How Agencies Can Offer Branded Entertainment to Their Clients
A guide for advertising and marketing agencies looking to add branded entertainment and original series production to their service offerings through producing partnerships.
If you run a creative, media, or marketing agency, your clients are probably asking about branded entertainment. Brands want to produce series, films, and documentary content — and they are looking to their agencies for guidance.
The challenge is that most agencies are not production companies. You may have strong creative, strategy, and media capabilities, but producing a six-episode docuseries or a competition format requires a different set of skills and infrastructure.
The agency opportunity
Branded entertainment is a significant revenue and relationship opportunity for agencies. Clients who produce entertainment with their agency deepen the relationship beyond campaign cycles. The projects are larger, longer, and more strategically important than typical campaign work. And the agency adds a high-value capability to its offering.
How to add entertainment without building a production company
The answer is a producing partnership. Agencies partner with a production company that specializes in entertainment, and together they serve the brand client. The agency brings the client relationship, brand strategy, and marketing expertise. The production partner brings creative development, production execution, and distribution.
This model works because it plays to each partner's strengths:
The agency understands the brand's marketing goals, audience, and competitive landscape. They can articulate what the entertainment needs to accomplish from a brand perspective.
The producing partner understands how to develop a show concept, produce at a professional level, and navigate distribution. They can translate the brand strategy into content that audiences actually want to watch.
Structuring the partnership
There are several models for how agency-production partnerships work:
White label. The production partner operates under the agency's brand. The client sees a seamless extension of the agency's capabilities. This works well when the agency wants to own the client relationship entirely.
Referral. The agency introduces the client to the production partner and stays involved in a strategic advisory role. This is simpler but the agency has less control over the process.
Co-development. Agency and production partner collaborate equally on concept development and strategy, with the production partner handling execution. This is the most common model for substantive entertainment projects.
What to look for in a production partner
Agencies evaluating production partners should look for entertainment credentials (not just corporate video experience), transparent deal structures, distribution capabilities, and the ability to collaborate with agency teams without ego conflicts.
The best production partners understand that agencies are strategic partners, not competitors. They bring production expertise and are happy to let the agency lead the client relationship.
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A step-by-step overview of how brands enter entertainment — formats, budgets, deal structures, and what to look for in a producing partner.
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