A content creator's guide on how to navigate branded content

Indian content creator and music producer Mayur Jumani shares 3 tips on how creators can curate branded content for their page.

Being an influencer definitely feels more rewarding when you get to see the numbers escalating on your page. The number of likes, shares, and saves determines how successful you have become as a creator. But not everyone is just after the numbers, people are also on the lookout for monetary benefits. As creators, there’s no better way to earn than by making the best of your online presence. Collaborating with brands who crave the clout that creators bring to the table is one way of reaping the benefits of this online presence. Understanding the ways to work with a brand can feel like a task unless one learns to curate branded content for them. And who better to share their insight on it than Mayur Jumani, the internet sensation who is known for his creative brand collaborations? People always look forward to what Mayur has in store for them. While the audience is a fan of his music, they are even more delighted to watch him play out his creative ability into branded posts. He has mastered the art of creating a branded post without making it seem like one, causing people to sing along to the songs.

But how does branded content work? Do creators have to wait for brands to reach out or do they try to get a hold of them themselves? Talking about himself, Mayur mentions how these projects are equally balanced between inbound and outbound. “There are a lot of brands that reach out to us when they want to do topical marketing or have a particular campaign designed according to the season or an event that’s coming up.” 

But at times when he assumes that he can add a lot of character to a brand or think of an out-of-the-box campaign for a particular brand, movie or a show, he reaches out to them with a concept deck.  “We have a creative team that does the outbound campaigning and when an inbound query comes in, we strategize and build a deck for them and that’s how we plan out the entire campaign.” As a part of the creator community, Mayur has a few tips that could possibly help creators craft their own way into curating branded content. He lays out things he has learned along the way to help creators in their own journey.

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Also Read: The journey of Revant Himatsingka’s ‘Label Padhega India’ campaign

Here’s what Mayur had to share!

Understanding the tone and style of the content to reflect the brand’s identity

We try to curate what the brand language and brand tonality are exactly, who's the target audience they're trying to cater to. Then we try to think of a concept that hasn’t been done before. If you go through any of our paid partnerships, be it the Shark Tank video, Rajasthan Royals video or the IKEA concept that we have done, they are all unique concepts that haven’t been done before by either the brand or any other artist. We make sure to add some sense of freshness to the campaign to make sure that the brand is seen in a different light and still be true to its brand language and identity, and create something that’ll absolutely be loved by the target audience that they are trying to market to.

Distinguishing or finding a common ground for the content

We don’t try to distinguish between branded content and organic content. In fact, we work way harder on the production value that we put in for our branded content. The prep to make branded content is at least twice as hard, the teams that work on the projects are larger than the organic ones. This is because organic is more impulsive and unfiltered, where we try to build our own creative thoughts and we put it out there in public. But for the branded content we have to make sure that we are doing justice to the brand’s vision as well. We have a lot of stakeholders to do justice to and we make sure that whatever we create is liked by everyone on that project. 

Things to keep in mind while making branded content 

Deciphering the message - Try to understand what is the exact message that the brand wants to convey via that video. Being clear about your basics is very important like what is the final goal of that video? How do you track that goal? 

Create a fresh piece of ad - Find a way to create an advertisement that’s very fresh and new because the first instinct and impulse of a viewer is to swipe up and not watch the ad. So how do you create an ad that people want to watch? 

Bring balance between your ideas and the brand identity - Learn to carve that beautiful harmony between mixing your own creative juices with the brand tonality. Getting the brand around to being a little flexible and a little more Gen-Z friendly is very important for us because we don’t like doing completely sell-out TVC kind of ads, we love doing very innovative TVCs that are user first, that the viewer would want to share with their friends. That's one the biggest “Keep in Mind factors” for us.

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How do you think creators can make brands part of their content without losing the essence of their content? Share them with us in the comments below.