Insights and notes from Creating Value With Content event
The Insight Exchange’s Creating Value With Content event on Tuesday was a fantastic success. As so many of the attendees observed, this topic is at the heart of many businesses today. While content in the broadest sense is more and more central to the economy, there are many challenges, not least with pricing and distribution, whether the content is music, film, books, news, advertising, or simply the flow of communication that sustains human and business relationships.
Gerd Leonhard and I have been trying to do something together for a few years now, so it was great The Insight Exchange was able to take advantage of his first visit to Australia to run this event. In addition to Gerd’s far-reaching insights and global perspective the event brought together top-level views on the world of content from Agency, Brand, and Publisher perspectives.
Below are my rough notes taken during the event. In addition definitely read Gerd Leonhard’s blog post Creating value with Content: The Future of Marketing and Advertising (my Sydney presentation), and see his presentation slides here.
We’ll shortly add links to the other presentations made at the event.
NOTES FROM CREATING VALUE WITH CONTENT
Gerd Leonhard, Media Futurist
We can only begin to understand the huge consequences of the shift from Disconnected to Connected. We will need to acclimatize ourselves to this new world.
0.6% GDP growth per 10% mobile penetration increase.
Total reset for the content industries. We are not ready for these changes.
We are consuming content differently in many ways: Google Latitude, Kindle for iPhone, Google providing free music in China, and more.
It used to be: dominate to get the dollars. Marketing 2.0: No long captive customers, but empowered users. Sharing is the key driver. This world is a meritocracy – the best wins.
The current economic crisis is not cyclical – it’s structural. We will have to get used to monetary value being derived in many new forms.
A key issue is creating content in formats that are easy for people to disseminate. The trick is now how to get people to want to follow you and your content.
Click trails and data exhaust. Data is the new oil. Control is quickly being replaced with Trust.
It’s a drug addict model – you need to make people want (need) to come back. From push objects to pull objects. Get your users hooked first – and THEN ask for their money. Young people will migrate to a new level of premium content. So at what point do you place the tollbooth?
Craig Davis, Co-Chairman & Chief Creative Officer, Publicis Mojo
No one has a crystal ball. I far prefer the word ‘story’ than ‘content’. I have no hesitation saying the future of content is bright. We
The world is made of stories – the word ‘content’ devalues and dehumanises. We must be authentic.
The days of lying and spinning are over. Brands need to get comfortable telling stories, participate in difficult conversations. Technology facilitates storytelling in new ways, but Twitter is not a strategy.
Three enduring principles:
* Great communication has always been interactive.
* The media isn’t social, stories are.
* The audience is the network.
Paid, owned, and earned media.
“Stop interrupting what people are interested in and be what people are interested in.” Moving on from having a parasitic relationship on media.
The Adventures of Freddo, created by Publicis Mojo, gained 130,000 registrations in two weeks, with longer view time than Disney.
Justin Lam, Group Brand Manager, Cerebos Foods
Asian Home Gourmet – bringing authentic food into supermarkets. It had poor brand awareness.
People’s associations of Asian food are highly sensory, about travel, markets, smells etc. One of the strongest brands in this space is Lonely Planet. With their agency they created on online micro-site within the Lonely Planet website, and nowhere else. The food of six countries featured, both on the website, and special downloadable Mini Travel Guides on the local food. Free samples were also offered online.
Results: High double digit increase in brand awareness during the campaign, and well after the campaign overall up 20%. Average session time on the micro-site was 5 minutes, 8000 downloads of the Mini Travel Guides. Click through rate of 8% from the Lonely Planet to the brand site was over 8%, and their free samples ran out due to far higher than expected response.
The Internet provides an opportunity to build engagement. You have to think long-term.
Example of Radiohead’s In Rainbows album.
You have to give away control, even of your brand.
Louisa Bayles, Digital Sales Manager, BBC Worldwide
Louisa began with an excerpt with this YouTube video from Topgear which has had well over 5 million views.
BBC is having to dramatically shift what it is doing. BBC Worldwide is profit-driven – it’s objective is to supplement funding for the core organization. Australia is a key market.
BBC.com is the international-facing revenue-generating arm of BBC news. The content is the same as in the UK. A medium-term strategy is to provide more local content. Advertising is geographically and behaviorally targeted.
Created YouTube channels for major BBC brands such as TopGear or streams such as food.
In Australia TopGear has customized TV show, website, magazine, game.
Need to:
* Find your audiences
* Rework your content
* Market locally
* Monetise your traffic
