Dive Brief: 

• A study from IPG Media, commissioned by Forbes, gives promise to the idea that branded content (native advertising) is effective. 
• A survey of 2, 259 participants were shown web pages from Forbes.com that had branded content from auto, liquor and financial services brands.
• Of the participants, 41% were more likely to express buying intent after seeing branded content than those who were shown a page without. Also, 28% of participants had a favorable view of the brand after seeing branded content. 

Dive Insight: 

This study from Forbes tries really hard to prove that branded content is working. To a certain extent it does, but the industry has a long way to go to prove this on a large scale. It's promising that positive results were found, but the study is just of Forbes and for only three brands, making the scope quite small. Good for Forbes for being one of the first to put some numbers to the practice, though, as this will surely help them sell some ads.