Search results for: Month: November 2019

Belinda –  What’s the biggest change you’ve seen in content marketing since the awards began five years ago?”

Katya – Tempting to say the rise of audio; however, the rise of stories as a definitive format across Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube has had a more fundamental, habit-forming impact on our content consumption and content efforts from both brands and media. Visually rich, “tap for more” stories have created a new avenue for audience development and engagement, creative expression, and format innovation.

The other areas that have seen a tidal wave of movement are measurement – beyond just views and page views; long-form video – in 2015 the debate was ‘is 90 seconds too long” vs. today’s “is 9 minutes too short’; and yes, the rise of audio and voice products.

Belinda – What do you think will be the biggest trend in content marketing in 2020?

Katya – I would like it to be simplicity. Sometimes it feels like the quest for “never-been-done-before” media-firsts adds layers of complex design, animation, and visual effects to communicate a point that may just as well be shared with a simple meme. Requests for sponsoring or creating branded podcasts will remind us of Groundhog Day. The could-be-big theme of 2020 – the year of big global events and significant anniversaries such as the 50th anniversary of WEF, the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day, 2020 Olympics, Expo 2020 Dubai, the US Presidential Elections and more – could be the “eventification” of content. 

Belinda – Which new innovation do you think has the potential to have the greatest impact on the consumption of content marketing?

Katya – Since Gutenberg’s press, the speed of content delivery has been the most critical innovation, which enabled further breakthroughs in content creation and consumption. As you can gauge from numerous B2B and B2C campaigns – 5G is coming. High-speed infrastructure will enable even longer long-form content, faster real-time rendering for content personalization, and more impressive immersive media. 

Belinda – How is data changing the way you design your content strategy?

Katya – Our DMP analyzes and stores user data while prioritizing consumer privacy and eliminating the need for cookies. The deep, first-party behavioral data is used to build more meaningful custom content that accurately reflects consumer preferences. 

Belinda – How can brands use content marketing to align themselves with particular values or topical issues?

Katya – Brand Activism is a topic of much debate and interest at the moment. The companies behind the world’s most powerful brands have enormous resources to champion change. Many have shown support for the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, rallied behind movements, invented hashtags, and have taken an active point of view on divisive issues. Content with a cause, however, can quickly be labelled as woke-washing if the brand’s content does match the brand’s business practices. Crucially, the motivation here is what’s important: is the reason to align with topical issues primarily driven by commercial objectives [brand lift, reach etc.] or by an almost altruistic quest to achieve behavioural change beyond the corporate P&L? 

Belinda – Can you sum up the holy-grail of content-marketing in one sentence?

Katya – An audience inspired towards positive action through time well spent with your content.    

Belinda – What is the secret to implementing a successful cross-border advertising campaign?

Katya – More so a key strategic consideration rather than a secret: finding the right partner(s) with proven, cross-border audience engagement capabilities. And that’s what World Media Group members bring to the table: an engaged and willing to be informed audience, already engaged in an intelligent conversation that transcends borders.

Belinda – What’s the key difference between targeting a domestic audience and an international one? 

Katya – Language. And taking time to understand the mindset of an international audience.

Belinda – How can you measure the success of your partnerships during an international campaign? 

Katya – Success metrics vary; however, if measured results share a consistent, positive trajectory across key metrics for all the international markets then the media selection strategy, audience targeting, and core content proposition have been effectively applied and executed.  

Belinda – What is the best content marketing campaign you’ve ever seen? And why did it stand out?

Katya – Best ever, in the history of humanity is the Michelin Guide. The brothers were spot on [just like so many of today’s new media outlets] to focus on the audience passions for food and travel and in the process, developed an [e]commerce lifestyle powerhouse while promoting the premium qualities of the core brand. Most recently, “Bedroom Habitats” from IKEA and NatGeo – irreverent, yet factual and focused on a core human need – a good quality sleep. 

Belinda – Why is benchmarking and celebrating great international advertising strategies essential for the success of the industry as a whole?

Kayta – Life-long learning is now a megatrend. We can all learn from each other, inspire each other, and boost confidence in the times when the industry calls to rethink, re-evaluate and reimage everything galore. Award-winning strategies that prove advertising and media effectiveness on an international scale allow us to take the industry forward and set higher standards collectively.

Belinda – What is your top tip for creating a winning entry?

Katya – Don’t just rely on zeitgeisty buzzwords to make your entry stand out. It is highly likely we’d see quite a few entries with a heavy word count for “authentic,” “data-driven,” “storytelling” with “purpose.” So make the narrative of your entry standout through bravery, humour, and wit. And one small, hopefully useful, test – imagine you are pitching your campaign as a behind the scenes/tell-all documentary to Netflix et al. What would be the logline to pitch the conflict and intrigue of your campaign in just one sentence? A compelling “logline” in the opening paragraph of your award entry will entice the judges to find out more.

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Katya Ionova is one of our World Media Award Judges for 2020. Our judges will be looking for content driven campaigns with international influences, to find out more about the World Media Awards and how to enter CLICK HERE 

Belinda – What particular challenges are there in the Media & Entertainment sector?

Robbie – Advertising campaigns within Media & Entertainment are seeing an increasing over reliance on personalisation that is probably caused by the fact that most of the industry has become digital. This has created really lazy campaigns that are based on fairly rudimentary data signals instead of true insights. While this type of campaign does deliver efficiency, it’s often at the expense of true brand campaigns and scale, which is causing amazing short-term results that are negatively effecting the long-term health of brands.

Belinda – What would you consider to be an essential component of a successful campaign in that sector?

Robbie – It’s most important to establish an emotional connection with your audience by telling a compelling story and finding a way to relate to them beyond the features of your products/ services. How you using your content, influencers or partnerships in a way that is both relevant to your brand AND matters to your audience?

Belinda – There’s an increasing trend of brands moving their advertising in-house. What do you think the advertising landscape will look like in five years’ time?

Robbie – There is? I think there was! I’m not sure it’s quite a trend anymore and we are seeing a lot of brands going back to agencies. I think what brands are realizing is that while you need some expertise in-house, an agency gives you perspective of what good really looks like… so you’re not drinking your own Kool-Aid. I think what brands will keep in house is more strategic and creative thinkers who work with an agency team of like-minded thinkers to bounce around ideas. Once a great campaign is locked then the agency will also handle execution because it’s difficult for brands to scale those teams.

Belinda – Which new innovation do you think has the potential to have the greatest impact on the consumption of content marketing?

Robbie – I don’t think there are any new innovations that are currently changing the consumption of marketing. What is most important for marketers is how to be disruptive with what already exists. Streaming is one example of an area that I think there is the potential for further disruption, both by streaming services and brands, but I wouldn’t call that innovation.

Belinda – How is data changing the way you design your content strategy?

Robbie – We’re moving away from over targeting audiences. If you need to make 1000 pieces of content for 1000 different segments then you’re doing something wrong. You look at what brands that have remained successful and they are telling compelling stories that have mass appeal, with some nuances based on ‘culturalizing’ their content for different groups or markets.

Belinda – How can brands use content marketing to align themselves with particular values or topical issues?

Robbie – Take a look at macro cultural trends. This isn’t an option, it’s something you have to do. Otherwise you are just looking at data without context – which is looking at shadows of people and what they did, not the people themselves. It’s also more important for brands to stand for something than align to a cause. If you do want to align to topical issues or represent causes you definitely can! But your entire company needs to be representative of that cause or you’ll be found out by consumers. For example, if you want to stand up for women’s rights, then are you paying women equally? Does your board have 50% women? All this information will be found out by consumers and if you don’t embody the cause you are marketing then you’re done for.

Belinda – Can you sum up the holy-grail of content-marketing in one sentence?

Robbie – Start with an insight based in human truth.

Belinda – What is the secret to implementing a successful cross-border advertising campaign?

Robbie – You still need a consistent narrative that can stretch across borders. This is becoming more and more important given how quickly messages spread online and how irrelevant location is becoming. Any good idea is based on a clear and actionable strategy and this strategy needs to have the ability to be nuanced locally based on local cultural and audience insights.

Belinda – What’s the key difference between targeting a domestic audience and an international one?

Robbie – If you are going international you need to ensure that you’re not too focused on local execution or insights. You need to consider a broader audience and macro cultural trends. Having worked in the US for a US company for the last few years this is something we are acutely aware of when developing campaigns to ensure we aren’t excluding, offending or confusing our global audience.

Belinda – How can you measure the success of your partnerships during an international campaign?

Robbie – Our KPIs for a campaign are based on your campaign objective. If this is the same across markets then your KPIs should be the same too. If you have different objectives per market than you should consider if your strategy needs to be reworked for particular markets.

Belinda – What is the best content marketing campaign you’ve ever seen? And why did it stand out?

Robbie – Nike’s Dream Crazy was the best piece of content I saw from last year. The way they consistently executed their story across multiple pieces of content and partners was an example of great storytelling. Unfortunately they also experienced the dangers of representing a cause/ societal topic in diversity, because it was exposed that they were  stopping payments to their female athletes when they got pregnant. This saw the campaign end prematurely and they faced backlash for their misrepresentation.

Belinda – Why is benchmarking and celebrating great international advertising strategies essential for the success of the industry as a whole?

Robbie – As the world continues to get smaller consistent international campaigns are going to become even more important for brands to tell compelling stories. Executing those international campaigns effectively across multiple markets requires not only great insight and strategy but also deft execution, and so the work should be recognised and judged separately to smaller local campaigns.

Belinda – What is your top tip for creating a winning entry?

Robbie – It’s all about your story. Your campaign was successful based on the story that you told your audience and you need to tell an equally compelling story to the judges on why your campaign mattered.

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Robbie McCawley, Director Global Marketing Strategy, Electronic Arts (EA) and World Media Awards 2020 Judge discusses the importance of celebrating the effectiveness of content driven advertising and shares what he’s looking for in award winning entries. To find out more about the World Media Awards and how to enter CLICK HERE