As the film progresses, we hear about the history of the Lakota people. We see images of their impoverished reservation juxtaposed with joy-filled dances and rich cultural traditions. And at the same time, we’re drawn in by how the CRYP is helping many others like Genevieve work towards a stronger future for their people. It’s no wonder the film has amassed over 4.7 million YouTube views—it’s both beautifully shot and emotionally affecting.

It’s also an extremely effective example of brand storytelling, as it was produced not by a gritty independent film studio but by the financial services platform Square.

On first viewing, that might sound like an overstatement; Square isn’t directly mentioned in the film, and we only see it being passively used at Genevieve’s job. The focus isn’t on the product, but on the CRYP’s mission to empower Lakota youth with job and internship experiences that help them strengthen their community. That’s a noble aim, but how can a piece of content that is not directly about a brand be one of the best examples of brand storytelling?

Stories lead to a “branding moment”

The neuromarketing company Neuro-Insight can help us understand why this works so well. They’ve used neuroscience technology to look at what’s happening in people’s brains while they watch ads and TV shows. What makes Neuro-Insight unique is their proprietary technology called Steady State Topography (SST), which pinpoints how likely someone is to remember an ad. They call this long-term memory encoding.

As humans, our brains are built for stories. Whenever we watch something, our brain assumes there must be a story and tries to make sense of the narrative. This is particularly true when we’re introduced to a compelling character off the bat—like Genevieve, a young woman in the midst of coming of age and making a difference in her underserved community.

We see the Square product in action when Genevieve tells us how this opportunity to earn her own money gives her a sense of independence. To others, her job may be just a boring internship, but taking advantage of this opportunity is her triumph. And Square is one of the on-the-job tools that will give her the tech experience she needs while also simplifying a core business function for her employer.

Neuro-Insight calls this a “branding moment”—when our brain finally understands the story and memory encoding peaks. If your brand’s logo or product appears at that moment, people are much more likely to remember it.

Stories make messages memorable

Of course, not all the best brand storytelling examples take on such sensitive subject matter. The viral Cadbury “Gorilla” advertisement—wherein a gorilla drums along to Peter Gabriel’s “In The Air Tonight,” and no chocolate is consumed—is downright silly. However, per Neuro-Insight’s analysis, it ranked in the top 1 percent for long-term memory encoding. There’s a key lesson here for anyone who wants to tell a story that’ll make people remember their company: A big old bar of Cadbury chocolate appears at the end of this perplexing but engaging scene, and it stuck in people’s brains. And the next time they were checking out at the supermarket and saw that Cadbury chocolate by the cashier, they were more likely to subconsciously notice it, have a positive association, and buy it. Just like that, the ad increased sales by 10 percent.

Another killer example of storytelling advertisements is the “Mean Streets” video from Adobe. There’s a strong story that hooks you off the bat—a frazzled middle-aged guy meeting a dealer to seemingly buy drugs, but it turns out he’s buying clicks. He gets arrested, and we don’t really know what on earth we’re watching until the very end, when we realize it’s an ad for Adobe Marketing Cloud.

Stories can be used in a variety of formats

Not all effective brand storytelling has to be a high-production video, of course—feel free to breathe a sigh of relief. Intel is a great example of brand-centering stories about client impact stories through their social media content. Take this quick interview with Mary Beth Chalk, the co-founder and CCO of BeeKeeper AI. Mary uses her personal story of being diagnosed with cancer to demonstrate just how crucial AI services will be for the future of healthcare and personal privacy.

And as with the other examples in this list, Intel is not at the center of the story. At the end of the video, Mary lists which of Intel’s services are crucial for BeeKeeper AI to function—then we see Intel’s logo, and that’s that.

What makes these stories stick

There are a few things each of these examples of brand storytelling do really well:

• Prioritize the brand, not the product: Until the branding moment, they prioritize the story over selling the brand. As Heather Andrew, Neuro-Insight’s former UK CEO, explained: “This is highly effective from the brain’s point of view because our brains often reject overt selling messages, while brand cues like colors, shapes, and sounds can get in ‘under the radar.’”
• Focus on real people (or animals!) experiencing real emotion. The presence of people increased emotional intensity by 133 percent in a study of social ads.
• Introduce a compelling narrative right away. Branded content with an early story arc is 58 percent more likely to be viewed past 3 seconds.

The next time you scroll through your feeds, look out for branding moments. Which pieces of content do it well? Which don’t? Then, get inspired, and tell a brand story that people will remember.

Ask the Content Strategist: FAQs about brand storytelling

What role does authenticity play in these successful brand storytelling examples?

Authenticity is crucial in brand storytelling, as consumers value genuine connections and narratives that resonate with their own experiences. Brands, like these, that convey sincerity and honesty in their storytelling are more likely to build trust and loyalty with their audience.

How can companies determine the most effective storytelling strategies for their brand?

Understanding the target audience, conducting market research, and analyzing past successful campaigns can help companies tailor their content marketing storytelling approach to resonate with their audience and achieve their brand objectives.

Are there any ethical considerations to keep in mind when using brand storytelling?

To maintain credibility and trust with their audience, brands should be mindful of cultural sensitivities, avoid exploiting sensitive topics for marketing purposes, and ensure transparency in their storytelling efforts. Additionally, respecting the privacy and consent of individuals featured in brand stories is essential to upholding ethical standards.

For more brand storytelling examples worth reading, subscribe to The Content Strategist and follow us on Instagram.

The post ‘Branding Moments’: Brand Storytelling Examples To Get Your Message Across appeared first on Contently.

That push is all about relevance. The ultimate goal of advertising is delivering the right message to someone at the right time. In many sectors, that’s already happening. Sephora tracks how much money customers spend on its site and automatically enrolls them into a VIP club once they hit a certain amount. Car companies like Nissan can now send drivers automated reminders of when they should get their car serviced based on the date you bought your car.

Based on my conversations with agencies, tech companies, and consultancies, this level of technological innovation is only going to increase. Here are three trends that marketers working in Europe should be thinking about for the future.

Seeing the consumer, not the devices

Part of the promise of online marketing has always been to understand the customer journey better. The rise of attribution modelling has given marketers more insight into how different types of content lead to conversions. But as smartphones and tablets become the primary means of accessing the internet, understanding how users move from device to device during the purchase process is a significant issue right now.

For marketers, cross-device marketing a matter of efficacy, making sure consumers see content in sequence, no matter how many devices they use. Meanwhile, consumers are annoyed by ads that feel irrelevant or from seeing the same ad too many times.

To improve the efficacy without frustrating users, marketers are turning to two solutions: identity resolution and device graphing. Identity resolution is the process of linking fragments of personal data from different sources to gather a complete picture of a customer. A device graph looks at an individual’s digital habits holistically, based on all the devices he or she uses.

Device graphs are already a common part of digital advertising in the U.S., but the tactic is only now starting to pick up across Europe as advertisers put more emphasis on managing attribution throughout the customer journey.

“The elephant in the room is that the CRM world and the digital world need to come together,” Jed Mole, European marketing director at Acxiom, told me. “We know customers happily live in both the physical and digital worlds. Linking those data sets completely is not possible, but it can be done to a worthwhile degree.”

Think of it this way: If you’ve just purchased a TV in a store, the last thing the retailer wants is to advertise the same TV to you online. When a publisher’s ad exchange offers them the chance to advertise to you, brands want to be able to say no or advertise a complementary product. A data on-boarding company will take the retailer’s data, anonymise it, and use it to let publishers know that if you come to their website, they shouldn’t bid on TV ads. This approach should lead to a better experience for customers and more effective advertising for marketers.

Are the robots coming?

The need for increased automation means marketing departments will have to evolve, quickly, to adapt to new demands. For some companies, that means turning to artificial intelligence and machine learning, topics the media loves to hype up.

Artificial intelligence may present incredible possibilities, but there’s still a lot of uncertainty about what skills are needed and how viable such technology really is. A 2016 report published by Weber Shandwick and KRC Research revealed that 55 percent of CMOs worldwide expect AI to have a greater impact on marketing than social media. When that happens is still anyone’s guess.

Jason Warnes, digital marketing partner at Deloitte Digital, thinks AI will be great for efficiency. He sees it as a key resource for optimisation, perhaps by making marketing spend more effective. But he also cautioned that it will replicate human experience, for example, by refining the process a car salesperson goes through with a customer to serve up the right product.

“A big concern is marketers committing to the technology but not getting the return because the business isn’t ready.”

Beyond that, AI could help marketers corral its vast pools of data, some of which may be quantitative and unstructured. When people make comments about a brand on social media, technology could gather that data and make inferences about what the users want. “Search trends can be used as the basis for assumptions, for example, so that you’re not starting from a blank piece of paper if you don’t have structured data about a customer,” he added.

At Mindshare, a media agency, global head of programmatic Adam Ray sees machine learning as the third corner of a triangle with planning and creativity. It’s the missing element that will let marketers target the right customer with relevant content, at a time when programmatic is making media buys more complicated.

“Machine learning is the critical factor,” Ray said. “Typically a brand will look to have twenty or thirty different buying strategies at any one point in time, but what we’re moving to is having hundreds of thousands. This changes how we think about media, operate it, and learn from it.”

The shift to service

Perhaps the most significant trend in marketing automation this year isn’t about new technology. Rather it’s the growing recognition that technology isn’t enough on its own.

“A big concern is marketers committing to the technology but not getting the return because the business isn’t ready, or because they haven’t done the required due diligence, or because they don’t have the skills required,” said Zuzanna Gierlinska Oracle’s director of data management platform EMEA. “I think the idea of service will be big this year.”

The situation is further complicated by the sheer numbers of suppliers and products available. Per Netskope, a cloud security company, the average marketing team uses 91 cloud services. While some businesses are happy to mix and match technology from different vendors and add to their stacks, today’s marketers are daunted by the overwhelming choice and complexity of all available options.

Gierlinska believes the effectiveness of all this software is as much about finding someone to run the platform as it is about the platform itself. For now, media agencies, consultancies, and an emerging wave of solutions experts have the skills to manage the technology.

All of these developments ultimately suggest that martech is only going to get more complex. “For marketers, it’s data and it’s creativity; giving the customers the best experience and getting the best return,” Gierlinska said. “All the current innovation is around those two spaces.”

The post 3 European Martech Trends Affecting Brands in 2017 appeared first on Contently.

But it’s time for that to change.

According to the Content Marketing Institute, 87 percent of marketing professionals in the UK now use content marketing, and 53 percent planned to increase their spending in the next year. As these companies continue to experiment with social media, online video, custom magazines, and mobile, they’re finding innovative ways to strike that delicate balance between relaying a brand message and creating content that will resonate with customers.

Here are three UK brands that aren’t just keeping up—they’re getting out ahead.

JLL

Real Views may be classified as a blog, but to Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), the London-based commercial real estate company that produces it, the site has become so much more. “We see it as more of a brand journalism site,” said Madeleine Little, JLL’s director of global marketing.

Real Views is penned by professional journalists rather than company employees, and it boasts as much multimedia content as it does text. Because of this approach, JLL has been able to branch out from typical press releases and research reports to establish credibility.

The site launched in May of 2015, and unlike the company’s other blogs, which tend to focus solely on real estate, it addresses a broader range of topics like avant-garde design and the future of charging stations for electric cars. The content is organized into four sections: Trends, Places, Economy, and Industry. In a broader context, the work boosts awareness of JLL and shows of its creative side.

“One of our main motivators was to reach an audience beyond the traditional real estate sector,” Little said, “and to demonstrate how vital and important real estate is to the world at large—to firms from a business perspective, but also [to] individuals, whether in their workplace, home, or even in their leisure activities.”

To produce a steady stream of quality content, from blog posts to graphics and videos, JLL employs a global editor in London along with in-house writers, all of whom have worked as journalists. It also partners with content agencies and a network of freelancers, and even taps its marketing and PR teams for the occasional article.

“All content is subject to the same editorial process,” Little noted. “We have very clear guidelines about the kind of topics Real Views discusses and the tone of voice that it uses.”

Stories for the site are inspired by internal and external industry events, along with breaking news. “Keeping content fresh is vital and something we work hard at,” Little said. So is weighing JLL’s marketing agenda against audience demand. “Not surprisingly, stories about luxury hotels are more popular than stories about industrial warehouses. We have to try to maintain a balance.”

When it comes to big-picture marketing strategy, JLL strives to produce informative content across all platforms, from its corporate sites all the way to its pitches and proposals. Among the company’s other projects are The Investor, a five-year-old publication for real estate investors, and microsites for specific service sectors like retail and hotels.

Also on the company’s radar is how consumers interact with its publications. JLL tailors its content to meet the needs of busy, bombarded customers. Little and her team pay particular attention to mobile responsiveness, content length, and the visual appeal of all pieces produced. She favors graphics and video—like the below clip exploring the future of China’s hospitality industry—but demands high-quality multimedia to ensure that customers aren’t “turned off” by the result.

“It’s a strategy that is constantly evolving,” Little said. “And as it does, I think we are seeing more understanding and engagement within our marketing and communications teams globally, from the business, and also from our audiences. This is really encouraging and makes this a very exciting space to work in. There’s always more to do—we can’t ever stand still.”

Budweiser UK

In the UK, one could argue that branded content and football makes for the ultimate advertising pairing. Budweiser certainly would.

“We’re huge football fans—after all, what’s better than a cold Budweiser and watching a great match?” said Nick Robinson, marketing director for Anheuser-Busch InBev UK.

It’s little wonder that the brand is behind major marketing programs like “Rise as One.” The multi-platform campaign and six-part documentary series launched in 2014 to promote Budweiser’s status as the official beer of the FIFA World Cup. The effort helped the brand become the top beer advertiser in the UK during the World Cup, with 1.8 million unique digital engaged users, a 70 percent reach on Facebook, and a 249 percent increase in Budweiser’s Twitter following.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=mh1xt1BxFdU%3Fenablejsapi%3D1

A year later, Budweiser revived the winning combination of brand videos and football with “Dream Goal,” an interactive campaign that invited amateur footballers to share their best goals with the brand online. Budweiser sorted through the user-generated clips for the most impressive goal, which was then analyzed by sportscasters through a partnership with Sky Sports. The contest’s winner, Colin “Quirky” Quirk, was featured in a national Budweiser spot on television when the contest concluded in May.

“Branded content is another connection point with beer lovers in an integrated world, and it helps us bring our brands to life in a creative and engaging way that enhances the experience beyond traditional advertising media,” Robinson said. “The user-generated content—with some amazing videos and insights—sat alongside Budweiser-generated content, and we found that both had very strong engagement levels.” He also noted that the brand was thrilled to see how many football fans were willing to share their goals and comment on those submitted by others.

Budweiser received over 1,000 entries in all, but it was the passion demonstrated by participants that led Robinson to consider the campaign a win. “What was most telling for me was when we showed Quirky’s winning goal at the FA Cup Final,” he said. “When his goal went up on the screen, the room went silent with attention and then burst into cheers for him at the end. For us, that natural response is proof that the campaign insight resonates positively with consumers—and that’s a great success in my book.”

John Lewis

John Lewis, which started as a London department store in 1864, may be best known in the U.S. for its 2014 #MontyThePenguin ad, but the retailer has long been investing in brand content in the form of print magazines. Between John Lewis Home, John Lewis Cook, and quarterly fashion title Edition—which boasts a print circulation of close to 500,000 and an editorial director who was formerly with Marie Claire—the retailers’s influence stretches far and wide.

In 2012, Edition surpassed category leader Glamour to become the fashion magazine with the largest circulation in the UK, and a few years later, it took the top spot in the women’s lifestyle magazine market again. Its articles include everything from profiles of top fashion makeup artists to interviews with up-and-coming design executives.

John Brown Media, the content shop behind all three magazines, retains a stable of editors and art directors to oversee them. In addition to in-house talent, the company commissions expert photographers, stylists, and writers to produce the work. CEO Andrew Hirsch estimates that 30 percent of the editorial team is internal while 70 percent consists of leading freelance journalists.

Catering to both print and digital audiences, John Lewis puts a lot of effort into determining how to allocate content marketing budgets. “You really need to understand how customers are absorbing content,” Hirsch said. “Over-fifties in the UK are much more into tablets than mobile, so if we’ve got a client targeting women [who are] twenty-five to thirty-five, we’ll put a lot more budget toward tablet or print.”

This approach, along with the publisher’s laser focus on producing quality content, appears to be working. Just a year after debuting, John Lewis Cook Edition had a 100 percent pick-up rate in-store, and sales of products featured in the magazine had risen by up to 118 percent. John Lewis Home, meanwhile, generated a 21 percent increase in interior and homeware product sales against estimates, proving that print isn’t just alive and kicking, but capable of delivering major returns as well.

This is an excerpt from “State of Content Marketing: United Kingdom.” Click here to access the full version of the e-book for free.

The post How 3 UK Brands Reached Their Audiences With Great Content appeared first on Contently.

Since the summer, advertisers have had a tough time securing clients outside of the UK. According to a survey by the Advertising Association, 22 percent of agencies have already lost contracts, and 62 percent believe the vote has “negatively impacted” their business expectations.

Their budgets, however, tell a different story. As the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) reported, there was a net balance increase of 13 percent in the number of companies raising their ad budgets in Q4 2016. (Net balance is the percentage of companies decreasing their budgets subtracted from the percentage of companies increasing their budgets.) And a net balance of 27.6 percent of companies upped their budgets in 2017.

The IPA does predict a drop in the middle of the year as Britain begins to negotiate its exit, and other expenses like housing prices continue to rise. But ad spend is still expected to increase by 0.7 percent in 2018, indicating overall growth despite the political strife. Marketers have continued to pump money into digital, mobile, SEO, search, and event advertising.

Perhaps this positive outlook is why Britain’s culture secretary, Karen Bradley, said advertisers will be “key to the UK’s post-Brexit success.” Without being burdened by the EU’s fees and regulations, companies could see more room for development and innovation. Due to the weak pound, they might also see a boom in purchases from foreign buyers.

As the Brexit details get worked out, nobody knows how the UK’s relationship with the rest of Europe will evolve. But when the political dust settles, the ad industry could have a big impact on tourism and the overall economy, shaping the way the world perceives the nation.

The post How Brexit Will Affect UK Marketing Budgets in 2017 appeared first on Contently.

Thus far, that risk has paid off. It’s possible to argue that native advertising became popular, in part, because The New York Times showed that branded content could be just as good as, if not better than, traditional journalism. Cue the inevitable link to Melanie Deziel’s paid post for Netflix and Orange Is the New Black about the female prison system.

To stay one step ahead of other publishers, The New York Times launched T Brand Studio International late last year to scale its native ad efforts beyond the U.S. The expansion brought on more risk. What if the rest of the world wasn’t ready or didn’t care for native content?

To get a pulse on the global venture, I chatted over email with Nelly Gocheva, the editor of T Brand Studio International. Gocheva spoke about getting brands to be brave, the power of storytelling, and how European audiences feel about native advertising.

How do European audiences compare to American audiences when it comes to advertising?

Compared with the U.S., European audiences and advertisers are still relatively new to the concept of native/branded content. The market is smaller, too, purely geographically, which is reflected in many of the companies’ budgets.

In the U.S. every major media company has already launched a content studio. I think the trend in Europe is still to take off, which would respectively affect the audiences. As everywhere, consumers here are tired and annoyed with direct ads popping up in their faces. What great branded content can do is to provide insight and entertainment. It can help advertisers provide value to their audience, improve engagement, and increase brand loyalty.

Do you approach your native content differently than the American studio? If so, how?

Besides the novelty factor mentioned above, it’s more about the logistics. The New York team usually works on U.S.-based projects, while we create content for brands all over the world and have to adapt to a variety of cultures and ad-market needs and expectations.

But the quality of our work, the creative process, and the approach in general are pretty much the same. We all aim to deliver cool content to our readers that reflects the storytelling caliber of our newsroom. There are a lot of high expectations out there in terms of the quality of our work. We all follow the New York Times guidelines about native content and being transparent with our advertising. We clearly mark and label everything that’s paid for and keep church and state unmistakably separate.

How big is your team? What does your creative process look like?

We launched the international arm of T Brand Studio in September 2015 with four people in London and two in Paris. Currently, we have 11 people, with five more to join us soon. And we’re about to set up a mini Asian studio as a part of our global team to help with clients and projects in the Asia Pacific region.

“Consumers here are tired and annoyed with direct ads popping up in their faces.”

The team is made up of editors, designers, producers, and creative strategists. The creative process always starts with good in-depth brainstorm sessions and, in the end, our crew of audience development wizards makes sure the content reaches the right readership. Simply put, our three-step mantra is: find a compelling story, tell this story with expertise, and deliver the story to the target audience.

What were some of the challenges you encountered when bringing T Brand Studio to the rest of the world?

The challenge in catering to still relatively native-ad-shy international markets was to get international brands to be braver and invest in native content. As I mentioned, the European market is comparatively new to this area, and a lot of advertisers needed to get a better idea of their ROI and why branded content and native advertising are worth the spend, especially when compared with traditional display campaigns. Industry-wide, there are still a lot of potential clients out there that are yet to be convinced that branded content is the best use of their budgets. But we’re here to create branded storytelling that’s worth paying for, with benefits like stronger consumer engagement, and better credibility with consumers. Those are key factors in embracing the format.

How do you think T Brand Studio as a whole has evolved strategically since it launched in 2014?

I’d say the process is much more streamlined now. There are more clients and bigger clients. We currently have a staff of around 100 and have done over 200 campaigns globally. This has given us the reassurance not only that obviously we’re doing something right, but also we’ve gained firsthand direction and insights as to what works best and what not so well in terms of markets, industries, and audience engagement. Based on that knowledge, we keep on developing new products and exploring what branded content can do next.

Do you think native content is in danger of reaching a saturation point?

Definitely not anytime soon. There are markets that are more mature when it comes to native advertising and branded content. I recently read that native ad spend in Western Europe is expected to grow by 156 percent to €13 billion by 2020. So the budgets will be higher, there will be more opportunities, and there will certainly be more competition.

“The role of good content studios is not only to ensure high audience engagement and impact, but also to reach the right consumers.”

Great content is expensive and time-consuming, and the role of good content studios is not only to ensure high audience engagement and impact, but also to reach the right consumers. At T Brand, we’re already looking into VR, immersive events, augmented-reality experiences, and so on.

Can you describe an international T Brand Studio project that stands out to you as particularly memorable and/or effective?

Earlier this year, we worked on a big multimedia project for UBS, centered on the emotional side of artificial intelligence. We ended up interviewing top minds in the field who are making progress replicating human traits in AI, and traveled to Osaka to film a leading humanoid researcher. We also managed to incorporate a chatbot named Rose within the page. Topic-wise for me as an editor, this was a fascinating project, and we won a few industry awards for it. So it was the perfect combination of a happy client, overperforming digital content, and an extremely cool project to work on.

What other major publishers do you think do a good job creating native ads? And why do you think so?

I think Quartz and The Atlantic have done a few great projects. I particularly liked what The Atlantic did for Netflix’s “House of Cards” Season 3. The project was called The Ascent, and it was all about the U.S.’s first couples—a very informative, engaging, immersive execution.

On local UK turf, The Telegraph has been doing interesting stuff. I was on the judging panel of the annual UK News Awards this year and loved the campaign The Telegraph submitted for Nikon. It was a combination of digital and print, simply beautiful.

What’s a common misconception that brands have when pursuing native ad sponsorships?

It really depends on the clients. We have brands who come to us and trust our expertise and creative capabilities completely, and there are others who have a very clear and determined vision of what they want.

It’s the amount of direct branding that often challenges us. Companies need to be reminded that successful branded content relies on rich narratives and relatable stories, not direct, in-your-face product placement, which is what display ads are for.

It’s all about great storytelling. Get the story right and the rest will naturally follow. At the end of the day, it’s a collaborative process, and brands come to us because of our expertise. We guide and advise them based on our experience, skills, and benchmarks.

This interview was lightly edited and condensed.

The post How The New York Times Took Native Advertising Global appeared first on Contently.

Teams across the globe need an easy way to see which content is available and which initiatives are under development in different markets. A central repository for content enables marketers to direct their resources more efficiently, whether that’s sharing the editorial expertise of a central team staffed with journalists, ensuring that articles meet certain requirements, or elevating local ideas that merit a wider audience.

The structures and rhythms for sharing information vary according to the size and nature of an international team. Weekly emails, regular conference calls, and content management systems all have a potential role to play.

Genpact, a global business operations company, uses Contently’s content marketing management system to run all of its publishing efforts through a centralised workflow, which helps maintain consistent messaging regardless of the market.

“Even though we’re a large company, the different operations, different regions, and different lines of business all use the same guidelines,” Amrita Thapar, Genpact’s content leader for marketing, said. “Otherwise, you won’t recognise a piece of collateral from Genpact Australia as being from the same company as Genpact North America. We are so diverse, one of the things we constantly need to do is actually make sure that everybody conveys the same message.”

The changing flow of content management

In the early stages of a content programme, the information often flows outward. Central teams spread the word about upcoming content and encourage local teams to adapt and amplify it. As the programmes develop, the emphasis shifts to providing publishing guidance, or using centralised editorial teams to create content that meets market requirements. In mature content programmes, the flow of content ideas is often two-way, with content developed in local markets being elevated onto global hubs and shared more widely.

When Coca-Cola Journey first started expanding to local sites, local markets repurposed content created by editor-in-chief Jay Moye’s in-house team and Contently freelancers for the U.S. site. But as Journey’s international sites have developed, more and more content is created locally.

Leveraging in-market expertise

As Anne-Marie McConnon, BNY Mellon’s head of marketing, explains, the most important element in delivering locally relevant content is market-based teams with an ear to the ground:

“We have a matrix structure, a central content team of editors and journalists who know how to capture an audience’s imagination and who work very closely with our regional content hubs. We have marketers on the ground who are able to adapt content to meet local clients’ needs and work with local compliance teams to ensure that we’re always adapting to regional legal requirements as well. A lot of the content ideas that we develop come from the local markets themselves.”

Taking the lead centrally

When local teams are not yet in place, a central content team might need to take the lead.

“We have a global content team based in London and commission content from there,” said Madeleine Little, JLL’s director of global communications and content. “We liaise with our regions and aim to encourage ideas from teams within different countries, but when you’re building a global content programme from scratch, that doesn’t necessarily happen overnight.”

Often, a central team is able to invest in content and formats that are difficult to create on a local level—a video documentary series about startups, for example.

“Sometimes, the risk and investment related to experimenting with a new type or format of content needs to be borne centrally,” Nikhil Kalanjee, digital marketing and social media lead at HP, told Contently.. “We have an open dialogue with the countries, always asking for feedback on whether new types of content will fit their market, and there is always the option to say no.”

As you determine how to structure your global newsroom, consider these seven checkpoints:

• Decide where the drive for creating content naturally comes from. Do local markets have the appetite and resources, or does a global content team need to provide momentum?

• Match editorial resources to your localisation strategy. Do your markets need editorial expertise on the ground, or could it be embedded in a central team?

• Clarify where decision-making happens. Either empower local marketing teams to sign off on content within an agreed editorial framework, or build a framework to incorporate their feedback into a central approval process.

• Make sure compliance teams are in the loop, and build in time to adapt global content to local legal requirements.

• Establish clear lines of communication with your markets, whether that’s through technology (a central content management system), weekly emails, or regular conference calls.

• Share a central content calendar with local teams to ensure the assets you’re investing in are suitable for different audiences.

• Make sure you have visibility of local content initiatives that could be elevated to a global level and shared more widely.

This is an excerpt from “The Global Marketer’s Guide to Localisation and Translation.”

The post How to Manage a Global Newsroom appeared first on Contently.

In the past, the company took an average of six weeks to ideate, produce, and release a piece of content. It was a torturously slow process, especially in a digital arena that values speed. Today, it has cut its creative process down to a mere 72 hours. It was, no pun intended, an amazing turnaround.

So how did the massive financial institution do it?

In a highly regulated industry like finance, the creative process—including approval—can often lead to suffocating bottlenecks that ruin the effectiveness of content marketing. Barclays decided that the only way to fix the issues plaguing its content operation was to completely rehaul the way its digital team functioned. So the company changed from having a marketing team to having a newsroom.

Barclays UK now has an editorial board that meets every Tuesday morning. No longer do people work on a lengthy campaign basis, signing off multiple times before content goes live. Now, it’s a day-to-day operation.

Meetings that actually work

Each Barclays editorial meeting has a clear objective: The 12-person team debates three to five story ideas before agreeing to produce at least one piece of content by the weekend.

“We have to be very clear on the roles of different people in each particular session,” Mark Brayton, Barclays UK’s content marketing director, said. “Some people will have the opportunity to share their opinion, some will have voting rights, and some will be there to make the ultimate call. Defining roles upfront is key.”

Employees also take turns filling the editor-in-chief role. This person ensures that the team reaches a decision during the meeting and has ultimate sign-off power. Once everyone selects an idea to pursue, the output team is entrusted to produce the content without the hassle of multiple meetings and approvers.

Additionally, the compliance team is now involved from the very start, which is a key adjustment compared to the old process. “We explained that we wanted to bring the compliance team on the journey, and that our output needed to be as fully compliant and meticulous as it has ever been,” Brayton said. “Having those guys there at the genesis of the content idea, rather than just before sign-off, has revolutionized the time spent.”

A data-driven team

The newsroom began its revamped content operations by focusing purely on Barclays’s retail customer base, a demographic the organization knew very well. The change in focus worked so well that even Brayton was a little surprised.

“I probably underestimated the power of using data as our creative muse,” he said. “The sheer impact it has had on—not only engagement—but also on the way the organization thinks, has been both impressive and really positive.”

One of the first examples of the customer data in action was for the Mortgage Market Review (MMR), new mortgage rules implemented in the UK in 2014 that fundamentally changed the way people assess real estate affordability.

“There was quite a lot of sensationalism, particularly in the tabloid press, around what MMR meant in the marketplace,” Brayton said. “There were stories suggesting that lenders would start asking people about their diet, for example, as part of their lending criteria. It quickly became apparent from our search data, social listening data, and calls to our centers that customers were asking questions about it.”

The editorial board saw an opportunity to take the lead and dispel any myths.

“We bought this data into the Tuesday morning meeting, debated the key findings, and talked about what information was available already,” Brayton said. “In the same session we commissioned a video to be shot the next day and distributed it across our owned, earned, and colleague channels.”

The entire process took 72 hours.

Keeping a finger on the pulse

In July 2015, Barclays saw another clear opportunity to make its mark. The interim UK budget was the biggest financial news story of the week, as people expected the government to introduce policies that tied to the promises made by the Conservatives during the general election.

“It could [have been] a very radical budget that had far-reaching consequences for many Barclays customers,” Liz Stephenson, marketing communications manager at Barclays UK, explained.

Within 24 hours of the budget speech, Barclays had published two articles, one for its core customer base and one for its more affluent “premier” customers.

“The articles specifically addressed customer interests and concerns by listening on social media to public reaction to the budget, and angling the articles accordingly,” Stephenson said.

Making history

Arguably the biggest opportunity for Barclays to test the effectiveness of its newsroom approach was in the aftermath of this June’s historic EU referendum, a vote that had a profound effect on the finances of Barclays UK customers. The company felt it had a duty to help its customers understand the implications—and people wanted information fast.

In just one week, the newsroom created 18 pieces of content in the wake of the Brexit vote. Detailed explainers like “Could the government’s new Help to Buy: ISA help you save?” offered insight and advice on new initiatives, while multiple videos were created for different customer segments, each designed to provide reassurance and an initial response to the most pressing concerns.

“The aims of the content were to increase brand trust and customer engagement,” Stephenson said. According to Barclays, the average time spent with Brexit content was 4 minutes and 16 seconds.

Evergreen content is important to just about every digital publication, but with a more agile creative process, Barclays UK has the flexibility in place to make sure all of its content is relevant to its audience before news gets stale.

“It is about constantly optimizing the approach,” Brayton said. “We will continue to look at how we adapt and change our content strategy, content plans, and content pillars to ensure we bring it to life.”

The post How Barclays Cut Its Publishing Process From 6 Weeks to 3 Days appeared first on Contently.

Those words come from Mark Walker, the head of content marketing at Eventbrite UK. In the past, you’d create a campaign for a set amount of time and try to hit some isolated goals for that campaign. Now, the cadence for publishing is much more fluid. There’s always someone posting, tweeting, snapping.

On May 25, at Contently’s London salon, Walker spoke about how the relationship between marketers and consumers has evolved. Consumers are always on mobile devices and social networks, so why shouldn’t brands be, too? Walker stressed that the campaign approach isn’t obsolete; it’s just different. Today’s consumers expect a mix of content: both constant content from social streams and bedrock marketing collateral like e-books that focus on major issues.

But being ready 24/7 can be both exhausting and expensive if marketers don’t have the right system in place. As Nikhil Kalanjee, Hewlett Packard’s digital marketing and social media lead said: “People realize it’s good to talk in between the spikes, but the resource and coordination are missing.”

If those are the problems, here are some potential solutions.

Be patient

Being “on” all the time is hard work regardless of what industry you’re in or what topics you cover. It’s essentially a content marketing marathon, and you’ll need to spend money to run it.

Odds are, you’re not going to start sprinting right away. The best advice is to start slowly and show quick results. During the event, Walker talked about the value of using free software to get started. He also explained how keeping his tech separate from the rest of the organization proved to be a blessing, allowing his team to be far more flexible and independent.

Don’t create everything yourself

Unless you have an unlimited budget, you probably can’t hire a whole team of full-time writers and editors to be at the ready. But if your goal is to develop an always-on strategy, you can still produce enough content by relying on freelancers and existing resources.

“The number of pieces you’re producing doesn’t matter,” Kalanjee said. “It’s what’s coming back from the audience that counts.”

“I’m not a big fan of in-house production either in the company or in agencies,” Kalanjee said. “It’s hard to find people in the company who can tell good stories, and agencies can get stale.” To fill out the publishing cadence, Kalanjee also stressed the value of curation: “Our content is about forty percent curated, sixty percent created, and I want to move to more curated content in the future,” he said.

Don’t get seduced by quantity

Adopting an always-on content strategy doesn’t mean you have to publish incessantly.

“The number of pieces you’re producing doesn’t matter,” Kalanjee said. “It’s what’s coming back from the audience that counts.”

If news breaks in your industry, you need to be nimble enough to cover it before it’s stale. If your consumers tweet you about a customer service issue, you should have the ability to get back to them quickly.

Still, there are ways to use resources more efficiently to maximize your output, like investing in divisible content. This month, Chris Marais, who runs digital marketing for Nationwide, plans to halve his content production to spend more creating “hero pieces.”

Why? Because creating more content only fuels better results to a point. Even if you scale content production, there’s no guarantee your audience will grow at the same scale.

“We’ve hit a point of diminishing returns from publishing more,” Walker said.“But I don’t believe we’re compromising on quality, and we’d be found out if we were.”

The post ‘Marketing Is Like Friendship’: 3 Keys to Always-On Content appeared first on Contently.

This spring, the UK government spent £9.3m ($13.5 million) on leaflets to promote the value of staying in the EU. Of that, almost £3m of the total budget was spent on the accompanying website and “digital promotion.” The leaflets were sent to every household in England in April, and to Scotland and Wales this month. The slick content outlined the government position, but some people are worried that it will unfairly influence the electorate’s view.

Could this controversial content marketing campaign decide the UK’s European future?

Critics note that the leaflets were printed and distributed ahead of the official ‘purdah’ period, which sets strict guidelines on what campaigners can spend and how they must label their material.

Between April 15 and ending at the close of polling in June, each party can spend a maximum of £7m and is entitled to £650,000 in public funding for TV broadcasts, mailshots, and other publicity. In this case, however, the campaign cost significantly more than the country’s official parties, Britain Stronger in Europe and Vote Leave, are allowed to spend.

The 16-page brochure and its accompanying EU Referendum digital hub sparked such furor that 220,000 people signed an online petition for Prime Minister David Cameron to stop using taxpayer money on pro-EU content. The petition led to a debate in Parliament on May 9.

Member of Parliament (MP) Paul Scully, a Tory Eurosceptic, introduced the debate, suggesting that “the Treasury is publishing documents and the Government continue to have propaganda at the top of every gov.uk web page.”

Conservative MP John Redwood summed up the whole argument in just two sentences: “No previous Labour or Conservative government have ever thought they should spend taxpayers’ money on promoting government policies ahead of a general election in the hope of getting a better result. Is that not exactly what the leaflet is doing, and is it not, therefore, a scandal?”

A third Conservative MP, Andrew Percy, insisted that if voters decide to remain in the EU by a narrow margin, many “will feel that the result has been fiddled precisely because of this wasted document.”

The leaflets might seem like an outdated mode of reaching the electorate, but Philip Cowley, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, claimed that printed leaflets distributed through mail still trump digital campaigning and social conversations when it comes to political campaigning because of their ability to reach the older generations who are more likely to go out and vote.

“Political parties would not spend millions of pounds each election putting this stuff out if it didn’t work,” he said.

Crowley told BBC Radio 4’s The World at One that such leaflets are the second-most effective way to convert voters, only trailing face-to-face contact. Leaflets are also a “cheap” and “relatively easy” alternative. “It’s still the main mechanism by which voters hear from political organizations. It dwarfs every other form of contact,” he added.

Little, then, has changed from 1975, when Britain last held a referendum on its relationship with Europe. Back then, government leaflets backing Britain’s membership of the bloc were also seen as decisive.

“That government leaflet had a huge impact on people who are normally non-voters,” Shirley Williams, a cabinet minister in the Labour government at the time, told the Huffington Post UK last year.

But digital campaigning has still emerged as an important platform in the debate. Both sides are leveraging a large social media presence, as well as key figures such as former Mayor of London Boris Johnson and Chancellor George Osborne.

As of today, Vote Leave is closing in on 390,000 Facebook fans and 45,000 Twitter followers. Britain Stronger in Europe, by comparison, has about 410,000 Facebook fans and 29,000 Twitter followers. The cult of celebrity is certainly playing its part on Facebook.

The Leave campaign might have fewer Facebook fans than its rival, but it has driven more than 1 million page interactions in the last month, more than double Britain Stronger in Europe. Two popular video posts from Johnson, “Boris is right” and “Boris reacts to Govt EU leaflet,” fueled a lot of the engagement.

With polls showing the two sides neck and neck, it’s far from certain how Britain will vote. What is certain, however, is that the row over content marketing will rumble on.

The post Inside the UK Government’s Controversial Content Campaign to Stay in the EU appeared first on Contently.