Article by Amy He | Jan 27, 2020 | EMarketer
Marketers predicted that they will use more content-driven campaigns and audio and emerging formats in 2020, according to new research from World Media Group.
About 80% of marketing professionals worldwide surveyed in October 2019 said they expect content-led campaigns to grow over the next two years, with 19% saying they expect they would stabilize. Only 2% of respondents said there would be a decline.
Marketers Expect More Content-Driven Campaigns in 2020 – Edgy
Marketers Expect Content-Driven Campaigns to Increase in 2020 – E-marketer
Content Marketing Surge to Continue in 2020 – O’Dwyer’s
Content-Driven marketing expected to grow – MediaPost
L’activisme de marque, une tendance de fond – Viuz
Marketers Place More Importance On Cause Marketing – A.List
New survey suggests brand activism is on the rise – Ethical Marketing News
New World Media Group survey: Brand activism is on the rise – Plus Media Update
Survey: Brand activism on the rise – Advanced Television
Brands Told To Pick A Cause For Relevant Content Marketing – Media Post
Brand activism is on the rise in content campaigns – Warc
World Media Group survey identifies activism as key campaign benefit – Bizzcommunity
El activismo de marca cobra importancia en las estrategias de branded content – Marketingdirecto.com
New survey suggests brand activism is on the rise – BusinessGhana
Content marketing trends: ‘brand activism’ on the rise – Netimperative
Many World Media Group members were at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week to discuss the global, regional and industry issues affecting business leaders today. Here are some of the key takeaways, as observed by Katya Ionova, Creative Director, UK & EMEA, Business Insider and Damian Douglas, Managing Director, EMEA, Time.
Youth Power
Although the average demographic of attendees at Davos is aged 52-54 for men and aged 49 for women, the question of how we can support the younger generation was a critical theme that ran across many areas of discussion. Concerns ranging from the kind of planet we’re passing on, to the lack of funding for the global mental health epidemic that’s affecting the younger generation were high on the agenda. Greta Thunberg wasn’t the only young voice to be heard this year – 10 teenage activists from all over the world were invited along to encourage collaboration between generations.
Sustainability
Environmental risks, renewed commitments to sustainability, carbon-neutrality pledges, the circular economy and financing a sustainable future were all big themes and more CEOs were seen wearing the SDG pin. The message was clear: we have less than a decade to act, so maintaining the status quo or ‘business as usual’ is no longer acceptable.
Stakeholder Capitalism
The growth of stakeholder capitalism was a frequent discussion point. Companies can no longer serve only their shareholders but must consider all stakeholders, using business as a platform for change to address the environmental and societal issues that matter most to today’s employees and consumers.
Transformation
The Fourth Industrial Revolution and technology such as AI, driverless cars and the IoT formed the basis of many discussions around digital, organisational and societal transformation. The transformation of people was another important theme, from supporting mental health issues to unlocking the potential of human capital.
Brands as Content Creators
A packed fringe agenda featured events from brands such as Accenture, who produced a daily live show. Bank of America, EY and Refinitiv used their social and digital channels to deliver lively content throughout the week. Many World Media Group members led with a content agenda, such as The Wall Street Journal, which hosted The Journal House again, curating discussions on topics aligned to the seven themes of the main agenda. Media newcomers included Condé Nast’s Vogue, which hosted a networking nightcap in Davos House.
Purpose-Driven Marketing
Will we see Davos’ ‘Youth Activism’ theme translate into purpose-driven marketing campaigns? If previous years are anything to go by, they will trickle down from CEO to the rest of the boardroom and start to manifest in 9-12 months. Two years ago, the themes at Davos were around Women, Gender, Diversity and Equality; it’s no coincidence, then, that we saw an increase in DNI campaigns at Cannes last year. We predict that we’ll start seeing Gen Z-centric creative at Cannes in 2021.
Finally, we couldn’t sign off without mentioning the best-branded swag at the event! Every year, Zurich Insurance provides blue woolly hats and they were everywhere – even featured on posters for the Zurich-sponsored airport WiFi. Zurich gave out 13,000 hats this year and pledged to plant 13,000 trees. It goes to show that merchandise can still be an effective marketing tool if it’s a) useful, b) on-brand, and c) entirely fitting for the environment it’s being shared in.
The Directors of the WMG held a hugely successful round table lunch yesterday. They were joined by 4 of the industry’s most respected editors – Dan Stewart, Europe Editor, Time; Jim Edwards, Editor in Chief, Insider (News); Alicia Wittmeyer, Editor, New York Times and Prashant Rao, Global Editor, The Atlantic who gave their very honest view of what to expect in 2020.
A great way to finish the culmination of a very successful year for the WMG.
Belinda – What particular challenges are there in the Financial Services sector?
Christoph – The Financial Services Sector is rapidly changing due to many new market entrants from the financial technology side including the BigTech firms. As such, margins are under pressure and marketing spend is significantly under scrutiny. At the same time, financial services companies need to constantly demonstrate their evolving value proposition as well as their important role in the new environment which calls for very targeted and differentiated marketing activities.
Belinda – And what would you consider to be an essential component of a successful campaign in that sector?
Christoph – A successful marketing campaign in the financial service sector will show how added value was created for a distinct target group with identifiable benefits in addition to the commercial success of the campaign for the financial service company.
Belinda – What’s the biggest change you’ve seen in content marketing since the awards began five years ago?
Christoph – The digital channel explosion makes it increasingly harder for marketers to be everywhere where their clients are whilst managing limited staff- and budget resources.
Belinda – What do you think will be the biggest trend in content marketing in 2020?
Christoph – In B2B marketing, I see a growing trend for short digestible fact and insights- based information nuggets in form of podcasts, authentic videos (not studio produced) and short articles, all of which can be promoted easily through social sharing.
Belinda – Which new innovation do you think has the potential to have the greatest impact on the consumption of content marketing?
Christoph – Not necessarily new, but programmatic advertising helps drive contextual attention to matching content. Banner ads are dead – long live contextual banner ads.
Belinda – How can brands use content marketing to align themselves with particular values or topical issues?
Christoph – Successful content marketing is closest modelled to an in-person human interaction by being genuine, original, relevant, helpful and naturally aligned to the persona of a brand and its values. Trying to own topics that are in fashion but do not fit the brand persona dilute credibility of content marketing.
Belinda – Can you sum up the holy-grail of content-marketing in one sentence?
Christoph – Give more than you ask for in return
Belinda – What’s the key difference between targeting a domestic audience and an international one?
Christoph – The complexity grows exponentially and with it your need for partners who understand multi-market requirements.
Belinda – How can you measure the success of your partnerships during an international campaign?
Christoph – By agreeing key metrics and frequently holding whistle stops in order to adjust as necessary
Belinda – Why is benchmarking and celebrating great international advertising strategies essential for the success of the industry as a whole?
Christoph – The most important lessons for improving your own marketing are not learnt whilst sitting in the office but by engaging in a continued industry dialogue. Awards play an important role in showcasing industry best practise against defined criteria and judged by practitioners.
Belinda – What is your top tip for creating a winning entry?
Christoph – Mark Twain said: “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead”. The same principle applies to good pitches as it is incredibly hard to condense vast amounts of facts and information into a short summary. However, it is worth doing this because it distils the very essence of the “Why is this pitch special” for the judges who read loads of entries. Data and facts speak volumes.
Christoph is a member of our Jury for the 2020 World Media Awards. To find out more about the awards and the criteria to enter, visit our How To Enter page.
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.
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’s the biggest change you’ve seen in content marketing since the awards began five years ago?”
Cathy – More and more brands are investing in brand entertainment as a ‘must have’ rather than a ‘nice to have’. Our recent DAN CMO survey found that nearly three-quarters (73%) of CMOs see investment in creativity and big ideas as essential to cutting through the noise.
And brand entertainment is challenging the supremacy of traditional interruptive advertising – Marc Pritchard of P&G (a Carat global client) recently spoke on this at length in Cannes. Highlighting the fact that as many as seven out of ten people find ads annoying when they interrupt the entertainment that they watch and highlighting the need for brands to develop new creative partnerships with the worlds of entertainment such as journalism, filmmaking and music.
Belinda – What do you think will be the biggest trend in content marketing in 2020?
Cathy – Trends in Brand entertainment still to some degree reflect the trends in traditional entertainment such as the importance of audience interactivity. Netflix’s ‘Bandersnatch’ is still held up as a market-leading example of the genre and brands like Tinder and Porsche have been experimenting with this on their own and with partner platforms. It’s a creatively complex and potential expensive route, but I expect to see more brands exploring this space in 2020.
Belinda – How can brands use content marketing to align themselves with particular values or topical issues?
Cathy – Brand entertainment provides a fantastic opportunity for brands to tell stories that are important to their consumers and we know that consumers actively expect brands to create social impact. Example: Vodafone’s recent partnership with Marvel Studios around Captain Marvel that stepped outside of the bounds of a traditional film partnership by featuring real-life female heroes in the content as part of VDF’s goal to support 50 million women by 2025. That said, any brand content programme still needs to be linked to real, measurable action. Modern consumers are hyper alert to potential ‘green-washing’ and any brands who choose to engage in this space need to prove both authenticity and real action.
Cathy Boxall, SVP Brand Entertainment, UK Lab joins the World Media Awards 2020 Judges to discuss the changes and trends that she sees today in content marketing. 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.
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
Content-led advertising continues to grow as brands address social and environmental challenges
A new survey from the World Media Group (a strategic alliance of the world’s leading media brands) into content-led marketing suggests an increase in brand activism,with advertisers using content campaigns to align themselves with social and environmental issues. The survey, which questioned key influencers across advertisers, agencies, media brands and consultancies, asked respondents to list the most exciting trends in branded content campaigns.
Brand or content activism was one of the clear themes to emerge as a real opportunity for brands to engage with consumers on the issues that matter to them most. Almost one fifth of those surveyed rated ‘aligning a brand with a trend, issue or topic’ as one of the key benefits of a content campaign.
The research was carried out by the World Media Group, whose members include the Atlantic, Bloomberg Media Group, Business Insider, The Economist, Forbes, Fortune, National Geographic, Reuters, The New York Times, Time, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, to provide context for the World Media Awards for cross-border, cross-channel content campaigns, which close for entry on 6th February 2020.
Alex Delamain, President of the World Media Group and SVP, Head of Client Sales and Services at The Economist, says, “The clear trend towards brand activism revealed in the WMG content survey indicates just how important it is for marketers to acknowledge and respond to the zeitgeist. Consumers are no longer ‘brand loyal’, which means advertisers must work harder to stay relevant. Content campaigns provide a vehicle for brands to demonstrate their commitment to the social and environmental issues that people care about with authenticity and understanding.”
The next big thing in content-led marketing
The research also revealed the technology trends that marketers are most excited about and plan to use over the next 12 months. Audio/podcasts lead the way with 90% of respondents indicating they will use the technology in future campaigns. Voice technology and AR (augmented reality) came joint-second (89%), closely followed by increased personalisation (88%), events (85%), and VR (virtual reality) at 84%. While respondents expected to see growth in live video and 360°video, they anticipated a reduction in traditional long-form and short-form video.
Strengths of a content campaign
Respondents continue to view ‘brand engagement’ as the key strength of a content-driven campaign at 34%, followed by‘changing perceptions’ at 20%. In third place, ‘aligning a brand with a trend, issue or topic’ is increasing in significance, with 18% of those surveyed emphasising its value. This sentiment reflects the broader trend towards brand activism and the increased importance of brand purpose in maintaining consumer loyalty.
When looking at KPIs for content-led marketing campaigns, last year’s survey revealed that while brand engagement was the most popular objective, the most popular metric was increased brand awareness. This year’s survey demonstrates a better match between content-led marketing’s perceived strengths and the KPIs used for measurement. Whilst brand awareness is still important (27%), the most popular KPIs are a shift in brand perceptions (31%) and time spent with content (28%).
Think global, act local
When sharing their views on the secrets of success for content-driven campaigns, respondents consistently emphasised the importance of global themes made local. The survey shows that 71% of respondents adapt the global story for local markets, and 61% create content in a combination of local language and English (compared to 23% creating all in English and 16% using only local language). To implement a ‘think global, act local’ approach, 80% of those surveyed use an international network agency rather than multiple local agencies.
Content-led advertising continues to grow
The survey results indicate that content-driven marketing will continue its ascendancy with almost 80% of respondents believing it will grow over the next two years and 19% feeling that it will stabilise. Fewer than 2% suspect it will decline, down 3% compared with last year’s survey. Forty-one percent of respondents stated that in the projects they work on, a branded content element now makes up more then 50% of the campaign.
A credible editorial environment is key
While the excitement around new visualisation techniques such as AR and VR is tangible, it doesn’t top the agenda when selecting a lead media partner. In fact, their ability to offer such technology came last, named only by 1% of respondents. At the top of the list was the provision of a credible editorial environment (57%),followed by audience profile (52%) and quality of audience engagement (49%).
##ENDS##
Media contact:
Charlotte Panther
07834431206
charlottepantherpr@gmail.com
About the research: The World Media Group carried out the online survey for the World Media Awards from 2nd September to 7th October 2019. There was a total of 269 respondents working acrossthe following regions: UK, Western Europe, Central & Eastern Europe, USA &Canada, Middle East, South East Asia, Australasia, South America and Africa. Respondents were made up of key influencers in content-led marketing: 42% were from agencies, 34% from media brand studios, 11% were advertisers and 13% were consultants.
About the World Media Group: The World Media Group is an alliance of leading international media organisations that connects brands with highly engaged, influential audiences in the context of trusted and renowned journalism. Members include The Atlantic, Bloomberg Media Group, Business Insider, The Economist, Forbes, Fortune, National Geographic, Reuters, The New York Times, Time, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and associate members: Moat, Smartology and The Smithsonian. Its aim is to promote award-winning journalism and the role of international media. Visit www.world-media-group.com for further information.
Recent research by The World Media Awards suggested that creativity has been usurped by storytelling and authenticity. Belinda Barker, Director of the World Media Group, asks whether creativity has truly fallen by the wayside.
Creativity once ruled supreme – the big-budget 30-second commercial was the immediately reached-for and arguably most effective weapon in a marketer’s arsenal. Ads of old often bordered on the fantastical, painting an idealised vision of a world that barely resembled our own. But recent years have seen a surge in content marketing, where brands align with editorial and deliver a more grounded form of marketing message.
It’s a point backed by research. Our ‘Future of Global Content-led Marketing’ study carried out for the World Media Awards found that creativity came third to story (in first position) and authenticity (in second place) when respondents were asked to list the most important factors in a content-led campaign.
Meanwhile, the World Media Awards 2019 demonstrated that brands are working more closely with publishers on campaigns less shaped by the creative muse and more by grounded audience insight and editorial-style analysis, inviting people to engage with brands, rather than insisting.
Andy Reynolds, Strategy Partner at Wavemaker pointed out that the “creativity of old is more interruptive and immediate”.
“You’re not asking anyone’s permission to hit them with an advert, that disruptiveness helped that creativity,” he said. “You came out of nowhere and smacked people with your idea or message to gain an instant reaction to your brand or message or idea.”
He is adamant that there is still a place for such an approach. “That more primal creativity is still absolutely critical to brands and companies, when we lose the power to surprise, we lose a lot of our abilities to get people to think differently.”
But Matthew Falla, Head of Innovation at Economist Group-owned design and content agency Signal Noise, stressed that today “authenticity should be the baseline” in any communications.
“No one should be aiming for fake or un-genuine,” he said “But creativity should absolutely come first. What is the big idea? What do we believe will inspire? What are the stories that bring this to life?
“I think it’s important not to conflate creativity with dishonesty – like the way that people talk about ‘creative accounting’. I think that authenticity is a prerequisite for any creative endeavour that aims to connect meaningfully with its audience.”
For Tanya Robinson, Global Brand Director, Ad Sales Partnership at National Geographic Partners, in today’s world, the term “marketing creative” has been associated with “everything from creative innovations to fictional elements”.
“But, in reality, the term creativity now is so much more complex and layered. Data analytics plays a key part and the customer is now more important than ever in helping with creative marketing for a brand or service.”
The depth offered up by ‘Big Data’ means that different types of brand must be shaped appropriately.
“I think it all depends on what the message is that is being pushed out, [and] on the product or brand that is being marketed,” Robinson said. “A car will have a different marketing message versus a service like a holiday to a tourist destination.
“Beyond that customers are more intelligent now than ever and with so many audience insights available, most marketing campaigns have a plethora of research backing them to ensure their message is on brand and developed for the relevant audience in mind.”
But Reynolds insisted that people are no more intelligent or sceptical than they were when the “original snake oil salespeople were out there”.
“We just have more tools to unpick at the claims and more ways to test our beliefs with other people in social media,” he added. “I think society is becoming more inward-facing and careful, people are becoming more concerned with their identities and how they’re outwardly expressed and what people might think about them for their decisions, beliefs, what they buy.”
There was an array of examples among the World Media Awards 2019 winners that demonstrated the appeal of more “authentic” campaigns for some brands.
Formula 1’s storytelling work favoured a narrative approach over big brand advertising and won in the Lifestyle, Luxury and Fashion category.
When Liberty Media acquired the motorsport brand in 2017, it was struggling. Nicolas Jayr, Brand Marketing Manager at F1, explained how it had changed from an event “people watched religiously on Sunday in the tens of millions, to a sport that was hidden on social media and digital”.
“Engineered insanity” became the campaign rallying cry, manifest across all major social platforms. F1 worked with 31 media partners in 20 countries and across seven languages. The work boosted social follows by 54% across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, TV viewership was up 10% on 2017 to more than 48 million and F1 became the fastest growing sport on social media in 2018.
For Wavemaker’s Reynolds, who worked on the F1 project, if a brand is not reflecting its audience at a conscious or sub-conscious level, “you’re howling in the wind”.
“It’s where we started with F1,” he said. “What was the deep, emotional connection fans and non-fans felt about racing. When you understand what people admire and crave the gritty, raw, emotion behind a mechanical competitive sport, you can tell better stories, you can be more creative with the interruptive ideas. In a world of sanitisation, they wanted a little insanity.”
Meanwhile, Siemens won the won the Technology & Telecommunications category with its “Ingenuity for life” campaign in which it teamed up with The Economist and FC Bayern Munich for a data visualisation campaign (see below). It used thousands of data points captured at games (including crowd noise) to create a data-driven storytelling campaign.
Clearly, much content marketing places an emphasis on work that is both derived from and driven by data or insight, rather than imagination. But does that mean that creativity is falling from grace?
On the contrary, argued Charles Yardley, Senior Vice-President of Europe at Forbes. “Creativity will always be core to the marketing and advertising sector,” he said. “While tech and innovation have disrupted many of the traditional methods, channels and measurement tools used by marketers, a unique and creative idea that resonates with target audiences will remain one of the most powerful tools we have.
“Data and insights can help marketers to become more intelligent and emotive storytellers, by helping them to test, analyse and refine the ideas that are driven by human imagination and gut instinct, and we are committed to working with our brand partners to deliver the insights they need to achieve this.”
But is there a danger that in a world so enamoured with data and its applications, that we lose the magic of marketing, that it becomes dry and soulless?
Falla thinks so. “I’m not entirely convinced by a data-driven approach to advertising that continuously A/B tests creative until it is mathematically optimised but culturally inert,” he said.
“Our approach to using data is slightly different – typically we use data from the real-world to identify or inform the story that we want to tell.”
Steven Nottingham, Senior Vice-President of Strategic Brand Solutions at Dow Jones, said that brands need to be storytellers, using data to drive their narratives. But that this should not prelude creativity.
“In my opinion it actually fosters even greater opportunities for creativity,” he said. “This is the same for data and insights. If brands allow it to make the storytelling rote and mundane then it isn’t using them right. These things are the new foundation for brand communications strategies and, when used right, they provide powerful springboards for creativity.”
According to F1’s Jayr, creativity is not going anywhere. “But I do think that while you’re not seeing the death of creativity, creativity for creativity’s sake is not needed,” he said.
“It’s becoming more grounded in reality. We don’t need to spend hours and hours thinking up metaphors. I do think the talent of a strong copywriter and art director will always be needed and will continue to be fundamental to our industry.
“But we need more help in understanding who we are giving the message to. The notion of one-size-fits-all and the 30-second TV ad is really over and we now need to be in a world where we adapt the message to whoever we’re talking to.”
Andy Reynolds, Strategy Partner at media agency Wavemaker, shares some tips:
Belinda Barker
Director of The World Media Group
