The Global Chief Content Officer at Digitas, the agency that co-founded the NewFronts about a decade ago, says it’s more about brands having values that people can relate to.

“Sometimes it just means that they have to speak their own truth, they have to have values, because we think that audiences care about those values now and that those things will come into purchase decisions,” Donaton says in this interview with Beet.TV.

Donaton recalls the walkup to this year’s NewFronts and how many people naturally embraced the Digitas theme of The #Boycott NewFront.

“Every time we got on a prep call with somebody to get ready for the event, we didn’t even have to get out of our mouths what we wanted to talk about before they would basically say things to us that completely confirmed that we were on the right path.”

His takeaway is that “there’s clearly this moment in time right now and our aim was to capture it and it felt like we did.”

Aligning with causes and movement requires a smart, strategic approach because brands can be risk turning people off or, worse, sparking calls for a boycott of their products or services.

“We’ve seen some of this happen in the marketplace with brands that have taken a stand on more hot button issues. I think the point is, don’t court controversy for the sake of it.”

The right strategic approach means that brands must be prepared “and be ready for what might happen. Have the answers, have the strategy in place to stick by what you’re saying.”

It’s the job of agencies to help brands understand “what their why is,” Donaton adds. That “why” encompasses the role they play in peoples’ lives and the stories they can tell in a credible fashion.

“Then it’s really just about being true to yourself and speaking that truth. As long as brands don’t try to jump on something for the sake of jumping on it or doing something that’s not authentic, this is actually a no brainer.”

This video is part of Beet.TV’s coverage of the Digital Content NewFronts 2018. The series a co-presentation of Beet.TV and the IAB. Please see additional videos from the series on this page.

The theme of last year’s NewFronts was ad skipping, recalls Scott Donaton, Chief Content Officer at Digitas. “We were literally telling our clients not only is your audience skipping ads, but you should to. You should make stories that are worthy of peoples’ time.”

Fast-forward a year in the fast-forward milieu that is digital media. This year “we’re going a little more abstract but a step further in essence,” Donaton explains in this interview with Beet.TV, with the theme of “the cave man and the astronaut.”

This unlikely pairing represents human storytelling melded with technology as it relates to marketers seeking to engage with consumers beyond standard ad units. “You still have to make people laugh and cry and care if you want to connect with them,” Donaton says.

He believes it is at this intersection of humanity and human-created, technological communications advances where modern communications needs to gravitate.

As he surveys the activity at the NewFronts 10 years on, Donaton notes that what started as a conference has expanded into an industry wide marketplace. “The important thing here is as a moment to stop and focus on all the exciting things going on and all the things that brands can do,” he says.

“Some of the players coming in and out of the marketplace, that’s just a natural thinning of the herd if you will and the strongest will survive in that.”

To view a slightly offbeat video from Digitas about a cave man meeting up with an astronaut, click here.

This video is part of Beet.TV’s coverage of the IAB’s Digital Content NewFronts 2017. The series is sponsored by the IAB. For more videos from the #NewFronts, please visit this page.

As much as some brands might wish to create a particular message once and then chop it up and distribute it across multiple platforms, “You just can’t. You have to understand what platforms people are using for what reasons,” says Scott Donaton, Chief Content Officer at DigitasLBi.

This requires an understanding of why people frequent Snapchat as opposed to Facebook or watching a television show. “You really have to think about what is the user coming to this platform for and then what’s the best way to tell that story on that platform,” Donaton says in this interview with Beet.TV at the 2017 Transformation conference of the 4A’s.

A lot of brands “do get a little nervous” about having to create various messaging and then how to scale it all. “But it’s not as intimidating once you actually embrace it as it might seem to be,” Donaton adds.

Branded content has evolved from something that was once nice to have to a must have for marketers. It’s no longer something experimental “that you dip your toe in but that it really is the future of marketing.”

By way of illustration, Donaton says DigitasLBi doesn’t have a client that in the last 18 months hasn’t asked for a content marketing strategy. “We’re also starting to see a lot of brands like Mattel, Pepsi and Marriott follow in the heels of brands like Red Bull and GE and become really deeply committed to this idea of storytelling and investing heavily in it,” says Donaton. “And I think that’s just going to continue.”

With the 2017 NewFronts season on the near horizon, DigitasLBi marks a 10-year anniversary, having birthed the annual ritual initially as a half-day event for its clients. The agency’s message to brands was before you commit all your money in the television Upfronts, take a closer look at digital content.

“We’ve gone from that half-day Digitas-only event into a two-week, multi-billion-dollar marketplace where every major digital player is out there being a part of that conversation,” Donaton says.

This video is part of series produced in Los Angeles at the 4A’s Transformation ’17. The series is sponsored by Extreme Reach. For more videos from the conference, please visit this page.

Donaton says that custom creative content, coupled with traditional media, outperforms traditional campaigns.  He says what has been the nascent medium of digital video is now in the “big league” for marketers.

Digitas is the founder is of the NewFronts and will be the only agency presenting.  Digitas presents on April 30.

We spoke with Donaton earlier this week at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting.

Beet.TV coverage of the IAB meeting was sponsored by SpotXchange.

“You need to give people the pathway to understand the brand, but in the pure storytelling the brand has to step back and be the confident that the brand and story stand for the same thing and that will come through to the audience,” he says, pointing to a campaign Johnson & Johnson implemented for Clean and Clear skin care that included lightly branded content paired with ads that included more specific brand details.

The key to successful content marketing lies in studying audience insights and their motivations, and pairing that information properly with brand objectives, Donaton adds. He’s an advocate of seeding a range of branded content in the marketplace and then layering in paid media behind that. “Once something catches fire on its own, you can dial back the paid,” he says.

We interviewed Donaton at the IAB conference during Advertising Week in New York.

We spoke with him last night at the AOL NewFront event.