Content marketing a ‘slow burn’, as creators question if brands can be ‘authentic’
9l-r) Tim Burrowes; Tim Buesing; Chris Collacot; Lucy Sutton; Micha Schwing
There remain too many “vanity metrics” around content marketing while one strategist admitted it is hard for brands to come across as authentic during a panel discussion yesterday.
During the event, organised by Mumbrella and Getty Images, brands were told they must set out their objectives more clearly but were warned they should not expect overnight success in terms of sales.
Questions were also raised over whether brands, through content marketing, could come across as “authentic” or whether it was just a shallow attempt to increase revenue.
Lucy Sutton, content strategist at King Content, said: “I don’t know if it’s my cynical journalistic background but I find myself cynical that a brand can be authentic. It’s tricky because at the end of the day everyone is trying to sell something. We are all trying to get something out of someone and I don’t know whether it’s possible for a brand to overcome that.”
She described a content marketing strategy as a “slow burn” and urged brands to know what they want to achieve. “You cannot switch on content marketing and get leads at your door the next day. It’s a slow burn, it’s long, slow relationship building,” she said.
Asked what return on investment brands were looking for, Sutton said: “There’s a lot of vanity metrics, looking at traffic, likes and shares. What we get people to think about is ROO – return on objective. What exactly are you trying to achieve? Are you just trying to get eyeballs? Are you trying to have a meaningful conversation? If so, and the comments section on your website is empty then that’s a pretty good indication that you are failing.”
She also rejected the notion that it was possible to have a content marketing “campaign”, insisting the word should be “struck from the vocabulary”, adding King Content staff operate an “always-on” mentality and “keep on planning”.
“When brands come to us asking us to develop a campaign we say no, sorry, that’s not what we do,” she said.
But Tim Buesing, creative director at digital agency Reactive, described an always-on approach as “dangerous” in that it “creates a massive expectation” with the client.
He also rejected the notion that brands could redirect their entire budget into content marketing at the exclusion of other forms of marketing. While Getty Images content strategy global director Micha Schwing argued that such a strategy could work “because people spend so much time on those platforms”, Buesing insisted “there is much room for other things”, including retail marketing and TV.
“There are many mechanisms that work together,” he said, citing Coles as an example where “sometime you just have to tell people the bread is on offer”.
Sutton however said vast amounts of content could be provided for the cost of one 15-second a TV commercial. “It’s insane how much money people are paying to put an ad in front of people who are probably not watching anyway,” she said. “With content marketing you can be sure that people are looking because you have metrics and measurements to figure out what is working rather than hope someone is watching the TV.”
Schwing told the panel that too many brands are overlooking visual content – which is often the key driver for sharing – and rarely features in initial discussions with clients. “Visuals grab the attention and humans are more likely to share pictures than text,” she said. “I’d be happy if visuals were even mentioned in the first conversation. It’s a missed opportunity and is often one of the last things that brands think about. But consumers really connect with visual content.”
She also disagreed with Sutton’s view that brands struggle to be authentic, arguing it is easier to get authenticity through content marketing than a national commercial. “You can be more truthful and playful with content marketing because often it flies a bit under the radar whereas a mainstream campaign is very public,” Schwing said.
The panel also debated whether brands could use content marketing to challenge stereotypes, change perceptions and take risks.
Chris Collacott, senior content marketing automation strategist for Deloitte Digital, said that in the B to B environment in particular, companies are “switching on to the fact that diversity is good business”.
“From an internal perspective it helps to disrupt patterns of thinking and it explores new options for clients in general,” he said. “Typically clients are more likely to resonate and respond to a company that is embracing diversity. From a content marketing perspective you are starting to see an emergence of that”
Buesing said marketers are increasingly “very open” to the discussion of diversity, explaining that a recent meeting with an FMCG “in the kitchen environment” discussed the type of family it wanted to portray “whether a patchwork family, single parents or ethnically diverse”.
“It’s getting easier and easier to talk about this. But in contrast to the US, I still find that our visual measurement in Australia is lagging from the reality,” he said.
But Sutton suggested it remained difficult for many brands as challenging stereotypes could seem “inauthentic if they were not practicing what they were preaching.”
“If they are talking about strong women in leadership and the brand has no women on the board, it’s a little tricky to get into that conversation if they are not inclusive as a brand. It’s almost like opening that door would be dangerous and put the microscope on them,” she said.
Steve Jones
“It’s insane how much money people are paying to put an ad in front of people who are probably not watching anyway,” she said. “With content marketing you can be sure that people are looking because you have metrics and measurements to figure out what is working rather than hope someone is watching the TV.”
For some with such a fancy title, this is such an ill informed comment.
The different between a TVC campaign and content marketing is that with a TV campaign you are buying an measured audience before hand, rather than sending it out to everyone and then measuring how many people see it afterwards.
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You are buying a measured audience but you have no idea if they are even remotely paying attention or indeed are even in the same room. I always switch channels during the ads or hit mute during the ads. If someone lets a youtube ad play longer or watches a video you know they were in front of the screen.
Besides your argument makes little sense because ratings are measured after broadcast and not before. You know it will be measured but not what the measurement will be, is that particularly different than content marketing? Surely it’s just volume and engagement which is different.
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@Billy C. I accept your attention point. But the OzTam methodology will/should overcome any ad break skipping, muting or leaving of the room scenarios.
My point on measurement was that with TV you buy a determined audience in the planning phase. The same as you would in any other media. And you (should) be delivered that audience as part of the agreement.
With content marketing you are trusting that your message will be strong enough to gain the audience.
As such, although content marketing may deliver better engagement it is built on the hope of an audience, not the guaranteed delivery of one.
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*Brands have no option than be authentic. PR practitioners need to be brand’s ethical guardian*
Being authentic means being the same on the inside as you say you are on the outside. It’s about transparency, truthfulness and being genuine. Brands who fail ‘walk the talk’ will find their customers (and other important stakeholders) spotting the ‘legitimacy gap’ and voting with their feet.
Public relations professionals should help organisational leaders articulate what the company stands for and how it can live up to what it says it is. In other words public relations professionals should play a major part in developing the organisation’s corporate values and ethics from which positive action is driven. This is part of a much larger narrative around open and transparent brand and organisational communication. There’s further discussion on the importance corporate values play here: http://linkd.in/WR57Ve
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Let’s be realistic – people are very savvy at skipping ads, everyone does it – no-one wants to sit in from of a TV or whatever and watch a block of them.
So many more people are now recording and fast forwarding through them…then just have a look at the way people jump onto Facebook and twitter during the X Factor breaks for instance. The days of “ad-breaks’ are numbered – like it or not.
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Absolutely, Scott Guthrie.
All of a sudden there’s this talk about a new channel that creates a slow burn, builds authentic relationships and richer consumer connections that can lead to sales.
Heavens, we’re now even open to the idea that a channel that may not generate an immediate sales spike, yet may still be viewed as a very valuable addition to the marketing mix. Perhaps ongoing, relevant content serves could build brand love?
Oh hello that sounds like the way PR works… Content marketing that’s interesting enough to garner 3rd party endorsement. That’s how you have any hope at catching that elusive ‘authenticity’ for the brand.
Setting, sharing and promoting a brand’s values and achieving external endorsement of its products benefits is something we’ve always done.
We’ve traditionally not had the luxury of big budgets to pay for placement of our content, or the means to then web stalk those who click through… but we’ve never had a problem being ‘always on’, either.
And as we know, both Mumbrella content marketing awards were picked up by PR practitioners / agencies.
A good place to invest.
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“I find myself cynical that a brand can be authentic”
Interesting. Wonder if your brand clients agree.
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“I find myself cynical that a brand can be authentic.”
A brand is authentic when its product or service truly means something to the customer – it makes them feel good, or connected to something bigger, or any other reason why someone spends hard-earned money to buy something that they like. I believe the customer experience is what’s authentic, not the brand’s portrayal of themselves.
Think of brands like Nike, the Body Shop, Apple, which each connect to an authentic idea that is truly believed and embodied by those companies and their customers. It HAS to be about more than just selling products to make money.
If you don’t really believe that your product or service means anything special to your customers, no wonder you’ll be cynical about your content.
The ONLY way that content marketing works is by giving customers and potential customers the choice to engage with it. The content MUST be authentic or the audience will use their well-trained BS radar and hit delete or backspace.
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A well formed content strategy ensures you learn as much about your audience as they learn about your brand. The technology platforms that allow you to manage your content also provide the insights into what’s engaging your audience, what’s leading to conversion and what’s contributing to loyalty in the long-term.
Treat your content marketing as a leading indicator for brand health. If it’s not meeting an authentic need, then it’s not just the content that’s failing.
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