If a brand is irrelevant in our lives—it is a brand on the decline. Some brands have to work harder than others to remain relevant. Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon and other brands that we interact with on an hourly, daily or weekly basis are easily made relevant in our lives given our interactions as users. Other brands often have to work harder to remain relevant.
This year's Super Bowl is a good gut check for brands who will be working to remain highly relevant in the hearts and minds of consumers already in a committed relationship with the brand as well as those who aren't. Advertising and brand storytelling often reflects the culture, trends and increasingly the societal issues of the day. But in bringing the three together it also presents a tall order for today's brands who will likely hit the target with some and totally miss with others:
Culture: The context of which we live in often reflected by entertainment, news, media etc.
Trends: What's getting our attention at the time—things that impact how we live and work ranging from technology to art, music etc.
Societal Issues: The topics of our time reflecting social-economical and cultural context. The things we debate or deem critical to society.
Many advertisers during this year's big game find themselves at the intersection of culture, trends and societal issues. As a result, they are going to need to answer the question of "was it worth it" in a more nuanced ways. On face value—measuring the effectiveness by a Super Bowl ad in terms of views is the most traditional way to do it. But for brands who are dialed up at the intersection of culture, trends and societal issues—measuring views will not be enough. They must also break down sentiment indicators such as:
• Likes/Dislikes • Positive Responses (media, social, search) • Negative Responses media, social, search) • New Subscriptions and Followers • Lost Subscriptions and Followers
One of this year's Superbowl Ads which is operating at the intersection of culture, trends and societal issues is Audi—taking on equal pay through its ad and subsequent hashtag #Driveprogess. From Adweek:
The 60-second spot, posted Wednesday to YouTube and Facebook and closing in on 5 million views as of noon Friday, has a remarkably high ratio of negative sentiment—almost 40,000 dislikes to just 4,000 likes. There are two separate criticisms—one, that the ad is simply leftist propaganda; and two, that it is hypocritical because of the company’s heavily male leadership team. (Audi AG’s board of directors, too, has six men and no women.)
The Pressure to Remain Relevant for Brands In a Politically Charged Culture is High 2017's Superbowl advertising is a reflection of today's culture in that brands increasingly feel the need to be a part of the dialogue despite societal divisions—so we're likely to see more brands attempting to be relevant at the intersection of culture, trends and societal issues. As a bonus—it also demonstrates a level of "responsibility" especially if the brand feels like it's taking the right stance on the right issues. However, success in this space cannot be discerned by reach alone. Sentiment metrics will become increasingly important for brands asking the question:
We're entering a new era of consumer activism as a result of societal divisions, a lack of distrust in once trusted institutions such as media and the mainstreaming of peer to peer information sharing enabled through social media. But how far should brands go to take a stance?
The answer to this question is as complex as the issue itself. For some brands, it's a matter of public perception, for others— a matter of principle and for others, it means aligning the values of their brand with the values of their consumers:
Taking a Stance Is Not Without Risk This Sunday, Budweiser will be airing an ad that takes on the issue of immigration head on. It does so in a powerful and emotive way—tying it to to its heritage and making the case that the brand would not be what it is today without immigration.
Budweiser's message for what they stand for and believe in is clear—but the question left unanswered at this point is how the message will resonate with the millions of consumers who have affinity for the brand. Will some cheer the move while others feel alienated by it? Will the typical Budweiser consumer appreciate the not so subtle stance? For every action there is a reaction which prompts a response from brands and for Budweiser, what's yet to be seen is the full reaction to their message.
Balancing Consumer With Brand Activism If we're seeing a perfect storm for consumer activism, then by logic the cause and effect becomes a form of brand activism. And this is where brands will need to do a gut check on their values and the alignment with the values of their consumers. Much like how social sentiment and search engines provided indicators for what people REALLY thought about Donald Trump—brands will have to have the finger on the pulse of their core consumers now more than ever. The stakes could not be any higher for the relationship between consumer and brand.
Consumer Activism: Just Getting Started Since the inauguration of president Trump, we've seen protests seemingly organized on a dime whether it be The Women's March, The March for Life or the recent immigration protests at local airports. These actions, however will not be limited to the protests in public but also in protests of the purse or at least the #hashtag. Case in point—when Uber announced that it would be removing surge pricing to pick up the slack caused by NYC cab drivers who joined immigration protests it was seen by some customers as profiting from an issue they vehemently disagreed with.
And from this, the #Deleteuber "movement" was born with people screen grabbing their deletion of the app, swearing allegiance to Uber's competition and encouraging peers to do the same. While consumer activism isn't new by any stretch of the imagination—today's record levels of distrust in once trusted institutions (see Edelman's Trust Barometer) combined with peer connectivity sets the stage for a dramatic increase of the phenomena.
From Brand Awareness to Consumer Activism For brands to raise their level of readiness in an era where consumer activism becomes more commonplace—marketers must think about four key stages in addition to the traditional funnel. Each stage carries with it a positive or negative impact for a brand.
Awareness + Positive: Consumer has general awareness of a brand and its values and finds them relevant - Negative: Consumer has low awareness of brand and its values and brand is not relevant
Affinity + Positive: Consumer has a high affinity for the brand and preference as a result - Negative: Consumer has low affinity for the brand and does not show loyalty
Advocacy + Positive: Consumer will recommend brand to others and actively promote it - Negative: Consumer will speak negatively about brand and actively criticize it
Activism + Positive: Consumer will actively defend or take action which benefits brand - Negative: Consumer will actively take action which damages brand (reputation or financial)
Source: Buzzfeed Earning Trust in an Era of Consumer Activism Emerging societal demands and divides combined with peer connectivity provide the perfect storm for consumer activism and brands must find ways to earn not only the loyalty but trust of their consumers. Edelman's 2016 Earned Brand study outlines that most brands engage consumers in a way that interest and involve them but fall short of getting them invested to the point where consumers would advocate on their behalf or act as "activists" in their favor.
Handle With Care: Consumer Activism Will Force Brands to Examine Their Values If nothing else, consumer activists will force brands to ask themselves "what do we stand for"? The biggest risk for a brand in dealing with a low trust environment is to act inauthentically, contrived or in a way that feels opportunistic. Still, consumers will continue to evaluate brands not only by how relevant they are in their lives—but how responsible they feel they are. Or to put it another way, how much they feel they have in common in terms of their values. If a brand today cannot express or articulate those values—it risks leaving its intent and action open to interpretation.
Q: When should a brand act like a publisher? A: Ad blocking software
You find yourself watching an entertaining series starring your favorite celebrity and Jerry Seinfeld. Or maybe it's your favorite internet cat celebrities joining forces in a holiday themed music video. Or it's a *satirical article from The Onion showing up in your Facebook feed. What the above have in common is the fact that none of them are the advertising most of us grew up with on our televisions or even desktops for that matter—but they are all working in the service of brands and organizations.
Welcome to the age of brands as publishers—designed for mobile screens, Google algorithms, social news feeds and driven by essential success metrics: "sharing and subscribing".
A brand marketing meets publishing model is nothing new, nor is the Hero, Hub, Hygiene approach coined by Google originally as an approach for YouTube. But as many brands are finding out, adding the nimble publishing approach to your existing global behemoth marketing machine is a daunting task. Just like any significant shift organizations must make to any part of their business—marketers both at the brand and agency level must find common ground in how they define major components:
Brand Platform A common mistake made in the worlds of marketing, branding and advertising is confusing a campaign with a brand platform which is akin to confusing a banana with a banana tree. For the sake of clarity—"Dove Campaign For Real Beauty" is a brand platform, while Dove Sketches was an activation that evolved into campaign like territory. As referenced in Building Modern Brands—a brand platform is foundational in nature and modern brands are evolving to reflect not only rational and emotional benefits, but articulating what they stand for in a societal context. Can campaigns be derived from brand platforms? Yes, but they are more evergreen in nature vs. moment in time and should influence all activations no matter how strategic or tactical.
Activations Unlike a brand platform—activations are more time and context sensitive. These are your programs, campaigns, events and other activities that will range from highly strategic and pre-planned to highly responsive and in the moment. Activations should be strategically aligned to the brand platform but also possess the flexibility to expand contextually. These are the ways the brand platform comes to life over time.
Hero Hero activations are where brands place their big bets. Typically these are the global integrated marketing campaigns though increasingly they can still be big bets without ever coming to life in traditional channels like television. These can also be big communications and engagement activations involving media and influencers. Regardless of classification, brands often times don't support more than one to two of these annually and sometimes they can extend beyond a single year.
Hub Hub activations can be more frequent and are often times less ambitious than a Hero campaign. Partnerships with media companies or digital influencers for example can often fall into Hub territory. Depending on the nature of the brand or organization—Hub activations could be as few as quarterly or as often as monthly. The rise of native advertising and sponsored content is currently fueling the popularity of Hub activations that don't always directly support a specific Hero campaign.
Hygiene Hygiene activations can fall into the "always on" "daily" or "content engine" classifications. Often times, Hygiene activations require multiple publishing touch points such as social channels or Web destinations. Barilla for example aggregates both Hygiene, Hub and Hero content onto its "**Passion For Pasta" Tumblr. Hygiene activations can be as frequent as daily and in some cases even hourly.
Hero, Hub and Hygiene all have two things in common: 1. Activations across all three must be coordinated. 2. Increasingly, they require a blend of a "marketing meets publishing mindset" in order to scale and operationalize.
And it is here where many organizations will face challenges. Integrated marketing is an apple while publishing is an orange. Increasingly brands will need both in order to remain relevant in the search engines and social news feeds of consumers and customers. To do this—marketers will have to genetically splice that apple and orange together to create an entirely new fruit, designed to work around the ad blockers and entice consumers to pause, take a bite and pass it on.
*The Udder Truth was created by Dairy Management Inc. in partnership with Edelman **Passion For Pasta is a Barilla Group activation executed in partnership with Edelman
Building brands in the mad men era was a relatively straight forward endeavor...
A brand needed to effectively communicate its value to the consumer, plainly stating its functional benefits and for the more enduring brands—connecting with consumers at the emotional level typically through a story told via television led advertising campaigns. The most iconic of brands over time, mastered the art of really digging into the "soul" of a brand. How it was differentiated from others and how it should be expressed in all parts of the world.
Building brands became something of a religious pursuit, with high priests and gatekeepers of brands in place to ensure that a brand did not become diluted. These guardians of brands created all kinds of doctrine meant to keep a brand's value proposition pure and true. Brands have always been built and expressed based on how they met consumers needs at the rational and emotional levels. More recently, brand stewards have been grappling with the notion of a brand's "purpose"—industry shorthand for how a brand's "values" take into account societal context. Can a brand stand for something bigger than itself? Does it exist for a higher purpose? Is there a cultural tension point that a brand has a right to participate in (or lead) a conversation around?
Data from Edelman's Brandshare study concluded that today's consumers look for and evaluate their relationship with a brand beyond traditional rational and emotional benefits into areas that veer into societal. Well over half of 10,000 consumers polled globally indicated that brands having a clear "mission and purpose" influenced how they felt about that brand.
It is this tension point that takes us back to the drawing board when it comes to the "soul" of a brand. But we cannot divorce this exercise from how a brand must be brought to life. The re-visiting of a brand's foundation requires taking another look at how it comes to life an today's always on, multi channel world. Modern brands must master the relationship between these three key facets for how brands sustain their relationship with consumers after answering what it stands for and against:
Strategy It's tempting to think at the program level (campaigns, etc.) that once a foundational brand strategy is set—we can go right to ideas and tactics both big, medium and small. Avoid the temptation. Strategy at the program level should be the nucleus of any program and it should inform and influence all ideas. It should present clearly the balance between meeting business, brand and consumer/customer objectives. Creativity Never has creativity been so important. People are rarely motivated by statistics and logic—but rich stories and experiences can lead to desired action. However, telling stories and designing useful, usable and desirable experiences requires out of the box thinking. Stories don't get shared by people unless they are exceptionally compelling, entertaining or educational. There are thousands of apps to compete with and digital influencers can often times build audiences better than brands can. Creativity is now complicated.
Agility Probably the newest and most disruptive dynamic out of the three. Most brands grapple with agility because they are still operating in a construct built for the industrial broadcast era of marketing. As I've outlined in Responsive Marketing, it's adding a layer of smaller more nimble initiatives than can help inform and even optimize the bigger more comprehensive programs that are still linear in nature. What both layers have in common is that they must move away from the launch and walk away model and move toward a model that puts various "things" in a live environment and adapts along the way. Google's Ben Jones recently pointed out the elephant in the room when it comes to agility:
"Advertising has radically shifted to be more agile, useful, and relevant in the always-on age of mobile. Yet the foundation of creative work, the creative brief, remains largely unchanged."
The creative brief shouldn't go away, but if you truly buy into the notion of agility then the doctrine of briefs and briefing must become more dynamic than static while preserving the ability to influence big, medium and even small ideas.
It's been said that the more things change, the more they remain the same. In the context of building and preserving brands—this holds somewhat true. A brand becomes a brand only the the hearts and minds of consumers. And today's consumers have ever evolving values, demographics and technology/lifestyle habits. We didn't walk around with super computers in our pockets years ago and millennials are a far cry from baby boomers.
Modern brands will be built and re-built on foundations which reflect these evolutions but they must come to life informed by strategy, inspired by creativity and designed for agility.
Once upon a time I was a Creative Director. Creative Directors typically come from one of two backgrounds—"art" or "copy". Having more of a visual design foundation, I started there—but also learned the techniques of "concepting" and getting to what's known in the marketing industry as "a big idea". Things were simpler back then...
Big Ideas vs. Ruling The "Aggregators" Today, if you want your message and or communications to break through—you must understand how the "aggregators" work. What's an "aggregator"? Google, Facebook, Twitter, E-mail, Text Apps, Snapchat, Flipboard... it's anywhere content can be aggregated. It's not the homepage of a media company—it's not their apps either. It's the newsfeeds we either search or browse from. So who is ruling the aggregators?
Buzzfeed Mashable The Huffington Post Business Insider The Onion
There's more—but these media companies all have something in common—they blend editorial sensibilities with a deep understanding for how media spreads (or doesn't) online. They know when something is about to trend and generate the right content at the right time. They don't put out bland perspectives but rather generate headlines and take angles that are instantly snackable, interesting and sometimes even controversial. They package content with a keen eye for millennial relevancy (hello President Obama using a selfie stick). They are masters of catering to the algorithms that are the motors which make the aggregators run. The Big Idea Now the traditional creative process looks a bit different. It goes something like this:
Planner leads some type of research Ideally, a meaningful insight is uncovered Creative team is briefed Creative brief is drafted "Big idea" is identified Program is developed around big idea Program is launched and measured
It's a lot of steps, but despite the approach—it's still a relevant model as many of the advertising campaigns that resonate with us typically involve some version of the above process. During this year's Superbowl—the "Like a Girl" campaign from Always enjoyed a second wind of popularity boosted by the game's visibility and amplified via social and traditional media. Like a Girl is a big idea fueled by a powerful insight and it takes on a societal tension point—girls believe they can do anything when they are young, but something happens as they mature.
Where The Magic Can Happen So here's where I see both a challenge and an opportunity. In one model you've got a modern media centric approach leading the charge to dominate the aggregators. In the other model you've got a "creative" (for lack of a better word) approach, which comes at it a bit differently—seeking to uncover a powerful insight that can fuel a compelling narrative. Today, the opportunity for brands and organizations seeking to own the aggregators is to take the best of both approaches—seizing on a trend as effectively as Buzzfeed and crafting communications as powerful as #Likeagirl.
The challenge is that as brands start embracing the "act like a media company " mantra, they often have fledgling editorial operations working in silos from their creative teams. Neither team brings every critical skill to the table—they both have the potential to complete each other, but more times than not, they don't or if they do, it's an awkward dance. Some will get it right—Rue LaLa for example has both a content team with an editorial director paired along side a design team led by a creative director. It's the type of model I think we'll see more organizations adapt (editorial and creative).
In the quest for marketers and communicators to "own the aggregators"—social savvy creative and editorial talent will be needed. And perhaps the greater need will be the willingness for that organization to empower those teams to produce non bland, compelling content that takes a stance or puts an opinion forth. These are the things that break through and influence the algorithm the aggregators thrive on and the creative/editorial combination will become a necessity in order to break through.
The Responsive Brand In A Real Time Business Environment In Edelman’s Brandshare study of 15,0000 people worldwide—we asked consumers to tell us which brand behaviours were most important to them. The number one most important behaviour indicated was a brand’s ability to respond quickly to concerns and complaints with 78% of consumers saying it’s important but only 17% feeling brands do this well. But we think a brand’s responsiveness goes beyond replying to people’s concerns and also extends into all forms of communication and engagement in a real time context.
Recently, Chevrolet took the notion of responsiveness to new levels this week, when Rikk Wilde, a representative of the brand created an instant sensation by appearing extremely nervous and somewhat awkward on camera during the MVP award portion of the ceremony. What happened next, generated a real time water cooler effect that started on social media, but quickly spread through the media landscape with news media reporting the story. What Chevrolet did next is worth paying attention to as it demonstrated an “always on” and “always ready”, response which traversed paid, owned, and earned media channels at lightening speed.
A Bold Move To Humanize The Brand In a Moment of Authentic Imperfection Immediately after the “incident”, Tweets starting flooding the Internet with “memes” being created around “#Chevyguy” and what was quickly becoming a catch phrase “technology and stuff”. The conversation reached a point where stories started popping up from media outlets ranging from Mashable to the local outlets such as the New York Post. To further complicate the buzzstorm—the truck Chevy is gave away to the World Series MVP is actively being recalled due to an issue with air bags. This was all unfolding in real time and Chevrolet was faced with a choice—do nothing or proactively play a part in the unfolding narrative. They chose the latter.
Chevrolet quickly sprang into action—displaying they had enough courage and coordination to participate in a moment highly relevant to their brand. And rather than take a straightforward defensive position, they mad a bold move—playing on the human essence of the moment, turning it into an integrated marketing campaign overnight. They started with posts on social, but then took ownership of the “Technology and Stuff” line and put it front and center of a real-time campaign which was earning media coverage but now extended to their owned properties and paid placements including a full page print ad in USA Today.
Implications For Brands & Organizations: Promote vs. Protect vs. Both The implications for brands and organizations revolve around a core question linked to an emerging context. The context is that we operate increasingly in a real time business environment. The question is when and how do we promote or protect our brands in an environment that moves in real time (for an example of where a brand did the opposite and responded too late, see Poland Spring & #Watergate”). The implications of the Chevrolet example are that it chose to do both and had the resources in place to make an impact across media. Consider that the brand didn’t only tweet text, but essentially put out a visual “ad like object” which embraced the brewing conversations. It then updated its current campaign on their Website to integrate the now infamous #technologyandstuff line and it was able to coordinate a paid placement which was printed in a major national publication—all in approximately under 48 hours.
Integrated Marketing In Real Time We’ve long encouraged brands to set up the infrastructure of a “Creative Newsroom” so they are ready and able to tap relevant and emerging trends as they happen. Chevrolet was clearly able to do this by demonstrating a high level of responsiveness which no doubt started by having their ear to the ground and listening to the conversations the second they started. They then proactively took a stance and produced content, taking ownership of the conversation—a classic principle of the Creative Newsroom construct. Then they went further and integrated a quickly moving trend as part of their marketing campaign—taking the Creative Newsroom approach even further. The implications for brands and organizations is clear—in the not so distant future the majority of brands will have resources in place to do the following:
• Monitor All Media In Real Time The team and technology that lets a brand know instantly what the conversation is around them not only from social spheres but also from media outlets.
• Create Content Instantly The ability to create compelling content (beyond text) when conversations and media attention are both at their peak. • Coordinate Media With Agility (Paid, Earned, Owned) The ability to rapidly coordinate the resources of both agency and internal who lead efforts and media budget across paid, earned and owned properties to maximize distribution.
Chevrolet was able to take an authentically awkward moment and make it part of how they are promoting and protecting their brand and their product (Chevy trucks). They had the courage to embrace human flaw, and as a result, made themselves even more relatable to consumers.
I started writing this blog back in 2006 and the namesake was completely intentional. "Logic+Emotion" symbolizes the way we've been building brands for the past sixty plus years. Marketers have always known that they have to reach people emotionally in order to capture their attention. We're emotional beings by design and often times make decisions based on how we feel. Our emotions serve as clues that explain our behaviors. We buy clothes because we need them—but the styles and brands we choose have more to do with our psycology than the basic need we must fill.
In the same breath we have brains, not just hearts. There is always a voice telling us that we need to check some boxes before making a decision. Features, benefits, specs—these are all reasons to believe the decisions we are making are right. Together, rational and emotional were the yin and yang of building brands and differentiating from competitors.
Edelman's 2014 Brandshare study, however begins to validate what many of us have already begun suspecting over the past few years—that brands aren't only built but they are preserved and must evolve along with highly empowered consumers who now make decisions with not only their hearts and brains but also their conscience. We discovered that meeting consumers rational and emotional needs are a good start—but there's a third dimension we need to now consider, and we are calling it "societal".
In fact, we looked at meeting consumers needs based across five key KPIs (Purchase, Recommend, Defend, Share Personal Info & Share Brand Content) and "Societal" actually corresponded more strongly with "Share Personal Info and Share Brand Content"—two KPIs that we think are becoming increasingly important for brands and the marketers who seek to obtain data from consumers while hoping they become a human distribution network via social, e-mail and other peer to peer channels.
Last week while discussing Brandshare findings, I could not help but recall how I myself shared a news story about how *Microsoft was sharing its cloud infrastructure as part of the effort to combat the Ebola Virus. I was doing exactly what the data above shows—sharing a brand's story that was meaningfully attaching itself to a societal issue. The same week Microsoft reported stronger than expected earnings as well. A brand that operates in the societal dimension does not equate to a brand that doesn't profit. As we've stated in Brandshare, the value exchange brands and consumers ideally have is based on mutual benefit and gain.
But our assessment is to not focus on one of the three need states over the other. When consumers needs are met rationally, emotionally and societally—a brand has the most chance of seeing a "lift" in how meeting those needs correlates to the KPIs we outline in the report. We think this is significant and if the trend continues, brands will have to take a second look at their values built meeting on emotional and rational needs and discern if and how societal fits into the core of the brand's DNA.
I'm doing a mini tour of Texas this week having just left Austin and tomorrow I present some of our findings from Edelman's 2014 global study, Brandshare, in Dallas (full report here). The last time I talked about Brandshare, I focused on the macro theme of the report—that consumers indicated brands aren't living up to their side of the relationship when it comes to the value exchange that exists (or doesn't) with brands. The important context here is that we are talking about the relationship beyond the transactions (consumer buys product or services and "consumes"—rinse and repeat).
We tested fourteen behaviors brands could act upon as part of their relationship with consumers and surveyed fifteen thousand consumers across twelve countries to tell us what they thought was most important to them. Three key themes emerged in what they told us and for brands, it's worth taking stock on how you perform against these areas.
Responsiveness 78% of the respondents we surveyed indicated that responding quickly to concerns and complaints was important to them. In fact this was the number one most sought after behavior based on the questions we asked. And we think it goes beyond and concerns and complaints really and indicates that consumers are demanding that brands be more responsive to their needs. This could be fueled by an "on demand" mentality we are developing based on how we use technology. When we want something we can get it at the click of a button or swipe of a screen. It ma makes ense that consumers would expect brands to behave the way their technology and media does.
Involvement 68% of the respondents we s surveyed told us they think it's important for brands to communicate openly and transparently about how their products are sourced and made. They also value brands who give them many ways to ask and give opinions. In short they want to be involved. They want to know what you're doing, why you're doing it and they even want to be able to ask questions and give opinions while you're doing it. These round out the top three performing behaviors in terms of importance to behaviors. But there's more...
Conviction 58% of respondents told us that brands having a clear mission and purpose is important to them while 52% want to see brands use their resources to drive change in the world. This rounds out the top five out of the fourteen behaviors we asked consumers questions about. We interpret this as consumers seeking a real conviction from brands—a guiding "north star" which is core to how they operate. This finding if brands take to heart will act as a catalyst to re-examine their core values and determine if it makes sense to expand their remit by re-prioritizing how generous they are with their resources.
In short, they only way we can interpret the data is by evaluating the performance of the behaviors we asked consumers about. The above represent the top five base on what we asked them. It's worth noting that in each of these behaviors, brands are underperforming according to how respondents answered. From our perspective in this snapshot of time (2014) consumers are telling us that they increasingly value how quickly brands respond to their needs, how they can participate in the decisions brands make and the actions they take, and want to see brands stand for something that's true to who they are at the core.
Imagine taking a trip to New York city. As always, it's crowded and bustling but it's also a nice day. You want to get around and see the sights but the idea of waiting on a corner to land a taxi or spending a portion of your day underground don't appeal to you. You're active and enjoy finding ways to incorporate exercise in your day. You come across a bike sharing station with blue bikes and an interactive kiosk that helps you decide where you should go next. You use your credit card to obtain a bike and you're off and running, feeling a sense of empowerment that you've taken matters into your own hands and maybe even a little satisfaction that you're not contributing to the noise or other pollution as you pedal through the streets. Your needs get met, but you're also meeting the needs of the brand (*Citi) who helped put the bikes there in the first place. You've entered a value exchange with that brand whether you know it or not.
Edelman's 2014 Brandshare Study Edelman's 2014 global Brandshare study launched this past week, serving up some timely insights into the evolving relationship between consumers and brands. A comprehensive survey of 15,000 people in 12 countries about the performance of nearly 200 brands within 11industry sectors. We asked people to evaluate the importance of 14 brand behaviors and evaluate how effectively a selection of brands perform on those behaviors. The business outcomes we evaluated are: likelihood to purchase, recommend or defend a brand; propensity to share branded content with their own social networks; and willingness to share their personal data with a brand. We also queried respondents about nine consumer need states to more holistically understand the relationship between brand behaviors and the fulfillment of these needs.
There's Little Value In Today's Value Exchange Between Consumer & Brands That was the over-arching theme of the study. While brands likely feel like they are delivering value to consumers beyond the understood transactional relationship (you buy our stuff and we make sure you buy it again), the people we surveyed across the globe are indicating it's not enough. 87 percent of the respondents polled indicated they want more meaningful relationships with brands but only 17 percent feel like brands deliver. But what I thought was really interesting was a related data point which we asked the following question in connection to specific industries:
"Do brands ask for your personal information, so they can provide you something tangible in return, or for their own financial gain?"
The results to this question is underwhelming for brands across industry—in an age where brands are in need of data from the people who purchase their products and services, consumers largely feel that brands are benefitting more than they are. As the below chart shows, some industries have better footing than others in this area (food, CPG) but none are exempt from the sentiment.
Take a "brand" like Facebook (yes you can debate if it's a brand or not—I believe it is) whose business model relies almost exclusively on the data "users" provide it every time they engage with it, not to mention the jackpot of data we provide Facebook when we create a profile. We can debate how we feel about how Facebook's intent for that data, but there's little debate about the value exchange in using Facebook every day to connect with friends and business associates and its value as a newsfeed. Every day we log onto Facebook is a validation for the "brand" that there's value in the value exchange that exists between it and us.
There were many more insights in the study that span from what consumers value most and least and how their needs are met not only from an emotional and rational perspective, but also from a societal lens as well. I'll be writing more about that in the days and weeks to come. For now, the report can be found here:
We needn't look much further than our everyday lives to realize that the way we consume, share and produce our own media has changed drastically. The major forces in this evolution are largely a combination of hardware and software (mobile) combined with connectivity (social) all accelerated in the context of time which gives the impression of immediacy (real-time). When it comes to marketing and communications in this real time business environment it is forcing us to re-think the notion of both content and distribution.
It was these thoughts that have been driving much of my own thinking (and doing) in the space and recently I gave a talk in Montenegro to attempt to string much of this together in a presentation. Yes, we're steadily transitioning from an era where messages would be the primary focus of the marketing world—to a future where storytelling (custom tailored for the media it is delivered in) pulls people into the narrative. We've gone from push to pull to pull and distribute where "news feeds" of all shapes and sizes become a primary way we inform ourselves. Below is an expanded version of the presentation I gave at Spark.me along with a few specific points I called out:
Real-time Marketing Is A Tactic, Not a Strategy As I've stated before, it's time to re-think real-time especially in the context of marketing. We've reduce it to a set of tactics but in reality the notion of being more agile in a fast moving environment means that all operations within marketing (and beyond) will eventually have to evolve to something that can be more adaptive to changes as they happen. So if real-time marketing is the thing that introduces change into our organizations—so be it. But it cannot be the strategy that drives that change.
Content Marketing—Beyond Social (The Five Content Archetypes) We're at a pivotal shift in our business where much of the momentum we benefitted from in social is now shifting and expanding around "content". Which means we need a more holistic way think about content as it pertains to our strategies and tactics. I've introduced the "The Five Content Archetypes" as a straight forward way to categorize content in areas which included owned properties such as Websites and apps. This can also be a tool for us as clients come to us with content problems/opportunities which need solutions.
Content As Currency This is a way to think/speak about content which takes social behavior into account. Many marketers want to view content as "king" or "queen" which is looking at it from our business perch. If we look at it from the "content consumer" point of view we lead with the insight that people today treat content as a form of currency which helps them build reputations etc. This translates to brand reputation as well which is increasingly becoming a blurred line which the consumer does not distinguish.
Social + Search + Content = Visibility and Viability A simple formula to think about how search, social, and content are all playing complimentary roles to what we see and share with others. Visibility equates to the most relevant content bubbling up to the top when we search for it and viability pertains to the disposition content has to be shared.
All thoughts I've started some time ago and are constantly evolving as I collect my own data points both from an industry perspective and personal experience.
You've probably done it too. Shared an article you didn't fully read or absorb because the headline grabbed your attention. If you're guilty as charged—don't feel too bad as there is a legitimate reason we sometimes do this. As I've said many times before, content is currency and it's human nature to want to share things that resonate with us and we know will resonate with others.
I did this recently with a Business Insider article titled:
So here's what I did; I read the headline and visually skimmed the article. Note that I said "visually skimmed"—which means a few key phrases popped out, but I didn't read or digest it. But I did share it along with snarky quip that read:
"Cue the beginning of the end of social media marketing"
So do I really think it's the end of social media marketing? No, but the headline got me thinking that if it takes so long to craft and perfect a single tweet—we need to examine what we are all trying to do here. The only problem is that when you read the article in full—while it does technically make the case that a tweet was planned well in advance, the context illustrates that it was part of a pre planned content calendar—a common practice in marketing.
It was a colleague's comments on the subject that got me thinking about thinking twice in regards to how we share, as well as operating within the reality that attention grabbing headlines are likely not going away. I have two take-aways from this:
1. Content Is Currency—Spend It Wisely Would I have shared the same article? Yes—it's of interest to myself and my peers. What I would have done differently is bookmarked it for a time where I could have read and thought about the content before sharing it with a snarky take away. I would have probably shared it posing a question like "can planned content be less time consuming" or asking others if they have had similar experiences.
2. Be Ready For Anything The agency featured in the piece (Huge) didn't just sit around letting the headline of the piece speak for them—they spoke up.
Net net, it's on us as individuals to think through what and how we share to ensure the maximum value of the currency of content and it's on all brands and organizations to be responsive in any scenario, or be defined by the narrative others draft for you.
Recently, I attended an industry roundtable alongside a variety of marketers from different industries, all on the brand side. These are smart and accomplished individuals who gathered together to discuss real time marketing and what it means for their organizations. When asked what their favorite example of real time marketing was—most deferred to the obvious answer: Oreo's "dunk in the dark!" With much respect to the brand that got the real time conversation started—it's time to move on.
From Real Time Marketing to Building Responsive Brands Real-time marketing is indeed a real thing, but we're going to have to stop chasing our own version of the Oreo moment if we're going to make progress in this area. First we have to really get our heads wrapped around the foundation to understand what we're actually trying to do—and what we're trying to do is build brands differently. We essentially have two tools at our disposal: content and engagement. This is where many of us miss the mark. We underestimate how difficult it is to use these tools. A recent article featuring Coke's content efforts underscores how arduous a task it is for a brand and organization to create, curate and publish a regular stream of valuable content. In the race to real-time, we've over simplified this. Secondly—when, how, why and how often a brand engages has become an art and science. The NYPD learned this lesson the hard way when they wanted to simply promote their cause.
Re-Thinking Our Core Teams Before we go any further down the rabbit hole of real time marketing, we must take into account that the core team needed to actually take on the role of planning & producing content as well as partnering with third parties and coordinating media purchases looks a little differently than the traditional core teams whether it's an advertising model or other. Editorial sensibilities must be combined with creative instincts and craft. Social aptitude must be core to engagement strategies and tactics. Media spend is increasingly becoming difficult to separate out as it becomes part of the content strategy and analytics must be more agile than ever.
Enter The Content Strategist Content strategy or content marketing for that matter isn't new—but there aren't exactly thousands of content strategists with years of experience under their belts sitting around waiting to take their rightful position as key member of today's responsive brand building team. Content strategists will also look differently from how they may have operated in the past with a holistic view of the way content can live, breath and flow across paid, owned, earned and shared properties and media. They will need to partner closely with media counterparts and be intimately involved in the connections planning.
Having put this thinking forward—there's much to be said about in regards to culture, talent and pure ingenuity. When it was my turn to say what my favorite example of "real time marketing was", I gave a recent client example because I was close to it. If I had the chance to answer again—I would have said Honey Maid. Take a look—now that's a responsive brand.
“Real-time marketing”—just uttering the phrase evokes images of hastily photo-shopped images and ham fisted attempts to join online conversations. The stakes can be high—last week’s big winner in the responsive category during the Grammys was of course Arby’s to which the spoils of considerable earned media coverage and over 6000 new Twitter followers were awarded. Many other brands weren’t as fortunate.
But for all the hype and baggage associated with real-time marketing, it doesn’t seem to be going away. Perhaps that’s because real-time marketing is already on its way to simply evolving into a modern day extension of integrated marketing. Think about the dollars spent by advertisers on premium venues like the Superbowl—can they afford to sit out integration in not only digital spaces, but also social second screen activity? (Just watch how many people will be on mobile devices at your party).
No, they can’t.
And so, this year’s Superbowl will be a moment of truth for what brands do in the social- mobile space before, during and after the big game. Budweiser for example has already been encouraging consumers to post pictures of themselves and their four legged friends using the #Bestbuds hash tag as a compliment to their campaign. They also have @Budweiserpuppy talking to people on Twitter. In similar Fashion Chobani brought their 30-second star to life on Twitter in the form of @Chobani_bear who started doing real-time video responses on Twitter, most recently with Katy Perry. Mysteriously, the Chobani Bear Twitter account has recently been suspended—a real-time marketing mishap?
* Update, Chobani contacted me an informed me that @Chobani_bear was not a Chobani account.
Whether you are on brand or agency side, at minimum you should be watching this space and learning. Mobile will only continue to chip away consumer's attention away from the “first screen” and while many brands are still learning the ropes of responsive marketing integration, it’s a sure bet that this will become part of the modern marketing mix. On that note, there are a couple of simple ways you can watch and learn: A public Twitter list of all brands advertising on the Superbowl was published by Marketing Land, and I’ve also created a hashtag for marketers to follow examples (#RTMBowl). What brands will win? It’s anyone’s game.
Today, the talk of the town amongst marketers is the potential for brands to act as publishers and media companies, going direct to their customers or consumers in the fight to earn attention. It's a lofty ambition but worth pursuing as there are three drivers changing how we spend our time and attention.
1. Mobile Increasingly, we are getting our information from the smaller screen. It's always on us—it's portable and connected to the Web. It plays video and all other sorts of media and apps have transformed how we interact with it.
2. Social Specifically newsfeeds. In addition to e-mail, we increasingly get our information in a newsfeed format (arguably e-mail was the original mobile newsfeed). Today it's Facebook, Instagram, Linked In, Twitter... the list goes on. What each one of these has in common is that it's dominated by content and sharing is only a button tap or click away.
3. Search Google continues to tweak its algorithm to favor quality content vs. redundant links and phrases which try to trick it. Because of this, it favors quality over quanity and becomes more difficult to game.
The first wave of social was dominated by engagement and how to engage at scale. The second is dominated by engaging at scale plus content distribution and integration with marketing programs. To fully realize the promise of brands as media companies—we must first understand and classify content. There are five ways I've been thinking about content:
Curated Media companies have always curated the best information available and customized this for the audiences they want to grow and keep. For brands, it's no different and is one of the most practical places to start. Take IBM's Smarter Planet Tumblr for example which curates some of the most interesting stories around intelligent technology. By doing this, the brand becomes an authority on the topic.
Co-Created The biggest mistake I often see brands make when thinking about content is to forget that even content can be a participatory experience. In contrast, take AMC's Dead Yourself app which combines the aforementioned game changers (mobile + social) and empowers fans to zombify any picture they can capture on their mobile phone. Where does the content end up? Social newsfeeds. Take that display ads.
Original Brands now have the opportunity to create original content that is own-able and can't be found anywhere else. This requires a great deal of planning as the content needs to be naturally connected to the brand. Original branded content can be useful or entertaining or both (see *Skylanders Boomcast). It can also be done in a semi journalist tone. We recently worked with Kellogg's on this type of "Brand Journalism" as part of their Olympics sponsorship. In this example the brand is part of the story but does not play the leading role.
Consumer Generated Personal publishing which arguably came before brand publishing has empowered millions of people to post an infinite amount of content into the digital realm. Consumer generated media rivals that of media created by the professionals and when tapped appropriately can authentically reinforce what a brand stands for. A recent example that I really like is what Disney is doing with their consumer generated content contest, Disney Side.
Sponsored Likely the most hotly debated form of content, sponsored content also goes by the name "native advertising" or specific to social, promoted posts. Simply put, there are three versions of sponsored—the traditional version (like display ads) or paid options from digital platforms like Facebook or Twitter and sponsored editorial working with a media company ranging from Buzzfeed to the Atlantic.
It's time to move the "brand as media" discussion into more actionable territory. As attention shifts to newsfeeds and mobile streams—the stories we tell there need to be all the more compelling.
Recently had the opportunity to share some thoughts about the "Agency of tomorrow" with the ever resourceful Chuck Kent as part of an interview on Branding Magazine. Excerpt below. Oh, and I have a new job at Edelman. More at PR Week. Happy Friday!
BM: Do you see the opportunity, the need for you to be able to – or any part of Edelman – to be able to initiate a core idea?
DA: I think that’s what’s in play. Not in this example, but in another example we – my team working with some other partners – are working on specific assignments where we’re doing just that role. And I will say that we have a few stakeholders on the client side that believe in it, they believe in, “Ideas are going to come from, well, it doesn’t really matter.”
We work in what I call a more responsive model. We’re not working in linear broadcast, we’re working in these content cycles. You might have a campaign that takes from inception to spreading out six months. We’ll work sometimes in a one month or two month cycle…. What I’ve seen in that situation is that the person who’s acting as CMO in this case believes in that model and is empowering us to do it. But yes… the preconceived notions are still there.
Right now there are conversations being had to say “Look, this other model is at play and nobody really owns it so we’re just going to give the business to people who work in that way. And all that means, just to expand on that, is that I all think that means is that pie gets dispersed a little bit more. At the end of the day, it’s got to be about where the client needs to be relevant.
History has a way of repeating itself. I still remember the heady days of the original digital agencies. They were built on the market demand for Websites ranging from the complex transactional to the marketing microsite. The smart agencies however knew that they had to diversify by bringing in "traditional" talent in the form of planners, art directors and copywriters. These new additions to "digital" teams often times didn't even know how to code, push a pixel and many were not considered digital. But they knew how to tell a story.
Today, even the most talented art directors and writers aren't enough. Neither are the social-savvy digital types. Alone, they may be able to push their craft—but working together surrounded by planning and analytics they can operate as the heart of the creative engine behind any campaign. A few thoughts about how these roles should operate:
Art Directors Today's art directors as always should be able to drive a concept and bring it to life. Ideally, in a digital world they possess a healthy amount of interaction design sensibility meaning they can think not only in "ads" but also in experience. It's a rare combination but not impossible to find. Some can even code.
Copywriters Able to use harness written word in all its forms whether it be in headline, script, or crafting the big idea into tangible communication—copywriters are also drivers of the concepts. Today's copywriters articulate concepts and when it comes to the craft of writing for an audience understand the difference in medium (television, print, web, mobile).
Social Engineers The least traditional of the three—this role focuses on the social viability of the creative. Social engineers can come from backgrounds like community management or social strategy and know instinctively what levers to pull in social spaces to ensure an idea has legs there and does more than translates but is social-centric at the core.
Madison avenue creative was built on the legendary relationships and teamwork of art directors and copywriters. Much of that chemistry is still relevant today, when it comes to great creative. Add in a "social engineer" to the evolved version of those two disciplines—and watch the magic happen.
Social media has been good to me. It's re-defined my career, opened new doors and enabled me to make connections that would have been impossible had the Web not gotten connected. I started blogging in 2006 and in less than a year found myself in the pages of BusinessWeek. From there things only got more interesting, not only for me personally but for the business world at large. One by one, brands, organizations and even governments had to come to terms with the connected Web and subsequently the rapid evolution of mobile. It all makes me wonder what's next—and I've been thinking a lot about it. Here are a few not so random thoughts. Many of them fall under the lens of marketing and communications, where I spend a lot of my professional time. Consider it thinking aloud:
Social Increasingly Becomes a Paid Game The early days of social under the broader context of the marketing function was organic by nature. Facebook, Twitter etc. weren't even thinking of monetization models—for them it was about building an audience around the platforms. Today, it's increasingly difficult to reach an audience through your social channels without leveraging a paid component.
Content Isn't Enough Anymore The problem with content is that it can be anything. Text. Photos. Video. It's not enough. People don't share content but they do share stories which resonate with them and their friends/connections. Telling really good stories is hard. Today, we have to be able to do it in a single Instagram sized image and in a six second Vine. We also need to be able to make marketing feel like something bigger—something with a larger purpose. It's the reason we see Dove and Guinness and instantly want to share the story. This is not content—it's a narrative. Narrative which stops us in our tracks and breaks through the noise to earn our attention.
Integrated Marketing Becomes Mandatory One of the stories I love to tell about Oreo is how they launched Instagram. "Dunk In The Dark" is a diversion—a one hit wonder, but Oreo is a masterful integrated marketer and incorporated social and digital into their Superbowl advertising, leveraging paid dollars and creativity to build a sizable audience on Instagram literally overnight. Why this story doesn't get told more is beyond me. Smart integrated marketing is the future, while social one hit wonders will become a thing of the past.
Art Director + Copywriter + Social Engineer: The Creative Team of Tomorrow As someone who works in the "Public Relations" industry, I can reflect upon how we were quick to hire social savvy individuals who knew how to manage and grow communities. Now we hire creatives and planners who must figure out how to partner with these social savvy individuals. Madison avenue was built on the duo of art directors and and copywriters. Tomorrow's creative team will be a trio at the core (and don't forget analytics).
ROI Becomes An Efficiency Play The early days of social revolved around proving out a specific ROI (did you sell more X?) for example. But in the maturation phase that we are in today—under a marketing lens, it becomes about proving out that metrics like reach and impressions were achieved at a cost reduction, or even better, cost reduction combined with qualitative benefits like better targeting (did you reach the right people?).
Yesterday's disruption was digital. It created a new economic model and dominant players (Google, Amazon, Apple, etc.). Social came next followed by the infusion of mobile—we consume information and participate on demand, anytime, anywhere. But none of these things can be viewed in isolation. I've talked about the responsive marketing model recently and some even talk about the responsive organization. Even marketing in an iterative and more agile fashion has to be a connected part of a bigger machine. I believe what comes after social looks more like the aggregate of many pieces vs. the single view of one or two which have dominated the industry discourse for years. It's time to elevate the role of digital, social and mobile as core elements of a bigger, complex and integrated machine.
In the beginning, there were products and services, and some were good. Fewer became trusted brands, but those that did enjoyed unquestioned loyalty supported by a simple yet effective marketing engines built to reach people in mass quantity. The formula worked for decades. An empire was built on the shoulders of Madison Avenue and expanded globally. It is an empire, which still exists today, though arguably it’s a diminished version of its former self.
More recently, technology has had it’s own evolutionary process which it’s still going through. Well over a decade ago, when large organizations developed and updated their complex Web properties, the most popular and rigorous process one could follow in development was referred to as “Waterfall”. Think of this as a descending, linear staircase where one step of the process was completed in full before moving on the next. The methodology was rigorous, but also left little room for tweaking, testing, adapting and improving along the way.
Responsive Design Today, digital design and development is often done leveraging the “agile” method of development, which favors smaller, cyclical bursts of development and rapid testing. Start-ups favor this approach as well building not only their tech products but also their business models in a way, which resembles more of an agile philosophy vs. a rigid, sequential approach. Even “large” start-ups like Facebook demonstrate this in how they roll out enhancements to their global platform, often making the changes incrementally, rolling them out with select users and then adjusting based off the data they analyze. Google often works this was as well. If you were to undertake designing and building a digital property today—you would also have to ensure that it would perform across multiple platforms (desktop, tablet, mobile). A popular methodology for developing this way is called “responsive design”—a technique, which leverages code that results in a shape shifting design which auto-magically fits the medium it, is being interacted with in.
Most Marketing Remains Linear And Unresponsive Despite the pervasive nature of all manifestations of digital, including social and mobile, much of the marketing emphasis remains dedicated to reaching people in mass, following a tried and true formula for advertising designed to build off consumer insights and craft compelling messages which could be distributed across a myriad of channels (including digital). The approach is designed for the broadcast industrial machine including print, radio and television, which, despite rumors of its demise is likely to stay with us for some time. The problem it poses however is that it is an approach that much like its counterpart in tech development, (Waterfall) is neither nimble nor flexible and isn’t built for rapid change nor does it adapt well beyond the dominant media it was designed for.
“Content Marketing” Is Disrupting Modern Day Brand Building CMOs, chief digital officers and brand managers across many organizations are currently grappling with the notion of content used in the context of marketing—inherently they understand that their customers value content, consume it, create it, and share it—and they want in on the action. They also understand that this type of content isn’t often the traditional campaigns they execute for broadcast so they face a dilemma:
What content do consumers value most?
How do they find it?
What gets individuals sharing content with peers?
How does content scale, reaching the right audience at the right time?
How do brands insert themselves into the content ecosystem in ways that bring value back to the brand?
Responsive Marketing The solution to the content question lies somewhere between acknowledging that a brand must support both a traditional, linear marketing model in addition to a newer, cyclical construct which is constantly in tune with the current environment and operates in consolidated time frames. Responsive marketing sits at the core of the content evolution that many companies find themselves trying to navigate as they pull together newsrooms, command centers and media operations which are designed to help brands act more like publishers. All of these can be effective in treating the symptoms a brand may exhibit if they possess only competencies in linear forms of marketing, but they do not address the root issue—deconstructing a marketing machine which places the majority of resources on mass marketing will ensure it never gains proficiency in alternate forms of content and media.
A more holistic approach is needed.
The Acquisition & Engagement Funnel Marketing is by design measurable, and most marketers are trained to value metrics, which can be at minimum tied to awareness and ideally connected to sales and loyalty. This is where the relationship between responsive content marketing and business objectives must be reconciled—what good is content if it is not connected to commerce? Content should be a vehicle, which “fills the marketing funnel” and should be leveraged as the currency, which entices the target to share, thus creating further awareness for the brand, which can lead to bringing others into the funnel. It is the consumption of content via social, web and mobile which fuels the acquisition and engagement funnel—the flow works as follows:
Shared And Found Content Drives Acquisition Content which is optimized and valuable inevitably finds its target, whether through paid, owned, earned or shared means (usually it’s a combination of all). When content is found valuable, it often leads to an “acquisition” whether it via e-mail or a subscription to a brand’s social property. The “consumer” in this construct demonstrates intent to at minimum engage with the brand.
Acquisition Drives Engagement Once a consumer, customer or prospect is acquired, a brand can further engage via content, messages, and through “micro-interactions” over time. Each like, comment, or share on Facebook for example is a micro-interaction, which solidifies the relationship and loyalty between the brand and the consumer. Loyalty Creates Awareness Customers “acquired” via social and digital means are now available for targeted content marketing tactics which can be especially effective via paid enhancements whether that be through social or search. In the case of social—shared content leads to further awareness using the networks of peers as a distribution ecosystem while organically raising its profile in organic search results.
Content As Currency: The Four Key Archetypes For content to be successfully leveraged at the open end of the marketing funnel, brands must understand the full landscape of content types and the relationships they have with their core paid, earned and owned channels. The four archetypes are:
Curated: A brand can curate content from infinite digital sources and provide value by deriving signal from noise. A popular tactic connected to curating is aggregating it in a single destination for easy access.
Co-created: Content can be co-created amongst consumers via collaboration or through the consumer and the brand itself. Brands, which encourage consumers to co-create content with it, invite them to participate but cannot often control how consumers will want to co-create.
Original: Original content is produced by the brand, specifically for its target audience and is owned by the brand. Original content can take many forms and production value and be planned in advance or spontaneously in response to emerging trends and events.
Consumer generated: Consumer or user generated content is often produced by non-professionals and May or may not include references to the brand. It’s often in highest quantity but also lowest quality.
Building & Maintaining A Responsive Content Marketing Machine In order to build a content machine for a brand or business, the leadership behind it must buy into the premise that content is a viable brand building tool. This sets the stage for an evolution of roles within the organization—brand managers must at minimum be literate in community management, editorial and digital analytics. Organizations internally should re-evaluate their digital centers of excellence and take stock of partners to ensure that content strategy and execution exists as part of the mix. This foundational work is core to then constructing a an “always ready” content machine, which operates in a continual, cyclical fashion as part marketing, part editorial operation as illustrated above.
Conclusion: Marketers Must Evolve Beyond The Linear Unlike software or web development, marketers have had less pressure to overhaul their approach despite signs that media consumption is highly fragmented, shifting to digital and increasingly more difficult to track. As more pressure is applied to the CMO to produce results for the organization; it is more than tempting to rely on the mass metrics of the past to demonstrate that reach is being achieved at scale. This undermines the need for marketing to undergo it’s own transformation where shifts in resources go into building up direct media channels (social or owned media) and potentially reaching more targeted audiences who may be inclined to share a brand’s content with their peer networks. An agile and adaptive mentality is badly needed in the marketing arm of organizations—one that is less dependent on historical data to make decisions and is inclined to parse data inputs as they come in daily.
The content conundrum represent the tip of the iceberg for the marketing discipline but must be dealt with as proof mounts that content is valued while overt advertising and marketing is something to be filtered out. Brands will learn to be more flexible, in tune with rapidly changing sentiment and responsive in their approach to messaging engagement and telling their stories across a de-centralized and splintered media landscape.
