It is clear that 2012 is truly the tipping point for branded content. With consumers, technology and media as the trifecta of powerful driving forces, content creation, distribution and consumption barriers have collapsed. Now that we stand in the rubble of these former barriers, the content free-for-all has begun. More and more projects are taking shape around the globe with fantastic properties showcasing compelling brand messages, but how do we measure success? And on the flip side, how do we advance the implementation of branded entertainment programs beyond one-off experimental marketing programs trying to take advantage of this newly found land of media access?

If you’re reading this, you’re probably a curator. You search specific keywords on Google and evaluate results to target exactly what you’re looking for. You follow and trust a host of sources for particular veins of information and expertise. While I admit that the subject matter of Curation Nation, namely content aggregation and curation, overtly sparks a conversation most inviting to data experts, I believe that the sooner you accept that you, too, are a curator, the better.

May 31, 2001. And then the world changed—well, TV changed, anyway. I remember it clearly. We’re brought into a boat in the South China Sea, as host Jeff Probst provides just the right amount of exposition for us to understand the situation—the rules of the game, the players, and the unprecedented $1 million brass ring they’re all after. The show was Survivor, and 24 seasons later, it’s still thriving.

The comprehensiveness of Frank Rose’s The Art of Immersion is a testament to its own assertions and concerns. In its 333 pages, the book managed to convince me of its philosophical backdrop: knowledge may be anywhere, in anyone, at any time.  The assertions, psychological and cultural allusions, and anecdotes form a huge—but somehow cohesive—network of meaning (kudos, Rose). At the center of Rose’s focus on the changing landscape of advertising and television are two things: storytelling and narrative, and Rose keeps the text interesting and diverse by invoking psychologists, classic writers, and even fictional avatars. He jumps right into the thick of it in his Prologue, discussing the human necessity of storytelling for two reasons: first, for its inherent reliance on a symbiotic human relationship between teller and hearer, creator and viewer; second, as we’ll learn later in the book, because humans crave meaning. In part because my Masters thesis deals with this very issue, I couldn’t help but unite the two reasons and wonder where, how, and by whom is meaning created?

PepsiCo is no stranger to the value of creating significant branded content (e.g. Gatorade REPLAY) and is now the latest Company to utilize branded entertainment to try to conquer the major challenge of the soft-drink industry: rallying a new market of “Mid-Calorie Believers”. These people want less calories and/or sugar than a regular soda,…