• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, June 20, 2016

CANNES, FRANCE -- At Cannes Lions Monday, Yahoo announced a branded content initiative that Dasani, Farmers Insurance, and JetBlue have already signed up to participate in.

Storytellers, a content marketing studio for brands and agencies, will offer access to Yahoo's editorial team and more than 165 billion daily data signals to develop and measure branded content through Yahoo Gemini, the company's marketplace for native and search advertising.

It also will offer services such as content consulting, workshops, premium video. 

JetBlue worked with Yahoo on a content marketing campaign the company said resulted in more than 3 million views of their native video ads, 31 million social media impressions, and 27% of people who viewed the posts and then engaged with the brand.

The rebranding of several previous platforms into Storytelling has Yahoo partnering with creators such as Believe Entertainment Group, Endemol Shine Beyond, Trium-INE Entertainment, among others.

"At Yahoo, we have a team that's focused on our Yahoo Storytellers offerings and helping brands develop successful content marketing campaigns based on their individual goals," said Lisa Utzschneider, CRO of Yahoo. "We determine what type of content a brand is looking to create and what will resonate most with their audience. This also helps inform the creators and influencers that we work with for a particular campaign."

Earlier this year, the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) released a 2016 benchmark study detailing budgets and trends in North America.

The findings reveal that on average, marketers will allocate 32% of their total marketing budget to content marketing to reach consumers, up from 25% in 2015.

B2B marketers find content marketing a bit more challenging. Some 32% have a documented content marketing strategy compared with 35% in 2015 -- although the research shows that those who document their strategy are more effective in nearly all areas of content marketing, per a similar CMI study on B2B industry.

In a move that seems to support Storytellers, Yahoo also introduced a mobile ad format it calls Tiles. The company will make it available through Yahoo's Gemini and BrightRoll platforms allows advertisers to create interactive 360-degree content running on Android and iOS devices.

The content supports video, images, and social feeds to improve on experiences for mobile native, video and display ads.