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Quality storytelling and narrative matter more than ever, and must be first and foremost in your mind when approaching “branded” content. The quotes are intentional. It is an opportune time to drop the word “branded” from that phrase and from your vocabulary. Content is content. Good content is good content. If a story is moving, no one is going to care that it’s brought to you by a brand. Rather, they’re going to be happy the brand brought it to them. And by the same token, content that is annoying is now amplified rather than ignored (because no one can resist a good call-out) and can be more harmful to a brand than ever....
Content is the core of any strong digital marketing strategy, and a strong narrative is the foundation of all good content.
When the iconic high-fashion house Chanel sought to revolutionize the way it engaged with customers, content and technology was at the forefront of its approach.
The 105-year-old brand has a clear advantage when it comes to storytelling – a rich history. The legacy of the company’s late founder Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel is so compelling, that the brand’s insignia – two interlocking C’s – is one of the most recognized and respected in the world.
Not only has the company managed to ramp up engagement with the development of their highly interactive, commerce-driven website, it has astutely leveraged the modernist philosophy of its creator, Ms. Chanel, best exemplified in the following quote...
It says something about our media culture that in a short time the term “native advertising” has gone from industry buzzword to pop culture punch line.
The two most memorable references come from HBO. On “Girls,” Lena Dunham’s Hannah takes—and soon leaves—a writing job in the sponsored content department at GQ. More recently on "Last Week Tonight," John Oliver delivers an entertaining riff about the profusion of “sponsored content” on news sites.
Oliver conceded that Netflix's native ad for the New York Times about female prison inmates, promoting the series "Orange Is the New Black," was “about as good as it gets.” This got us thinking about all the other noteworthy executions this year which demonstrate that sponsored content can indeed be good—nay, great—content. With that in mind, we asked some of the native advertising gurus here at HuffPost-AOL to name their picks for the most notable native or branded content campaigns of the year thus far, both from around the Web as well as in-house.
Here’s what we came up with, in alphabetical order by advertiser....
Yesterday, the architect behind Coca-Cola's content strategy, Jonathan Mildenhall, took the keynote stage at Content Marketing World and brought both smiles and tears to all our eyes.
Why? Because he told an epic series of stories. And he told these stories, by sharing stories, in order to teach how to tell stories. (Whoa, meta, right?)
But when all was said and done, after Mildenhall delivered his keynote, the same questions we hear time and time again came up."How do I create that kind of content without Coca-Cola's budget?"...
Why does interruptive marketing and selling make our blood boil? If you answered “Because it wastes our time,” you’d be wrong. While that is definitely true, it’s not what makes us angry, because wasting time isn’t something that intrinsically upsets us. I’ll be the first to admit that at times I get lost down black holes filled with listicles, cat-befriending-dog stories (read without a tissue at your own risk) and “what we should call me” GIFs, and the only redeeming quality of that content is that it makes me happy.
Telemarketers and the like drive us crazy because of one thing: their agenda.
There is no story. They just want our money, and that’s not something we are generally eager to part with in exchange for what we didn’t go looking for in the first place (we’ll happily part with it if we’re just “browsing” in the aisles of Target). Inherently, we don’t want to be “sold.” We feel we’re being tricked. That’s why we avoid the people with clipboards standing in the street and the kiosk people who stare us down in the mall....
...Brands are answering the call to create more value for customers by publishing news and content marketing. In fact, 86% of BtoC and 91% of BtoB organizations are now using content marketing tactics. As companies adopt a publisher model of content and media creation, many are beginning to rival the reach and influence of the publications in their industry.
Amex OPEN Forum and General Mills’ Tablespoon are great examples of this. What do these changes mean for Public Relations and Communications professionals? How is PR competitively positioned compared to marketing and advertising in a content centric web? Read on for answers to these questions and more.
By providing news content that traditional sources are not, brands are creating new connections with their communities and customers. While much of content marketing falls under the realm of corporate marketing, the expertise in messaging, content creation and media relations that many Public Relations professionals bring to the table can offer a competitive advantage in 3 key areas...
Brand newsrooms are supposedly the next step in the ad agency’s evolutionary process. The rallying cry is for brands and their agencies to adopt a newsroom-style operation in response to modern media habits. But the reality is that your marketing team and ad agency are not in the business of creating news. This won’t work. Here are four reasons why. Brands are not in the content business. Neither are ad agencies, PR firms or digital shops. More importantly, they are not in the audience development business. That is what newsrooms are about — creating audiences that can be monetized. Everything about news organizations, from culture to employee compensation, is built around moving the audience needle. If you’re building a brand newsroom to enable real-time content production instead of enabling audience development across all your owned media properties, you’re looking through the wrong end of the telescope....
Journalism might not be dead, but it's hurting. An emerging option is brand journalism. Here's how to do that job the right way. That you’re reading this article for free, either online or from a mobile app, and probably found it through a “friend” you’ve never met, makes the following point: Journalism might not be dead, but it isn’t breathing normally. Robert McChesney, author of Will the Last Reporter Please Turn Out The Lights, argues the journalism industry is in a crisis. The decline in reporting jobs, coupled with the rise in public relations spending, is re-routing the paths of would-be journalists to careers in corporate communications, resulting in today’s out-of-whack 4-to-1 publicist-to-journalist ratio. But a third option is emerging: brand journalism. The social web has given rise to new expectations — transparency, accessibility and customer-centric content — that line-up nicely with skills learned in journalism school. As a result, “brand journalist” is becoming an increasingly popular job title. Companies like Twitter, Tumblr, Radian6, and Facebook, have all recently hired in-house reporters. If you are considering hiring — or becoming — a brand journalist, you need to distinguish the role from PR by adhering to seven basic, journalistic tenets of “traditional” media. Here’s what they are.... [Good read on brand journalism vs content marketing by Joe Chernov - JD]
Brand journalism is journalism produced on behalf of a brand But it’s not used just by brands. It can be used by any kind of organisation, or for any cause.
It is as relevant to Amnesty International or the Red Cross as it is to McDonald’s or Coca-Cola. It can be used by everything from a major food manufacturer to a local restaurant; from an educational charity to a particular university or school.
Increasingly, it’s used by any organisation that has contact with the public, including the police and other emergency services, local authorities and government agencies, transport authorities, bus and rail companies and airlines. It’s also used by organisations that work in B2B sectors. So businesses that sell to other organisations use brand journalism to establish themselves as trusted authorities in their field. Any of those organisations can employ journalists and/or journalistic techniques to create compelling content - content that uses all the skills and techniques of traditional journalism to craft a memorable story, and present information that a particular audience needs, wants, values or is entertained by.... [Good look at brand journalism by @AndyBull - JD]
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“Storytelling.” It’s the flavor of the day, whether you’re talking about content marketing, visual communications or public relations, and for good reason. Stories are how humans communicate – with each other individually, across populations and over centuries.
In fact, many organizations are pretty good at identifying and defining their key story lines. The key to success in brand storytelling is in the next step – the strategic deployment of the story. Telling the brand story effectively requires a plan.
And to be clear, we’re not talking about hanging a touchy-feely post up on the blog and then calling it a day. No. Brand storytelling, in this context, means developing a sustained plan to create and execute a strategic approach to telling the brand story, in a way that supports company’s objectives. Personally, I don’t give a hoot about impressions. Let’s gun for something a bit more meaningful....
...But while brand storytelling may be dominating the trade conference stages, it’s not enough on its own for brands aiming to add meaningful value to their customers over the long term.
Strategies for Retention: Own Every Consumer Touch Point
Most content marketers know this particular statistic: 70 percent of consumers prefer getting to know a company via content over ads. To deliver this type of lasting, comprehensive value to their audiences, brands must build their content strategy around three core areas of focus: Foundational content Engagement content Social content...
Great content marketing and storytelling lesson from The Christmas Story and Ovaltine. Be Sure To Drink Your Ovaltine!Did you catch the content marketing lesson during The Christmas Story marathon on TBS this holiday? Since 1983, we’ve been drinking up the Ovaltine content marketing story on The Christmas Story. Ovaltine almost pulled off the perfect execution of using storytelling to generate awareness, engagement and generating a sale with Ralph!...
Many brands jumped into the real-time marketing fray with the Royals’ latest addition to the family on Monday. This effort wasn’t as effective as what took place during the Super Bowl blackout for a reason I’ll get into in a minute.
Still, I don’t think the Mashable headline, “Brands, Try, Fail to Capitalize on Royal Baby Hype” quite captures the situation. After all, the Oreo Cookie tweet triggered more than 800 retweets and more than 300 favorites, not exactly chopped liver (no charge Nabisco for the cookie filling idea).
A brand story is made up of all that you are and all that you do. From the company’s history, mission, inspiration, goals, audience, and raison d’être, it’s why you exist. Your story is the people, places, and ideas that your company thrives on. It’s the foundation that keeps a brand going and growing. It’s a blend of those vital little core pieces of information about your business — how you came to be, why your products or services are special, what you’re passionate about, your company culture, how you make people’s lives better, and why you would do business with your company.
Brand stories can be told in many different forms, with an evolving story line and cast of characters, but content creators must be vigilant about continuity and consistency, avoiding any holes. Your brand’s story has to resonate with people at a level that goes way beyond what’s tangible — the functionality, features, and benefits of your products or services — to create a deep, emotional connection with your audience. You have to create something that they want to be a part of and show that you really “get” who they are and what they need.
Here are a few basic questions to answer to help you pull your story out of its box
I'm always fascinated by organizations that embrace brand journalism, hiring reporters to create content that serves as marketing and public relations. For almost a decade, I've recommended that companies of all kinds model their sites not on their peers' boring old brochure-like approach but rather aspire to becoming like a media site such as Forbes, the BBC, or The New York Times and that they actually hire reporters and editors, not marketers and copywriters, to produce the content. One look at the Raytheon homepage shows they do exactly that. There are real-time news, images, and a top stories section. And Raytheon is a B2B (and B2G) company! "You can see our homepage is very much a news operation," says Corinne J Kovalsky, Director, Digital & Social Media at Raytheon. "We've got feature stories and trend stories about cool products."...
I’m a simple soul. I deal in realities The first reality I see is that journalism as a career is under threat, because not enough people are prepared to pay for what we make
I can also see that any organisation is, or could be, a media company, in addition to whatever else it does. I see that many people are choosing to get their information through social media, rather than through the products of traditional publishers and broadcasters. Social media has changed the equation. We no longer live in a world where the rich and powerful control the means of mass communication. Now, anyone can publish their news, views, comment and analysis. Social media brings the added dimension to the dissemination of news and information that it is passed among groups of friends, colleagues or those bound by some other sort of self-defined common interest by way of personal recommendation.... [I like Andy Bull's approach to brand journalism. It's part of a series of Masterclass posts which are included in a Multimedia Journalism course online. The course is very reasonable and includes textbook and online resources for approx $55. Essential reading for marketing, PR and content marketing pros. - JD ]
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If a story is moving, no one is going to care that it’s brought to you by a brand—they’re going to be happy the brand brought it to them.