Beyond branded entertainment: Brand entertainment as strategic cultural production

Branded entertainment has been widely conceptualised as a communication strategy that embeds brands within authentic narratives to generate brand resonance. Recent industry use of the term brand entertainment, however, foregrounds the production, circulation and valuation of the entertainment property itself. The findings show that the category is not stabilised as a new media format or uniform production model. Instead, it expands the strategic status assigned to the entertainment property, alongside industry claims positioning brands as producers, financiers and rights holders within cultural production. Its development, circulation and valuation become concerns alongside its contribution to brand communication. The analysis identifies three dynamics through which this reorientation is articulated: the rhetorical mobilisation of co-creation, visibility governance and dual-circuit legitimation. Across these dynamics, creative authority, ownership, risk and returns remain variably distributed among brands and entertainment-industry actors. Brand entertainment is defined as the negotiated organisation of an entertainment property in which its development, circulation and valuation become strategic concerns alongside its contribution to brand communication.