Branded entertainment will just be entertainment in 2026

We’ve had branded entertainment since Procter & Gamble invented soap operas back in the 1930s. But today, brands are forced to diversify the ways in which they gain and hold our attention. It’s no longer as viable or effective to depend on traditional paid media tools. 

Innovative marketers are increasingly investing in content and experiences that attract and engage audiences rather than interrupt and annoy them. And the shift is driving results. Brands of all stripes talk about “brand entertainment,” but it’s the exceptions that truly create actual entertainment. 

I’ve spent a lot of time this past year writing and talking on the Brand New World podcast about the variety of ways different brands are doing this right. From WhatsApp working with Modern Arts on a Netflix doc about the Mercedes F1 team, to Dick’s Sporting Goods formally establishing an internal entertainment studio that has already won Sports Emmys for We Could Be King in 2015 and The Turnaround in 2024, to the unprecedented deal struck between AB InBev and Netflix. The latter, signed in November, puts the global brewer’s major beer brands front and center in Netflix’s push into live sports, as well as giving it early access to placement and integration in Netflix shows and movies.

Obviously brands want the shine of legitimate Hollywood entertainment. But production costs and other financial pressures have made working with brands a much more attractive prospect for Hollywood too. So I wanted to check back in with the executives behind some of these projects to find out what they anticipate the biggest developments will be in 2026.

The most significant drivers of these developments stem from the evolving platforms, fueled by audience preferences and behavior, as well as the economic realities driving brands and Hollywood into each other’s arms more often and in more varied ways. 

Marketers—and audiences, for that matter—are going to see some big changes coming to screens, both big and small. Read on for what to expect.

Shifting platforms

Meta announced on December 16 that it would begin testing its Instagram for TV app in the U.S. on Amazon Fire TV streaming devices. Zac Ryder, cofounder and co-chief creative officer of Modern Arts, says this feature is going to be a game-changer for brand entertainment. Brands as varied as UPS, Bud Light, and Sephora have been building audiences on Instagram Reels and Stories, while other brands are jumping into the micro-drama trend of serialized, bite-size soap operas in vertical video.

Ryder says this shift means brand content on the platform will continue to look even more like entertainment, getting longer and more ambitious to better align with TV viewing behavior. Ultimately, this will further blur the lines between entertainment and social. 

Ryder says that as a result we’ll start to see more big swings featuring A-list storytellers and talent this year. “This will be especially true for brands who are already very invested in IG and have spent years building their followers. And of course, if brands are going to start dropping more ambitious work on IG, they’ll drop it on YouTube as well,” he says. “In order to compete for brand dollars, streamers will need to become even better partners to brands, all of which will create even more energy in this space and raise the bar even higher.”

A growing number of people are watching YouTube (and soon, Instagram Reels) on their TVs. Meanwhile, streamers like Netflix and Disney+ are increasingly utilizing brand partnerships to keep subscriber prices competitive. Many of my sources believe these changing dynamics of how we watch and engage with entertainment will drive where brands can find the best opportunities.

“I suspect we’ll see more next-generation partnerships like those we’ve been involved with this past year, especially as the Warner Bros. thing sorts itself out,” says Jae Goodman, cofounder and CEO of Superconnector Studios. “I bet Skydance/Paramount, Disney, Amazon, Comcast/NBCU will all come to market with brands as true partners in surprising, innovative, mutually beneficial, and I bet very effective ways.”

A new strategy

Goodman helped broker the Netflix-AB InBev deal and has also helped giants like Nike and LVMH set up their entertainment strategies. He says the long-standing trajectory of how brands and Hollywood do business has fundamentally changed.

Typically, it’s TV networks and streamers selling ad space to media agencies, then creative agencies filling the order. Film studios and distributors sell partnerships to brands, then licensing and promotional agencies get creative with the intellectual property.

“Brands are now entering the market with real entertainment strategies,” Goodman says. “And brands are leading the conversation with entertainment entities by asking, ‘What if we wanted to achieve XYZ and then figure out the structure and cost?’ We refer to it as idea flow before deal flow.”

This past year, the Martin Agency worked with Subway Takes creator Kareem Rahma on “UPS Business Trips.” Martin’s chief brand officer, Elizabeth Paul, believes branded entertainment is growing up and moving from bloated bandwagons with hundreds of brand sponsors (see: Wicked) to fewer projects with a more focused audience.

UPS is a major brand that could easily jump on the blockbuster movie bandwagon or make a Super Bowl ad. Instead, “UPS Business Trips” was a relatively small, Subway Takes-inspired series in which Rahma and UPS drivers visit small-business customers. According to the agency, it had more than 100 million views across platforms, and generated 1,000% return on ad spend.

“For those who truly believe in the space, brand entertainment will stop being treated as a campaign format and start being managed as a portfolio,” says Paul, who suggests that the best brands will start thinking like studios, not marketing departments.

We’ve seen this most recently with Dick’s Sporting Goods’s new in-house studio division, Cookie Jar & a Dream Studios. Dick’s CMO Emily Silver told me back in September that this move will see the brand be more aggressive in the number of films and pieces of content it releases, as well as help the brand build more of a name for itself in the entertainment industry to attract different writers and projects.

“It gives us the opportunity to put a little more structure and framework around what content we want to produce and where we want to lean in to help build for the long term,” she said at the time.

New economics

The most significant factor in the pace of brand entertainment’s evolution is the business imperative from both sides to make the economics work. North American box office revenue for 2025 was more than 20% lower than pre-pandemic levels. And in the first half of 2025, major streamers ordered 24% fewer first-run and renewed scripted titles than the same period in 2024.

As production costs have skyrocketed, and the ability to get entertainment projects off the ground more difficult, Hollywood’s typically cool condescension toward marketers has thawed to the point of giddy embrace. Cynically, even if Hollywood sees brands as logo-plastered ATMs, brands see an opportunity to exploit this need for cash to do cool things that are actual entertainment.

“Last year, economic pressure forced marketers to be really choiceful with their media plans, which forced intentionality,” says Paul. “As brands got more selective, the most successful collaborations meant fewer swings with clearer creative intent. The result wasn’t louder brand entertainment, but more considered work—projects that respected fandom, embraced specificity, and trusted audiences to meet brands halfway.”

Paul cites the Martin Agency’s work on Bud Light’s Armchair Quarterback last year, a Netflix partnership starring Peyton Manning that parodies the second season of the streamer’s show Quarterback. Armchair Quarterback attracted more than 100 million social impressions, thanks in no small part to tapping into the fandom of Quarterback by working with the show, its producers—Manning’s Omaha Productions—and Netflix.

However, she reiterates that this can’t be a simple “exchange of relevance for cash. This is about forging true strategic partnerships that delight fans and move markets.”

Talent magnet

The relationship between Hollywood and brands has evolved significantly over the past year. Brand partnerships and content are not embarrassing for studios or streamers anymore, in part because of the aforementioned economics, but also because the quality is higher and the value is clear.

WhatsApp’s film The Seat, for example, cost about as much as it would to make and buy ad time for a 60-second commercial. But it also was high enough quality to stand on its own on Netflix. This is a virtuous cycle: The better the quality, the higher caliber of talent is attracted to subsequent projects, which in turn should continue to boost the caliber of these projects.

Ryder says a growing number of A-list showrunners, writers, directors, and creators have been reaching out to learn more about the brand world in hopes of finding a project to work on together.

LVMH’s entertainment division, 22 Montaigne, for example, is developing projects with Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine, as well as Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment.

“When we started making these kinds of brand projects 10 years ago, everyone on the talent side was so suspicious,” Ryder says. Many believed brand entertainment was just a glorified long commercial. That has changed as more high-quality films have dropped. “It’s a bit like a Michelin chef trying a killer food truck and realizing that could be a new outlet for their cooking,” he says. “There are just a lot more delicious food trucks out there now.”