What should a Branded Explainer have?

1. Flexibility.

The Branded Explainer should be able to take on different forms to suit different content and different platforms.

As ProPublica has demonstrated in their past stories, they tried to provide context to a story through three ways: "story so far", timeline, "related apps& feature". So we can see that there should not be one unique way of doing branded explainer, it should be a congregation of various means of explanation.

And this product of "Branded Explainer" should have the flexibility to implement all the possible means of explanation.

Another thing is that the Branded Explainer should be able to be applied to different platforms. So that the value of this product would not be limited by the platforms.

2. Proximity

A story, especially an on going event, is in constant need of update. So the Branded Explainer should have the ability to address the changing story in order to provide proximity to the story.

That is to say the Branded Explainer should never be a static component attached to a story, it should have the ability to update through the time. Only in this way, can the Branded Explainer be useful to help readers gain adequate background knowledge of the event.

3. Customization

The major reason for a Branded Explainer is to address the need that different readers have different knowledge of a certain event. So when we are developing the Branded Explainer, we should also bear in mind that the Branded Explainer itself should be able to be customized by different users. While they have different knowledge of a story, they also need different Branded Explainer. Otherwise a too detailed Branded Explainer would be a waste of time for users have already acquired certain amount of knowledge of the story and is just lack a part of the rest.

So either through collecting each user's reading history or other means, the Branded Explainer should be able to have the ability to be customized.

4. Localization

A localized version of Branded Explainer would always be more interesting to the local readers. Even for a news story, if you feel the closeness to the Branded Explainer it would definitely work better. So if the Branded Explainer can be localized to cater to different users in different places, it would not only more effective, there might be a new way for revenue too.