Whether you want to create a branded platform or a brand neutral platform or just a brand - you definitely are a brand who now is a publisher in this post-digital world.
A strategic Instigation by WOlfzhowl on creating a brand neutral platform. A comprehensive approach with discussions and highlight on various conundrums faced by brands.
Buckle-up its an intense read, hope you enjoy the instigations.
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10. Get Instigated…
Red Bull feature consistently in any list of top content-marketing or brand
publishers. Few brands capture an audience so well with regards to their
branded publishing, and focusing on emerging niches such as adventure
sports and gaming has been highly successful for the brand
Mashable’s James O’Brien rightly says, “Red Bull is a publishing empire that
also happens to sell a beverage.”
Red Bull is a massive content marketing industry all of its own, with an
archive of over 5,000 videos, 50,000 images, and a range of high-octane
sports events to its name – and not an energy drink in sight
It sells a lifestyle, a story – one that can be summed up in a single word:
‘adrenaline’ - Felix Baumgartner’s Stratos jump from the edge of space
Red Bull have proved the effectiveness of branded publishing in building
value and engagement. The volume at which they publish, and the
respective average share count show healthy figures too
Articles analyzed: 14,342 Total Shares: 13,712,691 Average Shares: 956
12. Get Instigated…
Intel’s iQ is a tech culture magazine covering fashion, sports, gaming,
health and lifestyle, with the intention of “[bringing us] deeper into the
lives of people and the technologies they are using to change the world.”
Although they may not publish as often, their content covers exciting and
progressive breakthroughs in tech, such as solar powered cars, and tends
to be widely consumed
Articles analyzed: 212 Total Shares: 1,567,933 Average Shares: 7,396
Intel iQ allows the technology brand to post exciting content
around fashion such as this incredible butterfly dress.
13. Get Instigated…
Unlike Red Bull, Coca Cola’s publishing on journey feels more heavily
branded (and perhaps this could be a barrier to some for consuming the
content freely)
Certain things do come across in their messaging, the brands global values
are reflected in stories from all over the world
Articles analyzed: 491 Total Shares: 626,832 Average Shares: 1,277
Journey does give them a place to document their consistent
stream of amazing content moments
14. Get Instigated…
P&G everyday is a great example of a branded content / lifestyle magazine
from a leading FMCG brand
The site has a membership scheme, and offer coupons for their products,
as well as content that is current, such as their “Thank You, Mom”
campaign for the Rio Olympics
Articles analyzed: 468 Total Shares: 97,844 Average Shares: 209
17. Get Instigated…
Consumers are spending more time on digital and on digital a brand can engage
them with more aspects of itself than on traditional media which is prohibitively
expensive
#1: Time spent on digital & power of story telling Vs commercial messaging
18. Get Instigated…
For e.g. – Smirnoff Red 21
Would you choose to tell the fascinating story of Peter Smirnoff escaping Russia?
Would you rather choose to tell the creation of Moscow Mule?
Or
Would you choose to only communicate the brand message of life is calling you
On TV you might have to choose being in this category but on digital you don’t have to
Note – the only thing is you have to make a good documentary or a TLC kind of way telling the Moscow
Mule’s creation and not craft it like a commercial ad
23. Get Instigated…
The Power of Like Share Path to Purchase
Story
about
Peter
Smirnoff
Rahul (who does not drink)
but loves the story as he
likes adventure
Riya is thinking of having a party at
her house ends up buying Smirnoff
after reading the article
Neha reads it and likes
and shares it with
othersRaj reads it and likes
and shares it with
others
In traditional media & SEARCH-ONLY era you have to identify and target a hot lead's P2P. In Social Discovery, you tell
a story which people love and they spread it for it to magically conincide with the p2p of a few consumers.
24. Get Instigated…
A consumer may use search to compare prices online, go to the store to “showroom” a product before
buying it online, like and interact with a brand on Facebook, watch a tutorial on YouTube, and consult a
much broader social graph for opinions. Or he might follow a combination of some or all of these paths to
purchase - Non linear path to purchase
It is virtually impossible and exorbitantly expensive for brands to identify each of the several influence
points in this non linear p2p journey Publishing in the age of social discovery enables your brand to
encounter and stumble upon the consumer at many points across this non linear P2P
25. Get Instigated…
Some of the Successful Brand Publishers…
{total and average share counts over the past twelve months (as of May 9th 2016) from BuzzSumo are
included}
27. Get Instigated…
Marketing can now move from being Cost centres to Profit centres
through Content Marketing
It may take some time to get it right, but branded content marketing hubs can
provide return on investment (ROI)
28. Get Instigated…
For Example – Red Bull
They not only create TV shows, magazines,
movies, books, music and more, but they also
distribute their creations everywhere from
newsstands, to theatres, TV, YouTube, mobile
apps and the Web
29. Get Instigated…
Success of Red Bull…
They have sales teams throughout key cities in the U.S. and Europe, selling advertising spots to other big brands
such as Nike, Casio, Dodge and Patagonia in the U.S., alone
Created six years ago as a separate arm of the company to create ‘premium’ media, produces and sells high-end
art and photography coffee table books, a yearly calendar, DVDs of adventurers exploring forests and fjords, and
TV shows
Red Bulletin lifestyle magazine has a circulation of more than 3.1 million per month globally, via newsstands and
through newspapers
They license their media to Discovery Channel, Netflix, Crackle, Nintendo “and many more,”
They sell advertising and sponsorship packages for their 13-episode action sports TV series, broadcast by NBC,
which also sells ads for the show
30. Get Instigated…
Reasons for their success…
• As a consumer brand they are enjoyed more for their entertainment and informational value – rather
than just marketing
• The ROI they get is a mixture of value, engagement and money
• The shows they produce is not just content, but entertainment and information — what we would call media
• They create more than 600 pieces of content every year
• The content reaches the coveted and elusive young demographic across the globe (reason other
advertisers pay for the exposure)
• Though they feature their logo, they never showcase the product in any of the content
• They pay close attention to the audiences they are reaching and discover content basis their needs and
constantly trying to come up with content to engage with newer segment who our not their TG (women
and older men)
32. Get Instigated…
Brand as Publishers
• Brand Publishing is changing your mind-set to put content at the forefront of your business, almost
before the products or services that you sell
• It is about engaging prospects and consumers with informative or entertaining content they’ll want to
use or consume for its own sake, rather than pushing or interrupting them with direct sales or
promotional messages
• The idea is that you're able to build an engaged, loyal audience of value for your brand... an audience you
can then monetize later
• Obviously this is a commercial activity, just that the consumers have changed, so must the way to market
it to them
33. Get Instigated…
• Marketers were always known for people who will be on the expenses side of the company
and not the income side as they would crack campaigns to create awareness which leads to
spending
• However through brand publishing now marketers can make money for the company even
though it is a long term process as now it is not about ‘Campaigns’ but about ‘Content’
Brand as Publishers
35. Get Instigated…
The marketer needs to make sure that the content is -
Shareable
As well as the benefits of gaining peer
approval for your content, the social
shares it attracts will also boost its search
rankings
Searchable
Search engines reward sites that deliver
regularly refreshed content of a high
editorial quality. Whether it’s for
education or entertainment, your content
needs to deliver both quality and impact
Supportive
As a brand understanding users
information needs and anticipating users
questions and telling them things they
didn’t know
Specialist
Your content must come from within
your information niche – the intersection
between your domain expertise and your
users’ content needs and interestsSustainable
You need a publishing process in place
that allows you to generate ideas,
populate an editorial calendar, and create
relevant, effective content on a
sustainable basis
36. Get Instigated…
We need to build a community
through our platform with like minded
people who can share and posts their
similar interests
If our contents are passionate and of
people’s interest, it will generate a lot
of traffic onto our platform
The reason being people will only
come to your platform/website if
they have the Passion, Interest and
Purpose
Thereby getting more views, shares, likes which will result into buying ad space
on our platform from brands across categories
Monetization
40. Branded
Platform
‘Content that is too product- or brand-focused does not
travel well digitally, whereas content that stands on its own
merits as entertainment, storytelling, education will be
shared and passed along.’
Online – where most of us live a lot of the time now – the
way we interact with brands changes
Big trigger for the online user is peer opinion. As social media
shows us several million times a day, we’re much more likely
to be pulled towards what our friends like than we are to
respond to an old-fashioned commercial push
So brands need to create content that’s worth sharing in its
own right. Inevitably, such content tends not to work if it’s
too brand-focused
Therefore being a brand platform is a barrier,
rather be a purpose based people’s platform & leverage our brands in it.
The Purpose of the platform can be relaevant to the category and rooted / emanating from our brands
41. Category
Restrictions
However people centric content, around the purpose of each brand shall be a
fantastic way to operate this platform while adhering to category restrictions and
navigating away from any possible negativity or boredom/category fatigue.
Some categories could have a few restrictions. Alcohol & other
taboo categories can have regulatory restrictions, a detergent
brand might have interest restrictions. Etc;.
Here again brand purpose helps create a better content platform,
rather than brand positioning.
For example: Raymond’s complete man will lead only to a few
brand positioning posts and lots of fashion posts. Where as UCB’s
“we exist to help eliminate racism and bias fashionably” can help
produce a lot of content that is very interesting to people.
That kind of content can be shareworthy and easier to plug your
brand and category into.
42. Partner-Brand
Content
Unless you are an iconic brand with no conflict, other brands with stature
would not want to associate with you
1. The opportunity is for brands who cannot afford to be a publisher themselves
would want to be leverage this trend
2. Therefore the platform has to be popular and have high viewership
3. Also the platform has to be iconic and have a large enough people centric
purpose for it to attract other brand partners.
4. The content strategy, content wire frame and hence content buckets have to
be crafted keeping this in mind.
For e.g. Audi R8 and Airbnb –
Airbnb has over 1,500,000 listings in 34,000 cities and 191 countries. They
cater to modern, sophisticated, urban crowd who are adventerous. The Air
BnB is also a younger vrowd.
Audi is a reputed, premium brand in the world and Audi R8 is an award
winning car. Association with Air BnB makes them an experiential brand
which is cooler and appeals to a younger adventerous mind set of
consumers too.
Therefore Airbnb is getting a stature by associating itself to such an iconic,
premium brand and Audi R8 is appealing to this young, modern, urban
crowd all over the world
43. Different segment
level brands on 1
platform
If you are an organization with multiple brands across economic segments, then the task gets even
more complex. For Example a USL / Diageo has brands from McDowell’s No 1 to Johnnie Walker.
Can all these brands be housed on one platform.
Definitely not. Some a call needs to be taken about which segments can be housed. So mass market
to premium brands can be housed under one platform.
Also important to up-image lower segment brands, in order to not pull-down the imagery of your
more premium brands. For Example McDowell’s No 1 might pull down the imagery of a Captain
Morgan.
This can be countered by insightfully up-imaging content around MCD No1. MCD No ! Could be a
nostalgia brand for current middle aged men (as it could be a college drink) – one can dial that up.
Another thing about lower economy brands is quite often there is a rustic appeal to them, that can
be used to create up-imaged content around them. Example: MCD No1 Popsicles– perfect way to
kick start a party. MCD will retain its ’strong’ whiskey hues and also appeal to premium consumers.
However again a common purpose helps us get away with this. “Platform Purpose for an alcohol
brand: Party Central . Com – how to organize and have fun and be responsible while partying”.
Again a common platform purpose cuts beyond segments and imagery barriers and
creates an iconic platform that different brands can participate in.
44. Get Instigated…
Content Creation Vs
Instigating Content
Creation
Content creation can be very very expensive. The two strategic considerations to
be kept in mind to avoid falling into the content cost trap and either abandoning
the platform creation exercise altogether or realizing this disastrously mid-way.
(1) Co-Creation is key. You need to have a content wire frame, which looks at a
major chunk of your content coming from your consumers and sometimes
even your partners and employees. Insightfully figuring what exactly can
trigger this content creation amongst your consumers is something that
needs to be planned well in advance.
(2) Sustainability. Monetary sustainability is extremely important, as the initial
enthusiasm fades, the central kitty dries up. Hence all the participating
brands product portfolio needs to contribute monetarily. For that to happen
understanding each of the sub-brands annual marketing calendar needs,
behaviour changes needs is essential. This brand neutral platform needs to
accomplish specific behaviour change tasks for individual brands. It should be
run like a magazine, which charges its clients for effective content campaigns.
NOTE: Unilever’s BeBeautiful & Kaan Khajura actually have been victims of
content cost. Look to BabyCenter.Com, Red Bull etc; for better sustainability
learnings.
50. Get Instigated…
After the bigger problems are solved by cracking a Purpose we need to make sure that it becomes a
success. The above mentioned buckets will be the fuel we need to run our platform to success .
51. Get Instigated…
These are the Barriers which are on top of our mind and are the most
important ones which needs attention before we have the platform
set…
58. Get Instigated…
‘Celebrating bonds of brotherhood’
‘Inspiring people to live bold’
‘Inspiring people to pursue their
passion and make your mark’
‘We are Open and Inclusive’
‘Take life a little lightly’‘Life is in a pause and enjoy a easy evening’
‘Inspiring personal progress’