Everyone remembers her first after-school job. Subway used that coming-of-age rite of passage to appeal to a demographic that eluded the sandwich chain: teenagers. For years, that demographic favored other chains over Subway, and the marketer knew it had to move beyond traditional marketing means -- even beyond standard digital marketing -- to court teens.

So the sandwich chain enlisted Content & Co., and the result was Subway's digital branded-content comedy series, "The 4 to 9ers," a show about teenagers that work at Subway after school. The show chronicled their lives, their triumphs and tribulations and their ever-annoying parents. The six 10-minute episodes first aired on Hulu, but Content & Co. created fan channels on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, where additional behind-the-scenes videos lived and fans could share their first-job stories.

The series, which originally ran in late 2012, was such a hit, a second season was ordered in 2013. It became the No. 1 scripted short comedy on Hulu, delivering 147 million impressions. In all, teens watched 250,000 hours of the series and extras across various channels, according to Content & Co.