Our third Gluesnight on June 8 celebrated the launch of the All Time Top 20 Branded Content Campaigns, a compilation produced by the Branded Content Marketing Association and Electric Glue to mark the 20th anniversary of the BCMA. Branded content continues to thrive as Electric Glue’s Simon Orpin and BCMA Global Chairman Andrew Canter told us, but it's often poorly understood and still faces a number of challenges.

Here are some key takeaways from a lively panel debate:

Sir John Hegarty, Chair, Electric Glue:

“This whole area is growing faster than traditional advertising… and yet there’s so little discussion about it. The challenge is making it part of our culture. And how you use it to create fame for brands. The more we understand it, the better we’ll get at it.”

"Brands should avoid doing the obvious thing. Don’t just make a film about the product you make. Look at it from a different angle. It’s about quality of creativity. When it’s there, people take it seriously.”

Lara Worthington, Head of Creative Partnerships, ITV:

“The lesson we’ve learned with Love Island is that good creative outcomes in branded content involve giving it over to the experts and letting them have control. That’s really important when you’re dealing with influencers."

Adam Kaczmarski, Creative Producer, Electric Robin:

“The creative challenge often has to do with how long people have been there in the marketing department. Branded content takes a long time to develop… and the industry has a lot of churn in it. You need to have the mindset that you’re a brand that wants to tell a story. When you have a short-term mindset, branded content can seem a risky proposition. But the truth is that creativity of this type doesn’t have to be prohibitively expensive.”