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.

The entire series was hosted on GE’s YouTube, and VICE’s Youku channel, with a special premiere on VICE’s popular tech channel Motherboard. The series was amplified through native Facebook postings of trailers and teasers, Instagram videos, Tumblr posts, and through a special partnership with Snapchat which aided the launch their latest “Discovery” program.

As a result of our strategic social activity we were able to create huge engagement driving to the series, meriting front page placement on China’s largest content platform Youku, and garnering over 6.5 million content views alone.