participating brands include Six Flags, Bob’s Discount Furniture, Dave & Buster's and Versus Games.

For Mars Wrigley, “Follow Me” presented an opportunity to marry strategies across its brands, some of which favor TV audiences, while others perform better with social media users. Gabrielle Wesley, VP of marketing at Mars Wrigley, said that as its Gen Z consumers become adults, the series is a way to cross-pollinate its branding between the TikTok and streaming crowds.

Related: 5 TikTok trends for brands to follow 

In one episode, the contestants compete in a mini-challenge sponsored by Orbit. The assignment is to take an inspirational motto from Orbit, which is “confidence is realizing you don’t need to become your best self, because you already are your best self,” and turn that into a photo and video shoot. The winner of the challenge receives a $1,000 bonus prize. 

“Follow Me” debuts on May 3, first hitting FilmRise’s owned connected TV platform and YouTube channel, and subsequently rolling out to FilmRise’s network of FAST channels and AVOD partners.

In addition to streaming distribution, “Follow Me” will also feature content across social media, including on the talents’ channels and on Mars Wrigley’s social handles. Showrunner and executive producer Rick de Oliveira said over 50 pieces of creative were made for social.

The series is co-produced by V10 Entertainment and FilmRise. One of the original conceits for creating “Follow Me” was to avoid shoehorned product placements and instead “take the brands and really immerse them and make it part of the show,” said V10 Entertainment CEO John Stevens.

This cross-channel content ecosystem creates a “network effect,” what Tejas Shah, senior VP of commercial strategy and analytics at streaming network FilmRise, describes as placing nuggets of content across different media platforms to immerse a target audience.

“When you can create as many touchpoints as possible and show a video on as many accounts as possible, you build a network effect across all of these different platforms,” said Shah. “Then that gets surfaced within the algorithm, so it’s a real innovation on search optimization and discovery.”

While branded content and product placement are not new—brands including Pepsi have long been creating TV content—opportunities with digital-native programmers such as FilmRise have democratized creative freedom for content makers looking to work with brands, said Hans Schiff, president of V10 Entertainment.

“We are content creators—we create ideas that we want to share with the world,” said Schiff. “Instead of having a gatekeeper like a TV network, we can now go directly to the folks that help monetize that content directly. You know, ‘Hey, Mars! We’ve got this idea. What do y’all think?’”

Brands on streaming

“When a marketer is looking at their marketing mix model and thinking about, how do I access within digital FAST, AVOD, SVOD, social media, YouTube, it’s really overwhelming,” said FilmRise’s Shah. Efforts like “Follow Me” are becoming more common as brands pursue audiences across the various media they consume day-to-day, which has expanded far beyond just TV.

For Coca-Cola’s roster of brands, each considers its key audience rather than investing heavily in any singular medium, said Robin Triplett, VP of integrated marketing experiences for The Coca-Cola Company North America. The company uses its consumer data to decide where to invest marketing budgets and target audiences across channels. Triplett likened the process to dating—the traditional TV spot is a brand’s introduction to the viewer, then it flirts with the user on social media and custom video content is the full-on date.

In December, Coca-Cola created an anthology mini-series of minimally branded short films that streamed on Prime Video just as an episode of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” does. 

Read more: Coca-Cola launches holiday movie series on Prime Video

“During the holiday season, there is a lot of advertising—how can we think about different ways in the video space to break through,” said Triplett. “[Prime Video] is a great example. It allowed us the ability to create memories and moments more deeply engaging than just a seven-, 15- or 30-second ad.”

Similarly, Constellation Brands, whose brands include Kim Crawford wine and Casa Noble tequila, recently announced a partnership with media company Tastemade to produce and distribute original branded content. “Constellation + Tastemade Studios” will produce food and travel content for Tastemade’s owned platform as well as third-party streamers such as Roku and Fubo, and boost its streaming series through integrations with Tastemade’s network of influencers called “Makers.”

Hyundai has also altered its approach to video advertising for streaming. Angela Zepeda, Hyundai Motor America’s chief marketing officer, said the brand name is still relatively young in the U.S. compared to other automakers. So, the company capitalizes on opportunities to align itself with familiar media partners or programming to build that affinity with consumers, such as an extensive partnership with Disney.

See Disney and Hyundai's Oscars ad

Reaching streaming audiences, however, “is getting tougher and tougher, for sure,” especially as cord-cutting has driven TV viewership across different forms of video such as streaming, YouTube and TikTok, said Zepeda. 

“That’s why we still do ‘Sunday Night Football’—people still watch live games, but they’re not watching so much other [linear] programming,” said Zepeda, noting that Hyundai has to create a large array of content for each medium. “We have to use it all and build content for all those platforms in a very specific way. That way, when we do show up, we don’t feel like we’re obtrusive to that experience, but that if someone’s interested in seeing more, they can immerse themselves in the content.”

Also read: AMC promises to ‘debunk’ the cord-cutting trend 

For example, Zepeda said she wouldn’t put the same TV spot from “Sunday Night Football” on Amazon’s Fire TV, which gives users options to interact with advertising and select the opportunity to engage with the brand on their own terms.

While media companies including NBCUniversal and AMC Networks have bolstered their branded content studios to surround their programming with brand opportunities both on linear and streaming, the growing scale of digital video beyond the major networks could hold greater opportunities for brands like “Follow Me” moving forward.

“You can take a show that would get 300,000 viewers if you throw it on a cable network or regular network and you can get it to millions of viewers using [streaming] platforms and FAST,” said V10 Entertainment’s Stevens. “That’s where it’s all headed.”