But what is the real place of “content” in a marketer strategy? And are they prepared to to the next step – to create content that’s so good people would pay for it?
If brands really want their content to be consumed, should they aim for standards so high that their work demands payment? It’s an interesting notion – one OMD chief innovation officer Ben Winkler shared a Beet.TV discussion panel.
“In the end, there’s only really two kinds of content – you either pay for it or you don’t,” he said. “When clients talk to us about creating content, I say, ‘Are you willing to put the time, investment and resource in to creating content that people would pay for?’
“I say, ‘Think about the kinds of content that you pay for – HBO, Netflix, sometimes even New York Times’. Then they tend to back off a little bit – they go, ‘Okay, maybe we’re not ready for that’.”
Fellow panelists Jordan Bitterman and John Montgomery said they think data can fuel creative renaissance for advertisers.
“(Data) can be reinvested back in to some sort of creative product,” saidMindshare NA chief strategy officer Bitterman. “We have a lot of white space left in which we can create great content due to data. We’ve just hit the tip of the iceberg on this.”
GroupM Connect NA chairman Montgomery added: “We can use data to tell stories. We know who’s seen episode one of the ad – we can serve episode two or three. We can tell much longer stories.”
They were questioned by Tobi Elkin.
This video is from Media Future Conversations 2015: Unblocked – Valuing Human Attention In A Content-Driven World, an event presented by true[X] in association with Beet.TV Please find more event videos here.
]]>At Cannes Lions, the bank announced the launch of The Business Of Life, a video series made by Vice using data provided by Pinterest, which will also promote the content, as AdWeek reports.
“Young people are growing up and need financial advice,” Smith tells Beet.TV in this video interview. “Banks don’t have the best reputation. They said, ‘What would you do?’ I said, ‘It’s very simple’ – just give them factual (information); ’here’s what a mortgage is’, ‘here’s how you lease a car’, ‘here’s renting versus buying’.”
Those are the topics The Business Of Life video discussions touch on over the series.
“Pinterest is one of the biggest platforms in the world … especially that’s interactive,” Smith adds. “We didn’t really have a partnership with Pinterest, so we wanted to see how that would work, and it’s worked fantastically. Analytics doesn’t mean anything unless you can convert that in to something. Pinterest’s data actually works.”
We interviewed Smith as part of a series on video advertising at Cannes Lions, presented by true[X]. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.
]]>Announced at Cannes Lions, BBC StoryWorks is the name of the content marketing that will have offices in Singapore, Sydney, New York and London and will be headed by Richard Pattinson, a former BBC News journalist who, at home in the UK, has edited the corporation’s This Week programme, reported for Newsnight and has been a commissioning editor for global news.
Speaking with Beet.TV, BBC Worldwide’s EVP of international advertising, Carolyn Gibson, says StoryWorks will offer:
“It delivers newsroom values and the combination of creative studio to support our advertisers’ ambitions globally,” Gibson says.
“It’s using the skills and the heritage the BBC is so well known for – producing fantastic content, one of the world’s most trusted media organisations – but leveraging that skillet for our advertisers to tell their stories and engage with consumers.”
At home, the BBC is funded by license fee and is largely forbidden from running advertising on its owned and operated properties by royal charter, which is due for renewal amid speculation of reform. But the corporation is permitted – and, indeed,, encouraged – to make money from operations overseas and from select activities at home through its BBC Worldwide arm, of which BBC Advertising is part.
So far, BBC StoryWorks has worked on campaigns for tourism body Brand USA, in which it created a series of two-minute films that used Hollywood directors to talk about the American landscape and psyche.
We spoke with Gibson for a series from Cannes, presented by Teads. To find more videos from the series, please visit this page.
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One of many initiatives in which publishers are working to do so for brands, this partnership is different from most, in that Huffington Post staff are embedded with the ad agency for at least part of their working week.
In this video interview with Beet.TV, Leo Burnett chief platforms and partnerships officer Mark Renshaw explains how it works.
“Collaboration is critical to figuring out what to do with content,” he says. “We need differences of thinking to bring diversity
“We have their people working in our office. We share our business plans with them, they share their business plans with us. We’re jointly working on things at a very strategic level.
“Huffington Post has been a fantastic social publisher, we’re learning from that and they are learning how to be a brand storyteller. The partnership allows us to create content in new ways.”
Renshaw says content the pair create starts out life published on Huffington Post but could live on in any medium.
Renshaw was interviewed by Beet.TV at the 4As’ (American Association of Advertising Agencies) Transformation 2015 event in Austin, Texas. Our coverage is sponsored by Videology. Please find more coverage from the conference here.
]]>“It’s very different because it’s not a formula,” Kilgore tells Beet.TV in this video interview. “Some of these things are six-month programmes where you send people out and do videos across the country, maybe around the world.
“That involves a different kind of pricing from something that can be done with a couple of meetings. It ranges dramatically and is driven by the production side of it.”
His USA Today publication offers brands Branded content. “The only single rule is you can’t put it in a traditional ad unit slot, or it just looks like an ad unit,” Kilgore says.” It loses all of its potential and power. We are still experimenting with … different ways to make it feel organic… more in the editorial well with some markings to say ‘this is a little bit different’.”
He was interviewed by Beet.TV at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting.
Beet.TV coverage of the IAB meeting was sponsored by SpotXchange. Please find Beet.TV’s coverage of the event here.
]]>“Partner with the right companies and figure out how they’re going to push it out. From a brand equity standpoint, what is the power your brand brings to the table? How did [the campaign] drive business, leads, and results?” he says, laying out some of the key metrics for brands.
When creating a measurement plan, be sure to start with the consumer insights. That’s the foundation of any marketing campaign. Then look at how a brand can encourage consumers to engage both in branded content and in paid media, he says. He also adds that marketers should plan content with different times of day and screens in mind, and create the content that consumers want most at that moment in the day.
Weeks was interviewed by Cristel Turner, Director of Brand Advertising, Strategy and Business Marketing at U.S. Cellular, at the Beet.TV leadership summit presented by the Jun Group. You can find more videos from the summit here.
]]>“We need to make sure we aren’t talking to ourselves. Don’t presume anyone cares. Because people are choosing to engage, think about what they might want that will enhance their experience,” Hoffman says. He begins branded content projects based on asking what is a brand doing that is worthwhile enough to document and share. “Think about what the people you want to engage with are doing and how you might gracefully coincide with that.”
Hoffman was interviewed by Cristel Turner, Director of Brand Advertising, Strategy and Business Marketing at U.S. Cellular, at the Beet.TV leadership summit presented by the Jun Group. You can find more videos from the summit here.
]]>“What doesn’t lend itself as easily to a 30-second spot or a print ad?” she asks. “What is it that you are you trying to tell and not turn it into a 30-second TV ad?”
The next step is to pick the right partners, be they in distribution or content. Look for distributors that offer value or added pieces of the puzzle, such as a CRM list or retail locations that align with the brand. In U.S. Cellular’s case that meant a partnership with ABC on the show Shark Tank because of the shared vision of promoting entrepreneurship, she says.
“[Look at what] you can create in terms of content that viewers are going to be interested in,” she says.
Turner was interviewed by Tom Weeks, SVP and Group Brand Director at SMG’s LiquidThread, at the Beet.TV leadership summit presented by the Jun Group. You can find more videos from the summit here.
]]>The agency has a division, Newcast, dedicated to creating TV and online video content opportunities for its clients.
“It’s become much richer than ‘just place your TV ad in pre-roll’,” Newcast global MD Mark Waugh tells Beet.TV in this video interview.
Newcast recently used the playbook for a campaign to illustrate the switch-on of UK mobile telco O2’s 4G network.
“We accessed Caspar Lee, who’s just gone through three million subs, in a video where we talk about 4G in the UK,” Waugh says. “We handed him creative control to talk about ‘How does 4G help him reach his audience better?’ That short video has now reached 1.4 million views – and it keeps on going, so the ROI is increasing all the time. That’s what brands are waking up to.”
This video is part of a series titled The State Of Video, a series sponsored by AOL Platforms. Please visit this page for all the videos from the series. This session was recorded in London.
]]>But in the midst of this expansion, there are questions and challenges: how and where does that content get published, discovered, and consumed? What is the creative process? How do brands make sure their content reaches the right audience? And how do we calculate ROI on the heavy investment in custom content?
These and related topics will be explored in a three-hour, high-level summit produced by Beet.TV The event will involve senior level agency, brand and publishing executives. The event is not being streamed live, but will be produced for publication shortly after.
The event is being sponsored by Jun Group.
Earlier this summer, we spoke with Jun Group CEO MItchell Reichtgut about the challenges and opportunities of serving branded video advertising into mobile apps. Jun Group, a content network for brands and publishers, serves a majority of its ads into mobile apps. In the interview, he explains the significance of Yahoo’s acquisition of Flurry and the complexities in mobile advertising.
Moderators:
*Gian Fulgoni, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman, comScore
*Cristel Turner, Director, Brand Advertising, Strategy & Business Marketing at U.S. Cellular
*Andy Plesser, Executive Producer and Founder, Beet.TV
Panelists:
*Spencer Bahler – Managing Director, Chicago, Maxus
*Jim Cridlin – Managing Director, Digital Innovation and Strategy, Mindshare
*Harvin Furman, SVP, Director & COE Digital Acceleration, Starcom
*Vincent Geraghty Executive Director of Production, Leo Burnett
*Chris Hiland, Chief Strategy Officer, BPN (IPG Mediabrands)
*Jonathan Hoffman – President, ZeroDot, SMG
*Len Kendall, Director of Social Marketing. Havas Worldwide
*D.J. Reali – SVP, Ad Sales and Agency Partnerships, The Weather Company
*Mitchell Reichgut, CEO, Jun Group
*Tom Weeks, SVP Group Brand Content Director, LiquidThread (SMG)
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Asked why users would consume content made by brands in vehicles designed to convey the news of the day, News Corp SVP and video head Rahul Chopra said: “To be frank, most people don’t. A lot of the content being created for brands is not very good.”
But Chopra tells Beet.TV in this video there is a way toward success: “What we’re starting to see is brands understanding they need to invest heavily in creating high-quality content around topics that are interesting.”
He held up Netflix’s sponsored content for its Orange Is The New Black series on The New York Times as an example of quality branded content.
Chopra was interviewd by Beet.TV executive producer Andy Plesser at the Beet.TV video advertising summit on “outstream” advertising presented by Ebuzzing & Teads. Please find more videos from that event here.
]]>“We saw a social radar,” News Corp. video SVP Rahul Chopra tells Beet.TV in this video, ” – tell us what you’re looking to find and Storyful will scour the entire social web to find out the most valuable content.
“As you look at the process for which we (use Storyful to) find content, there is a product stack sitting there that we’re process of potentially looking to bring to market that would put that intelligence in the hands of brands, agencies and creative types, to discover content in the same way we do.”
Chopra said Storyful is “100% being run as a standalone entity” within News Corp.
Chopra was interviewd by Beet.TV executive producer Andy Plesser at the Beet.TV video advertising summit on “outstream” advertising presented by Ebuzzing & Teads. Please find more videos from that event here.
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“Creative by committee is death, creative by small SWAT team works really well,” says Mindshare Entertainment’s chief content office and president David Lang, which created this Whoopi Goldberg commercial for Poise.
JWT executive creative director Eric Weisberg agrees: “The most interesting stuff takes co-conspirators – when media and PR and creative and content creatives are working together.”
Ogilvy Entertainment’s strategy and operations director Abby Marks adds: “It is about being bold but about bringing people with you without compromising the big idea.”
They were panelists at the recent Beet.TV summit on branded content, interviewed by Collective Digital Studio SVP Paul Kontonis. You can find additional videos from the event here.
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“Storytelling is something everybody talks about in this space,” says JWT executive creative director Eric Weisberg. “I’m most empowered by story-doing and story-building
The best brand campaigns are when a client “had a goal but they shared control of that with consumers – they started the content but they didn’t finish it”, he says.
Weisberg’s example is Once Upon A Care, a campaign JWT crafted for J&J that asks children and parents to open up on the notion that the world is less caring nowadays that has been turned in to videos and ebooks.
“That, to me, is the power of story-doing – a brand action, making those books is a much more powerful statement than just doing a piece of storytelling about how the world has become less caring.
He was a panelist at the recent Beet.TV summit on branded content, interviewed by Collective Digital Studio SVP Paul Kontonis. You can find additional videos from the event here.
]]>“Clients want to tell brand stories – they’re more open to us helping them figure out what are the best ways to do that – branded video might be one way to do that,” says the chief strategy officer of IPG’s Initiative, Sarah Power.
“The best examples are when a client completely knows who their consumer is, why something is relevant to them and have a very clear sense of who their brand is.”
She was a panelist at the recent Beet.TV summit on branded content, interviewed by Furious Minds CEO Ashley J. Swartz. You can find additional videos from the event here.
]]>“People are consuming content and thinking ‘Is this something I’d like to share to reflect my knowledge of what’s going on in society, my sense of humor?’,” says Ogilvy Entertainment’s strategy and operations director Abby Marks.
“People are posting on their Facebook walls every day – they’re looking for great content that builds their equity. Brands’ opportunity is enormous – but they have to put aside this idea of pushing a message that isn’t authentic to the conversation. ”
This was one finding in an Ogilvy Entertainment research piece, “Making magic using logic“.
She was a panelist at the recent Beet.TV summit on branded content, interviewed by Collective Digital Studio SVP Paul Kontonis. You can find additional videos from the event here.
]]>“It used to be that paid media was planned years in advance and marketing had been a very fixed thing,” he says. “One of the things we are seeing in this more real-time world where you are putting content out there, is that there is more of an ability to use paid media as fuel to get the fire started or when you see sparks use it to ignite the fire,” he says. That means paid media works well on the front end, but marketers should also have a slush fund to fuel those social media fires when they catch.
These allocations are increasingly important as branded content rises in value. Stein points to work that clients like Unilever, Mercedes and Nike have rolled out recently in the branded content sphere. Unilever, for instance, paired with Google on a video-centric hair care campaign that grew out of Google’s insight on the number of searches related to hair care, Stein explains. “That’s real time,” he adds.
“The value in branded content comes from two places – the interruption from advertising is becoming less effective, and with so many mobile devices and people shifting their behavior, advertisers have an opportunity to deliver content that is of value and consumers are going to watch it or share it,” he says.
For more insight into branded content and the approach of Razorfish clients, check out this video interview. We interviewed Stein at the Beet.TV leadership summit on branded video. You can find additional videos from the event here.
]]>The talent that Maker Studios works with is closely involved in programming, production and branded content, Krebs says. “Brands needs to understand that creators have an audience for a reason and speak in their voice and if they don’t speak in their voice the creators won’t do it,” he says. Specifically, if a creator produces a video that feels inauthentic, chances are they’ll lose audience and therefore money. That sort of “self-preservation” helps ensure the branded content process is collaborative and worthwhile to both parties, he says.
Maker Studios is owned by Disney, which acquired the digital content network for up to $950 million this past spring. “There is a natural alignment. We are in a huge movie production company now so there are dozens of other stories we can attach to online video,” he explains, pointing to a video for the Maleficent film in which a Maker Studios makeup artist showed her audience how to become Maleficent. “Disney didn’t have that before joining Maker. We have folks who bring those things to life,” he says.
We interviewed Krebs at the Beet.TV leadership summit on branded video. You can find additional videos from the event here.
]]>“David Ogilvy was always about research and treating the cons as an equal, thinking about what’s of value to them,” Marks tells Beet.TV.
“We work under the creative umbrella of ‘the big ideal’ – the brand’s best self, what does the brand stand for at the end of the day? How are they living and breathing in this society?
“David Ogilvy says it should be such a big idea, there’s nowhere it cannot travel – it can live on a matchbox cover or on a billboard.”
OgilvyEntertainment is the media agency’s division producing content for brands.
We interviewed Marks at the recent Beet.TV summit on branded content. You can find additional videos from the event here.
]]>As an example, he points to work that JWT did with Johnson and Johnson for its “Once Upon a Care” initiative. The brand asked grade schoolers what caring means to them, then created several children’s books based on what the kids had said, and now donates a book to a library each time one of the ebooks is downloaded.
“When brands start building a story consumers can participate in, consumers get excited about that,” he explains. “No one gets up in the morning and says ‘I want to watch a two-minute ad. So [advertisers] need to ask ‘how do we create something they want to watch online?'” JWT has also worked with Listerine, College Humor and Jimmy Kimmel on branded content.
We interviewed Weisberg at the Beet.TV leadership summit on branded video. You can find additional videos from the event here.
]]>“The reason content is now so topical is, brands are increasingly looking for much more ROI,” MediaCom’s global MBA head James Morris tells Beet.TV.
“Content elevates itself over and above advertising. Advertising is still an important part of the mix – but it’s not the answer to every communications challenge.”
Morris helps devise content-led strategies including viral videos, blogger outreach and search engine optimisation for MediaCom clients.
He spoke with Beet.TV during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Please find more coverage of the festival here.
]]>“The big aggregators have advantages, whether they’re Yahoo, AOL, Google or YouTube,” says the division’s CEO Peter Tortocici. “They already deliver audiences at scale and have a need for brand investment.
“We need to look at the entire universe of delivery systems. We’re looking far and wide in terms of what kinds of partnerships we can put together, coalitions we can put together for projects to achieve a level of scale, because it’s really hard to get there with any one partner.”
GroupM Entertainment’s short-form on-line series In the Motherhood, created for clients Unilever and Sprint, was recently licensed by ABC and aired as a half-hour comedy series.
We spoke with Tortocici at the TV of Tomorrow conference. You can find more videos of our coverage here.
]]>“The most critical thing is to ensure that the caliber of the content, if it is branded, is of such a high standard that viewers and readers are very much engaged with it, (that) it is in tune with the quality of The Guardian as a whole,” Guardian Labs managing director Anna Watkins tells Beet.TV.
Guardian Labs is finding ways to help brands like Unilever and EE tell stories to that may also function as regular editorial. “If there is a happy meeting in the middle, we clearly label that content as sponsored content,” Watkins adds.
We spoke with her as part of our series titled “The Road to Cannes,” a preview of the Festival and an overview on the state and future of digital media by a range of thought leaders. The series will be published over the next four weeks. The series is sponsored by Videology.
]]>“We’ve done roughly 1,300 videos, 20% of them have over a million views.” says the publisher’s agency strategy VP Jonathan Perelman, who also recently took on its video GM role.
BuzzFeed opened a video production studio in LA just over a year ago. Perelman says the output is clocking over 100 million monthly views: “We’re now working with brands to create shareable video content.”
Although Perelman cites views in depicting the project’s growth, just as with BuzzFeed’s text articles, it is shareability on which the videos’ success is judged.
We spoke with him at the FT Digital Media Conference. To view all our coverage of the conference, visit this page.
]]>“People are paying for that content. Advertisers have, all along, been supplementing the cost of that for the consumer,” agency MEC‘s North America CEO Marla Kaplowitz tells Beet.TV. “There are more and more ways for consumers to avoid those types of messages.
“We need to find new ways to deliver that – it could be a more integrated offering, something more subtle in the way it’s brought to the consumer.”
One way may be branded video. MEC connected its client AT&T with the edgy youth publisher Vice, who together created Mobile Movement, a video documentary series examining mobile youth culture for sponsor AT&T.
We interviewed her at the 4A’s annual leadership meeting. See the rest of our coverage here.
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