You have been doing Branded Content all your life

Branded Content is the most intuitive thing in the world. You have been doing it all your life.

It normally starts in adolescence, when you need friends to survive. That is your audience. So you sell the idea that you are a life style, more than any other human seeking to be different.

You analyse those values which make you what you are: honest, competitive, curious, funny, perceptive. You cannot be the handsome one, nor the singer, nor the sportsman, so you decide to go against the tide. A rebel whose cause is to be above the average. Thus, you already have your editorial line. Your Storytelling.

You start to generate contents. During break, you comment on the Iranian film that you force yourself to watch every Sunday. You play role games instead of football. You discover demos of underground groups. You complain in class just for the pleasure of arguing with the teacher. You combine intelligent and rational matters with other more passionate and emotional. You create information content (that is me), educational (that’s the way things are) and entertainment (lets have fun) .

That is your story, the non-conformist, built on contents that haven’t been chosen randomly, but underline the values that define you.

You are impatient, you want short term results, and you decide to take short cuts. You prefer to have many acquaintances instead of good friends. You give priority to quantity of contents instead of quality. You budge into others´ conversation instead of waiting for them to invite you in. When they start to view you as spam, you generate further contents that are only another hidden praise of your own ego.

You try and pretend to be leading a community. But everyone knows that that numerous group of friends that follow you are Asian tourists that don’t even speak your language. In fact, they don’t even answer your monologues. You are not fooling anyone.

The following year you find yourself repeating the same format but with new contents. New Iranian movie, new CDs, new protests. You drop role games for poker, because it started becoming incoherent. James Dean did not go around with Magic Cards in his pockets.

Little by little, with time and patience, you start to gain confidence, coherence and strength, despite some twists and turns. You start to understand better the style of life you want to picture, and you reduce your click baits and superficial attempts at drawing attention on yourself. To be authentic becomes your priority. Above all, credibility.

Time evolves. Your turn the page and one day you enter university. New targets, new channels, new formats, new competitors. You must optimise your tale, without denying your past, but creating a whole new Storytelling. Your contents are going to demand more attention and more investment. You must innovate formats. Your credibility will be more closely examined. Haters are going to be stronger to defeat.

Let them come. You are more than fed up with your strict coherence. With Iranian cinema. With your clothes. With role games. Let alone Vetusta Morla.

Either you play Trap, or you´re done.