How Brands Are Redefining Themselves as Media Companies (2.0) – The Age of Video

Prologue: A 2016 Bet That Predicted the Future

In 2016, Dan Benyamin (Founder/CEO) and Adam Hua (SVP, Revenue) at CitizenNet, a company building predictive tools around social content, made a bold prediction: "All brands are media companies." This wasn't a thought experiment; it was the DNA of their company. CitizenNet, armed with machine learning and first-party data, helped brands like Sony Pictures and Live Nation optimize content distribution, transforming them into precisely targeted media outlets. This singular insight led to Condé Nast acquiring CitizenNet in 2017, integrating its AI to help brands craft meaningful stories at scale. Now, the Aeon platform, spearheaded by the same visionaries, elevates that bet to a new echelon, democratizing video storytelling at scale. A decade after CitizenNet’s prescience, the 2025 EMARKETER US Commerce Media Forecast validates the transformation.

Not only are brands becoming media companies, but they are also doing so with the full force of video, leveraging audiences, sophisticated storytelling, and diverse platform infrastructure to monetize attention in ways never before imagined. This trend has grown from an idea to a reality that is transforming the entire advertising industry.

I. Audience: Owning Attention in a Fragmented World

The EMARKETER report underscores that brands no longer simply reach audiences; they now own them. Retailers like Amazon paved the way, but the 2025 forecast illuminates how non-retail verticals are accelerating audience ownership in innovative ways:

• First-party data supremacy: Financial institutions and travel companies monetize transactional data once used solely for risk assessment. United Airlines' media network, as cited in the EMARKETER report, epitomizes this shift, targeting travelers based on intricate itinerary patterns and achieving 92% higher click-through rates than conventional display ads. This echoes CitizenNet’s 2016 vision of hyper-targeted audience segments but with exponential data richness.

• Community as revenue stream: According to the EMARKETER forecast, 72% of consumers trust brand-produced content over third-party journalism. Companies like Mohegan (casino media) are capitalizing on this shift by cultivating niche communities around gaming lifestyles, mirroring Condé Nast’s post-acquisition strategy of CitizenNet. This community-centric strategy enables brands to create direct loyalty loops beyond traditional marketing channels.

• Audience portability and the power of video: Platforms like Aeon empower brands to repurpose content across Meta, TikTok, and YouTube without platform dependency—a crucial evolution since CitizenNet's early focus on Facebook. As video dominates, this portability ensures brands maintain audience control amid shifting social algorithms. With Aeon, a blog post becomes a series of TikTok-ready videos in minutes, fully embracing a trend the EMARKETER report notes as essential for ROI.

II. Storytelling: Weaving Narratives, Not Just Ads

The demarcation between marketing and media is dissolving at warp speed. EMARKETER projects nonretail commerce media will grow at a 34.1% CAGR (2025–2028), largely fueled by these storytelling innovations:

• Vertical-specific editorialization: Financial brands like Robinhood now produce market analysis videos that outperform CNBC in Gen Z viewership, a result of resonating more profoundly than generic programming. Healthcare companies are producing documentary-style content about wellness, blending product seamlessly with compelling narratives.

• AI-driven scalability: Aeon's platform reduces video production costs by 70% through automated scripting and editing—a quantum leap from CitizenNet’s early machine-learning tools. As the LiveRamp-sponsored article within the EMARKETER report stresses, brands must embrace standardization beyond just measurement. Aeon's video creation tools exemplify this integration, enabling high-volume content output, which is essential for sustaining relevance in today's dynamic media environment.

• Ethical recalibration: The EMARKETER report indicates that post-2023 privacy laws have made contextual storytelling essential. United Airlines' campaigns, for instance, now emphasize destination cultures over individual user profiles, aligning with IAB guidelines. This refocuses creativity on content quality and relevance, aligning with CitizenNet’s early emphasis on "meaningful stories" for Condé Nast clients.

III. Platforms: Building Brand-Led Media Ecosystems

The 2025 forecast emphasizes a dual-platform strategy for success, as depicted in the EMARKETER report:

Key Developments:

• Interoperability: Financial institutions are syndicating video content across banking apps and TikTok, using data management tools to unify metrics. This resonates with CitizenNet’s early vision for cross-platform optimization.

• Monetization layers: Travel companies monetize via sponsored video content (e.g., Airbnb’s "Local Experiences" guides) and affiliate marketing, harmonizing with Condé Nast's post-CitizenNet strategy. The 2025 forecast highlights a shift towards more diverse revenue streams beyond traditional display advertising.

• Measurement standardization: The IAB’s 2024 guidelines, emphasized in the LiveRamp article, enable cross-network comparability, which permits brands to evaluate campaign ROI holistically. This fosters confidence in commerce media by addressing transparency gaps.

IV. Case Studies: The New Media Titans

1. CitizenNet and Condé Nast: A Vision Realized

The 2017 CitizenNet acquisition has been incredibly successful, with over 50% of Conde’s revenue coming from brands using Spire (data product) and/or Amplify (social branded content) to become media companies. Luxury advertisers utilizing Spire achieve 300% higher ROI than traditional campaigns, showcasing the power of integrating data and storytelling.

2. United Airlines’ Media Network Ascent

As noted in the EMARKETER report, by transforming flight booking data into a media network, United generated $27M in 2024 ad revenue and is projected to triple by 2026. This demonstrates the revenue potential of industry-specific content.

3. Financial Services' Content Revolution

The EMARKETER report projects financial media ad spending to grow 42% YoY in 2025, with companies such as Amex leveraging transaction data to create Bloomberg-esque business news verticals. The data demonstrates the growing power and trust in this content.

V. Challenges and Strategic Imperatives

Although the brand-as-media model is rapidly expanding, there are some challenges ahead:

• Trust deficits: According to the EMARKETER report, 72% of consumers trust brand content, but 41% distrust brand journalism. Tools like a transparency dashboard that show content sources, are essential for building credibility.

• Regulatory compliance: The EU's 2024 A.I. Content Act mandates that brands must proactively label AI-generated video content.

• Monetization innovation: As the EMARKETER report indicates, there is a growing emphasis on the value of subscriber-only content. Subscriber-only content hubs, like Sephora’s “Beauty Insider Video Vault,” grew 220% YoY, presenting a new path beyond traditional advertising revenue.

Conclusion: The Age of Brand-Led Media is Here

The 2025 commerce media landscape validates Benyamin and Hua’s 2016 thesis: brands that dominate audience ownership, video storytelling, and platform agility do not merely compete with media companies—they become them. The same leaders of CitizenNet are now betting on this future with Aeon, scaling the market to new heights with high-volume video. As EMARKETER points out, retail’s share of commerce media will fall below 90% by 2028, not from any decrease, but because nonretail verticals are replicating their playbook with video-driven, vertical-specific content. In this emergent paradigm, every transaction generates data, every interaction fuels video content, and every brand must decide: Are we a product company with a media division, or are we a media company that monetizes through products? The answer will define the next decade.

Methodology: Insights derived from EMARKETER’s 2025 US Commerce Media Forecast (pp. 4–19), CitizenNet acquisition records, and industry data.