While the term branded content is widely used across the advertising industry, its definition is presently a work in progress. And without a concrete understanding of what the practice entails, the U.S. sector of the industry has, to date, been unable to establish official regulations in the same way that it has for traditional advertising models.

Regardless, organizations such as the Federal Trade Commission, the American Society of Magazine Editors, and the Interactive Advertising Bureau have respectively proposed ‘best practices’ for the creation and implementation of branded content. And while their opinions differ in numerous respects, one principle remains at the forefront of each proposition: that transparency is key to the success of content marketing.

As with traditional print, television, out of home, and even banner advertising, it has been proven that branded content must be utterly conspicuous in order to foster a relationship between the affiliated brand and audience that is grounded in trust.

And until a set of concrete regulations is created and enforced, it continues to be up to creative shops, themselves, to balance absolute creative freedom with the responsibility to self-regulate.

We worked with Tumblr to create the best-in-class platform based on current best practices and user habits.

We looked at our video communications in advertising and branded content and found an opportunity to expand our voice and sentiment by playing with the visual language of our core users. From GIFs to emojis, our Tumblr took in what was happening online and made an authentic platform that gave the campaign a dynamic, young emotional core.

We used AT&T’s Facebook and Twitter, to drive engagement and conversation with users outside of their current audience to create cross-platform value with Millennials.

AT&T’s The Mobile Movement Tumblr platform outperformed every benchmark set against it.

To date, it has achieved 223 million impressions and over 6.7 million engagements, outperforming all other brands to become the #1 brand on Tumblr. A recent post in 2015 has already broken our own record set the previous year with a GIF that organically received 388 thousand notes in 72 hours. The page has racked up 60,000 followers on Tumblr and has significantly increased brand affinity among mobile savvy consumers. Most of all, organic engagement with brand assets have generated millions of dollars of earned media value.