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.

In 2014, 20th Century Fox tapped Virtue Worldwide, along with VICE’s science and technology channel, Motherboard, to support the release of its forthcoming motion picture Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. The goal was twofold: create a compelling, multi-pronged program that will excite existing fans of the franchise while simultaneously breeding a new generation of Apes enthusiasts.

Virtue approached the task by designing a 360-degree global campaign consisting of one long-form documentary and three scripted short films, which would be supported by media and activated in international markets that would be key to the film’s release that summer.

The long-form documentary, The Real Planet of the Apes, tapped into Motherboard’s endemic audience of millions of science and tech fans by uncovering real-life parallels between the film and an island off the coast of Liberia, rumored to be the real “Monkey Island.”

Next, the program bridged the ten-year gap between the film and its prequel, Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), through Before the Dawn: a mini-series consisting of three scripted shorts exploring how a viral pandemic impacted humanity during the decade left untouched. Up-and-coming directors were granted complete creative freedom when conceiving of and helming the shorts, which were then combined to create a cohesive mini-series that lived alongside the long-form doc.

The entirety of the campaign was packaged together and published on Motherboard, along with other VICE owned-and-operated channels. One week prior to the film’s theatrical release, an excess of 5.1M fans viewed the videos across the globe, propelling Dawn of the Planet of the Apes to gross $613.6M internationally and become one of the highest grossing films of 2014.

Our dynamic original content campaign for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes heightened the films' universe with expansive narratives while simultaneously grounding it in the real-world via an illuminating documentary.

To bridge the ten-year narrative gap between the previous film and leading up to Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, our short film series Before the Dawn acted as official prequel films, exciting fans of the series while also setting the stage for broader audiences not familiar with the franchise as a whole.

The success of this program can be attributed to the cinematic approach we took to Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. In creating this series, we revisited a fundamental memory of the original film that the core audience held and in doing so, created an entirely new generation of Apes fans.

One week before the film’s theatrical launch, the series set fire to the internet and was viewed online by more than 5.1 million fans worldwide, garnering 19 million social impressions, 25 million press views and, of the 58 domestic press outlets covering the series, 98% mentioned the movie and 57% mentioned the release date. Overall this program helped gain Dawn of the Planet of the Apes to gross $710,000,000 million worldwide.

20th Century Fox tapped VICE’s creative arm Virtue Worldwide to create a video campaign that would boost awareness and excitement leading up to the release of its feature film Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. To do so, Virtue brought on VICE’s science and tech channel, Motherboard, to act as the campaign’s hub, guaranteeing exposure to the channel’s audience of millions of young people worldwide.

The program is comprised of four films – one long-form documentary and three scripted shorts – each of which expands upon themes that are integral to the Apes franchise, including: scientific research, the military, disease, and, of course, apes.

The campaign in its entirety was housed in a branded room on Motherboard, which was populated exclusively with Dawn of the Planet of the Apes media. Videos included brand attribution through top and tail cards, and adjacent editorial content tied in the film’s release date.