NXTGEN Bites: Branding vs. Entertainment on Social Media

First of all: Who’s actually writing here?

We – that’s Paulina Schumann & Timo Sander – (hopefully) your new favorite columnists from now on. Or at least the ones who’ll regularly delight you with thoughts on social trends, the agency topics of the future, societal developments, and a few random thoughts.

Paulina founded charles & charlotte, an agency that turns social media into the leading medium and a C-level priority: catapulting brands like PENNY, Burger King, fraenk, and On into the social-first era. With lots of measurability and less blah-blah.

Timo, with the agency JUSTADDSUGAR, found the answer to the new social-first reality and helps major brands like REWE, congstar, and Deichmann achieve real growth through social media. The 110+ Sugars see themselves as creative social all-rounders and bring everything a brand needs in the social media space.

And don’t worry: we’ll only introduce ourselves in this much detail this first time.

For our kickoff, it’s all about branding vs. entertainment on social media.

We hope you enjoy it. If not: feel free to complain to us via LinkedIn.

And now: enjoy our first column!

Swipe or Stay: The New Reality of Attention

According to WARC forecasts, social media will overtake search in 2025 as the world’s largest advertising category. Meta is already logging more ad spend than the entire linear TV channel. No wonder a study by ARD and ZDF confirms: social media is the #1 media channel for 14–29-year-olds. By now, brands have understood that social isn’t just a must-have for the present but the focus channel of the future.

But they face a major challenge: in the last ten years, media behavior has changed more than in the three decades before. Declining attention spans meet rising average daily ad contacts: a contradictory development that makes it incredibly hard for brands to be truly remarkable. Especially since audiences now decide for themselves whether they watch an ad or simply swipe past it. And they use that choice: 60% of social media users swipe ads away out of habit … especially when they feel too much like ads. (Source: Adzine SM Statistics, 2023)

Long story short: in the past, brands paid money to force people to watch their ads. Today, they pay money to make ads so good people choose to watch them.

So, one big question keeps advertisers up at night: How do you create ads that people actually want to watch, especially on social media?

The simple answer: Entertainment. Entertainment. Entertainment.

Comprehensive market research by System1 Group (shoutout ❤️) confirms this: the more entertainment an ad contains, the higher not only attention but also advertising effectiveness:

But entertainment doesn’t just mean throwing in a few funny sketches. It’s much more than that: suspense, emotions, and much more. To ensure excellent communication on social media (Social Excellence), brands can’t avoid delivering authentic and creative entertainment with the right social craft thereby guaranteeing rapid brand growth, right?

Unfortunately, that’s not the whole truth, because as everyone knows: without good branding, the ad won’t be linked to the brand and thus won’t make a meaningful difference. This effect is even stronger on a channel like social media, where attention spans are low and ads can simply be swiped away.

Market research from System1 Group confirms this as well: ads that manage to integrate excellent branding in the first few seconds have significantly higher advertising effectiveness:

At this point, some readers will surely ask: “60% of people skip ads if they feel too ad-like, but branding has to happen in the first seconds?” Yes, because what matters is not just when branding happens but how it happens. If a brand manages to successfully translate its brand assets into the rules of social media, early branding doesn’t hurt at all. At the same time, it’s highly damaging for brand perception when early branding just consists of a pasted-on logo, brand font, or something similar.

Social Brand Identity: The Key to Success

So what every brand needs to achieve maximum advertising effectiveness, alongside strong entertainment is: a Social Brand Identity. Every brand has an identity and many brand assets, but advertisers need to take the time and creativity to translate that identity into the world of social media. The more traditional and ad-like the brand assets are integrated, the less likely the ad will capture attention, and the less impact it will make.

The following brand asset approaches hit the sweet spot between high attention and high effectiveness:

• Instead of static PNG logos, brands should think about how to place their logos in context so they’re noticed but not intrusive.
• Instead of putting the brand name as text-on-screen, have protagonists say it out loud.
• Instead of relying solely on ever-changing influencers, it helps enormously when brands have a “fluent character” in their communications.

Brands like Duolingo, Penny, and Corny have already created great examples with the “Duolingo Owl,” “Peter Penny,” and “Carl Corny.” Logos are only shown in context or on the audio track by recurring fluent characters.

The fact that brand music/jingles also hit that sweet spot between attention and brand recognition makes us excited for the first truly “born-in-social” jingles to become stuck in audiences’ heads.

Finally, a common argument in branding discussions is that the brand is already represented as the sender via its profile name and corner logo and that this should be enough. But aside from the fact that these brand assets can even be counterproductive at times, the sweet spot for excellent brand assets tends to be three to four the optimal balance between attention and brand recognition.

Conclusion: Successful Branding through Entertainment on Social Media

In a world full of performance-driven, short-term communication, it’s crucial for brands to differentiate themselves from competitors through creative, social-native entertainment (Social Excellence). At the same time, communication cannot lack early, and above all, excellent branding (Brand Excellence) to ensure maximum advertising effectiveness.

To achieve this, brands must invest time and creativity into building an outstanding Social Brand Identity.

As is often the case in life, it’s not an “either-or” when it comes to “Entertainment vs. Branding in Social Media,” but a clear “both-and.” Brands and agencies must always ensure that their social and brand excellence are in perfect balance.