This document discusses how content marketing is refining the digital landscape and allowing brands to stay ahead of competition. It provides several examples of brands that have successfully implemented content marketing strategies focused on storytelling, addressing customer needs, and inspiring consumers with their philosophy and social causes. Whole Foods, GE, Dove, and Coca-Cola are highlighted for how they leverage content marketing to build their brands in a way that goes beyond simply promoting products. The conclusion emphasizes that effective content marketing now requires rethinking a company's entire communication strategy and involving all branches to bring out creative ideas that can be embedded in people's everyday lives and culture.

1. HOW CONTENT MARKETING
IS REFINING THE
DIGITAL SCENE
STAY AHEAD OF THE
COMPETITION & RETAIN
CONSUMER
Clémence Fontaine

2. ❑ THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION - A NECESSARY SHIFT TO CONTENT MARKETING
❑ PLANNING CONTENT ALONG WITH THE CUSTOMER NEEDS
❑ START A CONVERSATION
❑ BRANDS, MADE TO INSPIRE AND SELL A PHILOSOPHY
❑ WHOLE FOOD, THE CONSCIOUS BRANDING MODEL
❑ GENERAL ELECTRICS TURN TO GREEN VENTURES
❑ DOVE REDEFINES BEAUTY
❑ THE COCA-COLA COMPANY, LEVERAGING EMOTIONS
❑ CONCLUSION
❑ BIBLIOGRAPHY
CONTENT
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3. The Digital Transformation
Why the shift to content marketing is necessary
Let’s imagine, five years from now … New technology and trends have developed,
wearables have infiltrated our everyday lives, the majority of the population consuming
media on their tablets and cellphones.
With an ad overload and a channel overload, buyers are changing their buying behaviors.
They are now used to navigate the flood of information to rapidly find the most relevant
content to them. In order to compete on the market, brands will have to adapt rapidly and
create valuable content.
As many companies mistake audience and influence, they focus on trafic - as did traditional
media - instead of focusing on value-added information. With the spread of digital and
the gigantic flow of information over the Internet, trying to have your ads seen by the
greatest number of people will just not be a very fruitful strategy.
The race for trafic with ‘funny’, ‘trashy’ or ‘cute’ buzz-feed is impoverishing digital
content.
Rather, value-added content distinguishes itself and brings back dialogue between
consumers and brands.
To cut out empty content, search engines are refining their systems to reward high-
quality content, more suitable for web audiences.

4. Planning your Content along with
your Customer Needs
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Big data analysis allows for a detailed understanding
of buyers’ persona companies are marketing to. Business
have the ability to listen and respond to their customers at
every stage of their purchase.
People are often looking for a solution to a problem, as
such any content you create should lead to a resolution of
their specific issues. Create specific content that caters
specifically to their needs means you will prove an
invaluable resource and their engagement will increase.
But great content sometimes do not even make it to page
3 of Google, so have a real strategy around it: build
communities around your brand.
Once a dream in the 1990s, marketing one to one is today a reality. Brands are now able to
personally contact their customers and tailor their speech according to their audiences.
Millennials - people born between the 1980s and 2000s - are highly-empowered consumers. They
choose what they will watch, eat, consume, etc. Trends are not imposed on them anymore, they are
the trend-setters. As such, marketers have to study them very thoroughly to understand them,
know their needs and desires.
Rather than assuming that because a consumer fits a certain profile he will buy a certain product,
you can now target individuals based on how they actually behave.

5. Create Dynamic Storytelling
Start the Conversation
Conversations begin with brand stories. Use the
art of storytelling, appeal to the heart to spark an
interest and engage your audience.
The Art of Storytelling
Storytelling is at the heart of all families,
cultures and communities and that is
something successful brands excel at.
When your content is interesting and
actually answer consumers’ needs,
trigger their curiosity or engender
emotions, your ideas will not be controlled.
The ideas and insights you share do not
have to be relevant to your brand, they have
to further the consumer experience and
spark an interest so that people will want
to share your stories with others. and you
will earn a share of popular culture.
A recommendation from trusted friend hence
more valuable than any other advertising
budget. The share-worthiness of a brand
is a key criterion assessing for its value.
Shared content is the fuel of social
media.
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The aim of conversations is for consumers
stories to outnumber brand stories. You have a
pool of consumers, thousands if not millions
thinking for you. Leverage that ressource. Try
and have all your shareholders (customers,
employees, suppliers, etc) participate in the
conversation and spread it across multiple
channels.
It is by adding up talents and knowledge
that smart ideas will emerge.
Behave like ruthless editors otherwise your
content will risk just creating noise and fall in
between the nets of optimized search engines.

6. Brands, Made to Inspire and
Sell a Philosophy
Yet, only 20% of brands worldwide
are seen to meaningfully and
positively impact people’s lives.
71% of consumers would help a
brand promote their products or
services if there is a good cause
behind them.
62% say they use social media to
address or engage with companies
around CSR.
Consumer Want Purpose
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Brands showing commitment to making the world a better place are growing in popularity, especially
since Millennials are increasingly conscious-consumers. The future most iconic brands might be those
that drive the most meaningful social change.
When traditional marketing aimed at selling a product, content marketing is actually selling the
idea of a product. To do so, different models and philosophy have appeared: some as Whole
Food are part of the conscious capitalism trends, GE puts the stress on sustainability, Dove
builds self-esteem, while Coke continues to spread happiness.

7. A Responsibility to Inspire
Whole Food, the Conscious
Branding Model
Whole Food, a pioneer in conscious capitalism
Redefine why you market will
help increase the brand’s
perceived value. Customers now
want the purpose behind the
brand: why is your brand cool and
useful? By nature, if your brand is
conscious, it will have stories to
tell and an authentic way of
sharing it.
Do not just support a nonprofit of
some kind to legitimize your
profit-making venture.
The first cause of any company
should be its own: to succeed by
making lives better through
the products or services it
provides. If you wish to support
a cause, it has to make strategic
sense.
John Mackey, co-founder and co-CEO of Whole Food made his
brand successful thanks to a purpose-driven culture.
More than trying to foster healthy habits through food, he stresses
the power of values and purpose, stating "it energizes and engages
employees, promotes creativity and innovation, and helps
businesses achieve a sustainable competitive advantage."
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8. General Electrics Turns to Green
Ventures
The company is not actively promoting a
transaction or marketing a specific product.
Yet, it establishes a profound branding
value by offering their audience insight and
information on how to improve their
quality of living by integrating GE into
their lives.
Content marketing thus helps brands build
their reputation for being trustworthy and
legitimate.
As General Electrics’ states, Ecomagination is
"a broad initiative that brings us all together
to think about how we can make the world a
better place."
Ecomagination is a content marketing
strategy to educate consumers to new
and creative ways to think about energy
consumption in an environmental age but it
also aims at presenting consumers with
solutions that can be purchased at GE.
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9. Dove Redefines Beauty
Create exciting content, keep thinking
sideways. Do not settle for boring and
give yourself permission to make the
story bigger as with Dove and its
Real Beauty Sketches.
In the process of brainstorming, good
ideas will come, as well as great ideas
and rubbish ideas. The key is to
consider each of them. Some of the
most outstanding content were
sparked from ‘not so exciting ideas’ at
first and then got refined. Remain
flexible and accept that some of your
content will not generate much
conversation but do not shy away
from taking risks.
Dove stresses how its brand is not just about selling beauty products. In a context of strict
beauty standards, the brand emphasizes how beauty is subjective and initiates to grow
people’s self-esteem through a series of sketches comparing women’s idea of their personal
image - often very critical as women are their worst enemy - with their actual portrait.
Dove makes a compelling statement - you are more beautiful than you think - and goes beyond
its brand products by questioning the status quo around beauty standards.
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Beat boring and
déjà vu advertising

10. The Coca-Cola Company,
Leveraging Emotions
The Coca-Cola Company has always been successful, always one step ahead of the market.
A secret? It belongs to the very few brands that are able to refine themselves, following the
evolution of trends and preferences.
Far from being its first initiative,
The Coca-Cola Company has done a
variety of small ventures putting a
smile on people’s face thanks to its
branded machine.
Here, the Coca-Cola snow machine
shared Finland’s snow with tropical
Singapore - offering special
moments of happiness.
The brand’s website shows the will
to build a consumer culture with
s e c t i o n s s u c h a s ‘ s p o r t s ’,
‘innovation’, ‘music’, ‘sustainability’.
A whole new website for its 2020
marketing strategy, looking more
like a news & information portal
than the one of a corporate
company.
Selling Happiness & a
Consumer Culture
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11. Conclusion
Content Marketing is not just about creating interesting content. It is about thinking all over
again your company’s entire communication.
More than ‘being digital’ through online advertisements of your products, you need to create
your media brand. In other words, your brand needs to be engraved into people’s
everyday lives, into their culture.
To do so, it is vital that all branches of your company need to be involved in the process,
partnering with them to bring out their imagination and incubate creative ideas.
The refining of search engines and of buyers’ habits on the web has already started to grow
and new competitors are emerging.
It is time to get ready and develop a smart content marketing because by the time this trend
will have taken over the market, it will already be too late to compete with those who are
already preparing change.
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12. Clémence Fontaine
clems.fontaine@gmail.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/clemencefontaine

13. ● Frédéric-Michel Chevalier, “Le Content Marketing: nouvel eldorado du web des cinq prochaines années”, Visionary
Marketing, November, 24th
2014.
●
Mark Sareff, “How to Treble the Power of your Advertising Dollar”, Ogilvy Do, September, 3rd
2014.
●
Nielsen, “The Global, Socially Conscious Consumer”, Global Insights, March 2012.
●
Robert Passikof, “Brand and Marketing Trends in 2015”, Forbes, December, 15th
2015.
●
Ryan Law, “How to Use Buyer Persona to Create Valuable Content Marketing”, Cursive Content Marketing, March, 4th
2014.
●
The Coca-Cola Company, “Coca-Cola Content 2020 Initiative Strategy”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1P3r2EsAos, July
2013.
●
Yann Gourvennec, “Marketing One to One: rêve devenu réalité grâce au digital et aux big data”, Visionary Marketing, June,
10th
2014.
Bibliography
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