The Creation of Branded Content Teams in Spanish News Organizations and Their Implications for Structures, Professional Roles and Ethics

Abstract

Over the last decade, top media organizations have restructured their newsrooms and created branded content teams, or studios, devoted entirely to the production of new native advertising formats in order to leverage this business opportunity. The goal of this exploratory study is to analyse how news organizations in Spain implement this strategy and create branded content teams, changing the structure of their newsrooms and shaping the practices and roles of the editors and journalists involved. Semi-structured interviews with professionals (n = 11) who work at news outlets (n = 8) were carried out in order to explain their structural, professional and ethical challenges. The results show that branded content teams can be classified into three organizational models (integrated, autonomous and emerging) and they are usually formed by hybrid professionals, linking commercial, editorial and design practices. The study participants justify the new practice adopting the role of norm entrepreneurs. Despite the warnings and risks, the interviewees asserted that by inserting an appropriate disclaimer in these new formats, credibility and transparency are not endangered. They also believe that sponsored content will become a fundamental pillar for the business models of their news organizations.

Keywords:

• Sponsored content
• native advertising
• business model innovation
• ethical challenges
• professional autonomy

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In Spain, "sponsored content" —as opposed to "branded content"— consists of pieces, formats or sections created entirely by the newsroom and then financed by a brand, and labeled accordingly (using formulas such as “sponsored by” ["patrocinado por"] or “supported by” ["con el apoyo de"]). The professionals involved in our study do not engage with this latter form of sponsorship.

2 The Spanish translation of “branded content” is “contenido de marca,” but the interviewees regularly used the English version instead, sometimes shortened to simply “branded” and omitting “content.” Spanish journalism professionals frequently use English terms for innovative phenomena, such as “product manager,” “fact-checking,” and “clickbait,” as well as acronyms like “SEO” (search engine optimization) and “CMS” (content management system).