Keyvan Thomsen Bamdej:
»Great meeting you, I think our audience would really appreciate knowing more about branded content and the work that you do at TIME. Could you please introduce yourself?«

Graham McDonnell:
»Yes, well, I'm Graham McDonnell. I guess my technical job title is VP of Brand and Creative at TIME, but that's kind of broad and ambiguous. My role is to find the best creative solutions for the creative challenges that we come across. My career path has been quite erratic over the years. I started out in the music industry, moved into the film industry, kind of settled in the design industry. So now, I'm trying to touch on all of these different bits of my experience to come up with the best or most relevant solution to the problem.«

Keyvan:
»So, what is it that you do exactly?«

Graham:
»Technically, brand content falls into the sort of umbrella of advertising. But my job is to make the things that we create actually hold some value. Sounds easy. It's a lot more challenging than you think because obviously, it can be hugely beneficial if content from a trusted publisher talks about your brand, product, or service in a generally engaging way. And this is why brands come to publishers like TIME, in order to co-create content of that nature.«

Keyvan:
»I see. Could you please elaborate?«

Graham:
»So, I've been doing this type of work for nearly 20 years now. I spent five years at The New York Times' T Brand Studio, which is a custom content studio that is a unit of The New York Times and produces paid native advertising for the newspaper. I started working in London, then moved to New York. And the last couple of years, I've been working at TIME.«

Keyvan:
»What is that like?«

Graham:
»It's great. TIME is becoming a 100 year-old-brand in 2023. Definitely, in the last couple of years, we have become an independent company again, and there's been a lot of effort into reestablishing the brand perception in the minds of audiences. You know, TIME is obviously known for TIME Magazine, which is rightly like an institution. But what else? How can we reimagine TIME for the next hundred years? What does it mean? And a lot of our departments, like TIME Studios and the Web3 division have been kind of very much innovating in their spaces to kind of make sure that people do not only think about the physical magazine.«

Keyvan:
»How is it to work with a brand this old, and wanting to innovate and keep things fresh and at the same time respect the history of the publication?«

Graham:
»Well, I mean, it would be a huge mistake to just disregard everything that the TIME brand has built over the last hundred years. There has never been any attempt to do that. But I guess it's just leveraging the strengths of a brand. We always say, especially over the last couple of years, it's a little bit like working at a startup at TIME: You're encouraged to move quickly, and act on ideas that you have. We just so happen to have the power of a 100 year-old-brand behind us. So, that does open up a lot of doors, and as a creative person, I get to explore different areas, which is essentially why we all get up in the morning.«