Looking at the Content

Marketing Journey in 5 Leading

Companies

The Content and Brand Journey in Several

Leading Companies

To understand how large global brands are adapting to being “content producers”

– its impact on organizations; their approach and partner relationships

1

Selected 4 Fortune 100 companies to

interview.

The Content and Brand Journey

On a scale of 1-5 how far along is your company in being a “publisher” of

content1 2 3 4 5

Nascent underway regular integral Excelling

Beginner started some component regular prod’n

momentum

• 80% ranked themselves as a “3”

• regular with some momentum

• 100% identified as a priority, wanting to get to “5”

5

1. Is underway and having an

impact on company

structures, business

processes, interactions with

agencies and resources

2. Adoption to becoming

content producers is still a

work in progress for most

companies

3. Content marketing is changing

perspectives and “rules” for

what the future may look like

inside a large company, as

well as its’ relation with

traditional agency suppliers

4. Customer engagement is

important and measured in

diverse ways

The Content Journey in Fortune Companies

http://www.bettycrocker.com/tips/aboutthekitchens/history

“I’m always suspicious of anyone who tries to “bag the truth” to early. I just

think we are still at an early stage on this front. The field is fluid and

continues to get more complex and competitive; son of Pinterest will

emerge; Twitter continues to defy expectations; you can’t set rules now and

expect them to hold up…Frankly, we are still learning a lot and I don’t want

it to be too codified until we explore more ground and really have a solid

sense of what is most effective across markets and brands. Right now we

have a lot of flexibility to work at it and try things rather than tightening

screws on some rigorous process.”

Global Head of Social

“To feed this content beast every day takes a

lot of work and it’s a huge logistical challenge

too; it requires us to think about how we are

structured, how we pay for things, and it is

also a tremendous cultural shift, impacting

how we staff and the talents and skill set mix

changes that we need to make over time”

Head of Social COE

Content Responsibilities & Production

Who is responsible for content?

• 90% of respondents mentioned

they are on a journey or that is a

bit of a mix right now.

• 100% of respondents talked about

integration across marketing

disciplines or around “brand

management”

• All noted the importance of

brand/company strategic

leadership

• Most respondents mentioning

they are building up their skill

base in just the last year

The Business/

Marketing

Team

“not another set of separate disciplines

but rather integration. It is all about an

integrated business strategy. We are

just at the cusp of all of this.”

Director, Social COE

Content Responsibilities & Production

Organizational Considerations:

• Defining clear roles and

responsibilities, processes, as

well as approvals, is often a work

in progress

• Getting everyone to the table

with social content is critical:

SEO, Legal, the Brand manager,

traditional marketers

• Organizations as “content

publishers” includes a logistical

process of huge undertaking and

new skills.

• There is also a shift related to

market research/“customer

insights” as organizations adopt

listening and content “data” into

these research functions

Bringing the

business together

“If you, as brand leader, assume a legal

risk, you have a responsibility to

understand the legal risk and be held

accountable for it. This gets you to a

different and more collegial working

approach.”

Innovation Manager

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aquariawinterso

ul/4248415006/sizes/o/in/photostream/

“Agencies play a really really

important role and where we

see really great results there

is a strong agency

partnership”

Social COE Head

Agency Partnerships

Valued and Subject to Change

• All respondents noted a high degree of reliance

on agency assistance for “production”; Brands

guide content marketing but they are not expert

at “content.”

• The integration of paid, owned and earned is

critical to large companies/brands.

• New, more agile marketing materials, not just

from advertising/creative but whoever is best at

it.

• Most respondents said they are looking at new

models related to agency management and

interaction

• Several companies are looking to media oriented

businesses whose business is content (i.e

traditional media like The New York Times to new

media outlets such as Buzzfeed, Gizmodo or

Gawker; as well as blog platforms like a Blogher

and Federated media)

10

“Brands are not experts at content

the way media companies are.

Fundamentally, we are in the media

business; so some of our resources

will start going there…they are

media companies, afterall...”

Global Head of Digital

http://bit.ly/18rE2vU

The Company- Agency Skill Set Partnership

On a 5 point scale (1 – not important, 5 – important), assess the roles and imperatives of internal vs. external support around content

28

Company Skill Sets (rank order

by F100 Respondents)

1. Strategic Leadership (Ranked a

5 by all respondents)

2. Monitoring Listening (Ranked 4

by most respondents)

3. Measurement Analyses

Community Management

Engagement(ranked 3 by most respondents)

4. Web Design, Writing,

SEO/SEM, Multi-media

production (all ranked 2)

Agency Skill Sets (rank order

by F100 Respondents)

1. Multi-media production,

Web Design, Writing,

Monitoring Listening

Measurement (Ranked as 4 by majority of

respondents)

2. Community Management

Engagement, Strategic

Leadership (Ranked a 3 by most

respondents)

Content Responsibilities & Production

What to Watch for:

• Integrated and merged marketing

teams rather than separate

disciplines; less “campaign” and

more “always on” orientation

• Content becoming closely

intertwined with other parts of

business – including customer

research and insights

• 100% noted shifting resources

• 2/3 of respondents suggested the

“role” of community manager

will change, i.e think about the

importance of timely content

activation/sponsorship; not

something a traditional media

buying company is on top of, but

it is a media buy

“we need to expand our “content”

beyond that core capability or

traditional marketing materials and into

more diverse types of content, more

agile content, smaller forms of content

that are more timely, as well as can be

used in more diverse distribution

networks. Today the processes are quite

siloed and where we are going is to be

more collaborative and sharing both of

information and insights as well as

content. The resources will also shift to

foster working across different business

divisions” Social COE Lead and Head of

Corp Communications

http://www.flickr.com/photos/95284782@N06/8684911125/

Content & The Customer

http://www.flickr.com/photos/95284782@N06/8684911125/

“Im increasingly coming to believe

that consumers don’t care who

publishes the content as long as

meaning and relevance to them

and helps them lead better more

complete lives.

Because of the reach of large

brands and their budgets you will

see a lot more coming from brands

in the future.”

Global Head, Digital

Our job is to touch and engage as many

people where this is relevant…so really

it is about awareness and engagement.

The driver you want to drive back to is

consistent measurement. We can’t

have digital measurement that does

not add up. That’s how we look at

things…We look at did it reach people

and then do they do anything with it

(direct and indirect)—it’s not always

the sharing or liking….

Director, Innovation /Social COE

“Our customer insights team

is working to document the

'sum of the whole' versus the

individual piece parts in

showing consumer decision

making..”

Head of Social Media COE

Content: the Customer &

Engagement

What is meaningful:

• Did it reach people and did they do

anything with it

• Some have benchmarks of what their

average engagement with a piece of

content is; therefore focus to

regularly achieve that “average” or

do better – continually doing content

marketing better;

• Innovate to drive more engagement

• Common forms of measurement

include: likes, shares, comments,

traffic, share of conversation; some

have their own internal mathematical

equations of the above

we know we can no longer just buy

customers’ attention; we have to earn it

through quality and meaningful

content….and that content is smaller

and reaching smaller audiences, but we

are also producing a whole lot more

content….Social content is more

targeted and therefore one might

suggest it is more efficient (less

wasteful) than TV ads

Head of Corporate Communications

and Head of COE

Website & Blog: http://richardbinhammer.com

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Thank you

Email: Rbinhammer@gmail.com