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Experts Share Top Tips for Creating an Award-Winning Campaign

Yesterday, members of the World Media Awards judging panel and the creators of this year’s Grand Prix winning entry for Sonos came together for our Awards Masterclass to discuss what it takes to create an award-winning content campaign. Here are 10 top tips from our expert panel to ensure your content campaign rises above the fray and makes its mark on the judges.

1. Outline your challenge with laser focus

“Make sure the challenge is absolutely precisely outline before leading on to the creative solution and the media partner or channel choice. Clearly articulate the challenge, because that lays the foundation of everything that follows.” –  Christoph Woermann, CMO, Corporate Bank, Deutsche Bank.

According to Christoph, two entries that demonstrated this perfectly were Volkswagen: For the Many,Not the Few – The ID.3, winner of the Automobile category, and Levi’s: What Does Performance Mean to You, winner of the Luxury, Lifestyle & Fashion category.

2. Deliver your pitch with passion

“Make us believe it’s a winner from the minute you start speaking. First, tell us what the challenge was and how you solved it. Secondly, talk about the power of media and message, and how the entire campaign becomes an interesting experience for the consumer. Thirdly, prove it’s a credible solution with relevant KPIs. Lastly, tell us why it mattered. Why would a consumer genuinely enjoy experiencing what you’ve created?” – Kate Ivory, Group Managing Partner, Head of Strategy, OMD EMEA

Kate described Tourism Australia’s pitch for ‘From Country. To Company’ as one that was delivered with passion and power, creating a story that was really compelling to listen to.

Brooke Steinberg Global Planning Director, Vizeum, who is part of the award-winning Sonos pitch team agreed:

“Have fun. You’re showcasing work that you’re proud of, so express that, whether it’s verbally, in written form or in a video.Find ways to showcase your passion and the great times you’ve experienced working on the project.” 

3. Put the judges in your shoes

“It’s all about storytelling,” said Jamie Credland, SVP, Client Strategy & Marketing, The Economist. “And to tell a good story, you need to take us on a journey of here’s this insurmountable challenge, this difficult, terrible adversity you’re facing, and the smart ideas and hard work you came up with to overcome it.”

Jamie gave the example of Astana International Finance Centre’s winning entry for ‘My Kazakhstan’, which starts by asking, “What do you know about doing business in Kazakhstan?” immediately putting the judges into the shoes of the agency and the media owners who were working on this huge challenge.

4. Less is more

All the judges agreed that the Sonos team, represented by Brooke Steinberg, Global Planning Director at Vizeum and Gabriella Manzini, Global Account Director, Vizeum, had absolutely nailed their three-minute video pitch for Sonos’s ‘Brilliant Sound at the Intersections of Culture and Cool campaign. Gabriella’s advice:

“Be concise; you can’t tell the whole story. You can’t talk about every single execution. So really draw out the key steps that helped you to tackle the challenge – the insight, the execution. And the results really have to reflect what the challenge was.”

Christoph Woermann’s advice is to strip away anything you don’t need. “Always think, less is often more. Less text, less variety, less goals to achieve. Less is more. Focus, and you will be a winner.”

5. Brand, agency and media partner relationship must be seamless

Our experts were impressed by the completely seamless, integrated team of brand, agency and media partners on the Sonos campaign .According to Johan Jervoe, Chief Marketing Office, UBS, that doesn’t happen overnight. Creating a well-oiled content marketing machines takes time:

“It takes for your own brand team to understand what works, where you get content, who the expert is. It takes time to understand what the insights are and how that translates into aesthetics. And then measurement – finding the right media partner, the right channels and the right format on those channels.”

Jamila Saidi, Head of e-Commerce Marketing, DIT UK Gov, cited another seamless example in Samsung’s campaign “TV is Making History Again’:

“A combination of three things really made the award stand out above and beyond the others: the brand synergies with CNN and astronaut Scott Kelly; the integration of the message, the messenger and the channel delivering it; and the timing – the 15th anniversary of the moon landings.

6. Use audience insights to solve human problems

According to Jamie Credland, the human element of audience insight is often overlooked. “When it comes to an audience insight, these are people with business problems, personal problems, family problems, all kinds of challenges in their lives. And the best campaigns were the ones that tried to bring that challenge to life.”

He gave the example of Tech Mahindra’s winning Corporate Influencer campaign, ‘In the Future’ which talked about the number of people who believe analytics is absolutely key to their business, yet only 10% felt their company currently did it. “That talks to a certain anxiety among senior executives – treating the audience like human beings is really, really important.”

Kate Ivory agreed that Tech Mahindra had cleverly used the insights to develop a real solution, an efficiency index that allows executives to test the organisation’s performance against industry leaders. “They identified a problem, and they created a tool that was of genuine value back to the consumer. That’s the power of insights – to genuinely develop solutions.”

7. Be authentic.

Jamila Saidi reiterated the important of being authentic:“People see through the fluff, when you’re doing something for the sake of it or when you’re jumping on the bandwagon.”

It ties in with having your pulse on your customer base and really understanding your audience. She used Electronic Arts’ FIFA20 ‘Play Wrong’campaign, winner of the Media & Entertainment, category as an example”

“They did a fantastic job with their segmentation, really tapping into their audiences to understand them (it was a very different audience than they’re used to), which made everything so much more authentic, locally relevant and really believable. This made the storytelling even more compelling.”

8. Remember, judges are people too!

An important tip from Jamie Credland: ‘Tactically, when you’re writing your entry, remember, judges are people too and they respond to stories in the same way that your consumers do. So,get the judges emotionally engaged with your entry, and you’ll go a long way.”

9. Be prepared to throw it all away

Kate Ivory’s advice to ensure you’ve created an award-winning campaign:

“When you’ve gone through the process of creating your campaign, you’re about to hit go on buying the media, creating the content, just step back. Put yourself in your consumer’s shoes, the person that’s going to experience every element of this, and ask yourself, if you’re them, is it of any value? And if it isn’t, be prepared to put it in the bin and start again, because there’s too much clutter out there.”

 When the judges are going through the award entries, it’s the ones that offer real value that float to the top.

10. Be brave

As winner of this year’s Content and Leadership Award, it’s fitting Johan Jervoe gets the last word on how to create exemplary content-driven campaigns. Johan’s advice: “Be brave!”

VIEW WEBINAR

Interview with Johan Jervoe, CMO, UBS, the winner of this year’s World Media Award for Content Leadership & Innovation

Now lockdown measures have been loosened and consumers are hungry to return to ‘normal’ life, is this the right time to invest more heavily in marketing? And if so, are there any pitfalls brands need to consider before doing so?

I strongly believe, that investing in your brand awareness now is an opportunity you should not miss. Let’s all remember what brands are for: brands are holding devices of prior experiences for the user. Brands that are communicating during a crisis give stability and visibility and a certain comfort to their users – and that’s what consumers have been looking for here.

As a financial services brand – UBS is a wealth manager, the number one retail bank in Switzerland, and we have an investment bank and asset manager – we have seen markets going up and down in parallel with the pandemic and have had movements that have been almost unheard of. We’ve seen clients across the entire world seeking advice in these uncertain times.

In addition, you also owe it to your advertising partners, both the ones that are selling your space as well as the ones that are creating your creatives. We are part of an ecosystem. So, yes, this is the time you keep spending if you can.

 How do you feel the advertising industry will bounce back after the crisis?

I think some of it will bounce back identically. But it’s clear to me that the new normal will be quite different to what we perceived being normal in the past. Nothing will be the same but particularly high-quality brands will stay and adapt.

Change usually comes with opportunities. Just to give you one example: to stay in contact with our clients, virtually, in some markets almost daily, we have used our relationship with The Economist to promote our content library of 50 years of Nobel Prize winners. Now what’s interesting is that we asked Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize winner, to come in and give his opinion to a group of asset manager clients, and one-third of our global clients dialled in. This is a tremendous increase in terms of efficiency and effectiveness in how we bring thought leadership to our clients.

The financial services sector is not one known for brand bravery or innovation – how have you ensured that extra spark of creativity to ensure your brand stands out?

 Banking is actually a very innovative business, and very forward looking, picking up on shifting client demands. People may come in with a business case: “You buy a pair of shoes and I’ll donate another pair to someone somewhere else in the world who is in need of a pair of shoes.”

A banker who supports this idea, has an innovative client focus. And if you keep that same positive spirit in marketing teams, it is driving innovation. Seeing a virtual client event with strong client demand working, empowers the team to drive creative ideas even if other ideas might fail.

It’s also making sure you have the best people on all sides of your business –in your marketing team, with your agency partner, and your media organisations and media owners, and making sure that creativity feeds off each other all the time.

 What are the specific challenges in for the Finance Sector?

We are highly regulated. Disclaimers are often bigger than the ad itself. That limits what you can say, what you can do, the way you can say it, and in what way you can offer up a service, which is very different from other industries.

How does that level of regulation affect content marketing campaigns?

Churchill said, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” And that’s how it feels. What you have to do is optimise the content so that it’s relevant and uniquely interesting – that stickiness is first and foremost. A couple of film studios have analysed that over the years, and if the movie is really great, you’re willing to look at it in black and white, or with a somewhat snowy picture, because you really like the content. This is very similar. If you think the content is worth it – take the example of interacting with Stiglitz– I’m willing to click that I’m aware that this is a bank in order to access that content.

Why do you think there’s been a growth in content-led advertising campaigns?

It goes back to relevance.When we relaunched the UBS brand in September 2015. We saw across all our media partners, a huge amount of click through. I remember we thought the click through formula was maybe misleading; that it was capturing a too long and too large engagement –it was many-foldmore than the average click through rate. What we discovered is that when people take a magazine or website like The Economist, Forbes or Fortune in their hands, they want to be in that moment and have some “me time” for a half an hour, an hour. The same was true for our campaign. It’s deep diving knowledge, reading, and exchange. If you see content that fits into that, you’re in the right mindset and therefore more people will click through. If content is king, context is queen.

You need to find the DNA of what is your uniqueness for your user base, what are they looking for, and how to serve that up in such a way that is understandable and digestible – I think that’s the difficult part for many banks and financial services.

The advertising headline that has worked the best over the last six months or so is: “Is the world always going to be as unpredictable as now?” And you can see why that’s relevant. You can see when it comes to our wealth managers that they might know more than I do, and I want to know about that for my portfolio. So, get the content right; get the level of excitement into a headline, and then people should be interested in what you have to tell them. Whether that’s a video or piece of copy, they won’t click away.

What are the biggest changes that you’ve noticed in content over the last five years and what sort of trends do you expect to see in the coming years?

Shorter formats, I would say is probably the biggest surprise. Because if you really believe in content then 7, 8, 9, 10 minutes gives you a good angle to a story – but that’s not necessarily true anymore. Then you look at podcasts which are about 20 minutes. It really depends on the situation you’re consuming in, and I think it’s safe to say it’s now predominantly a mobile world, so we’re seeing shorter formats and more informative content.

There’s a universal appetite to consume what you want to consume, however you want to consume it. If I’m on a mobile phone watching something and I want to ask questions, I want to be able to type if I’m in a public area, because I don’t want to speak, for example, about finances. If I’m at home, however, I might want to speak to the bot and want the bot to speak back to me. So, I think the world will move to a “type, a touch and a talk” format, regardless of the device in the next five years.

Part of the reason you were nominated for the award was to do with what you’re doing with best practice in terms of measurement – viewability, metrics, accuracy and audience targeting. How does that apply to content-driven advertising?

When you’re targeting wealth managers – perhaps only 1% of the world’s population, there’s a 99% chance that your advertising will go somewhere else. You get really good, along with your media partners and your agency, at optimising. This is not a short conversation; it’s an ongoing opportunity. And actually, it was always there – I remember when I worked for McDonald’s around the world, you would optimise your billboard campaigns for example, if there was a construction site in front of your ad so you couldn’t see it. You would optimise from flight to flight because things would change in the streets. This is similar; it’s constantly being on top of your numbers.

It’s first and foremost about your content. Think about social media: I might share something with you if it’s hilariously stupid, or if it is sensationally insightful. Anything in between, I probably won’t. The context is as important: where you place your advertising, as well as the people you reach. And the timing needs to be right. There are times when people are not looking at banking advertising – there’s a reason why most banks have quarters that are differently sized. When fitness clubs’ campaigns are being signed off, it’s normally January when people have made that New Year’s resolution to get fit again. You need to know when it’s the right time. You see it with some of the newsletters we’re all getting from various publishers – they know that you do something on a Thursday night or Saturday morning. There’s a mechanic that humans like to consume, and you have to take that on as well.

Then there are softer metrics – how much content is shared, how far are people watching into it? And there is the “like” although I still don’t know if we can actually calculate what a “like” or “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” on social actually means. Engagement also sounds so nice but what does it mean? We know that some of the social channels are fantastic at serving up your target group, but the people clicking the trigger all the time are the ones that you pay for. So, you want to filter those out; you want to get to the ones that are ready for consideration.

Tell us about you #TOGETHERBAND initiative and why you decided to develop that campaign?

At UBS, sustainable finance has been a critical component of our client offering and a strategic growth opportunity for over 20 years, and that’s why we are a clear market leader today.

#Togetherband was a great opportunity for us to raise the awareness on the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The more people that get involved, the more you can do good, and that means you need to get to a popular, mass audience. We’ve had a billion and a half engagements since April last year. You can see the number of celebrities that have joined the initiative.

What we do is led by our partner, BOTTLETOP: they pull ocean plastic out, they give people in very poor communities a job opportunity as craftsmen, creating the bands in a sustainable way and the entire funding of these will be returned into that cycle for the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. It was very clear to us that we wanted to be a part of that; it’s part of our DNA but it’s the right thing to do. It also felt like the right thing to do for our employee base – I’ve never seen anything internally kick so much off. We’ve had 40%+ of the employee base of 60,000 people on a global level building #TOGETHERBAND, and that’s not something we normally hear.

It has been very rewarding and it’s difficult because it’s a real start-up mentality – and if there’s one thing a Swiss 150+ year old bank maybe doesn’t always have, it’s a start-up mentality! But it’s been, and continues to be, a great opportunity.

 

Judges Like the Sound of Sonos’s Campaign at the 2020 World Media Awards

‘Brilliant Sound at Intersections of Culture and Cool’ Wins this Year’s Grand Prix

London, Thursday 10th September 2020 – The World Media Group is pleased to announce the winners of the 2020 World Media Awards.Top brands including Astana International Financial Centre, Electronic Arts, Levi’s, Samsung, Shell, Sonos, Tech Mahindra, Tourism Australia and Volkswagen were amongst those receiving accolades for their impressive entries this year. Hosted by the World Media Group*, the World Media Awards, now in their fifth year, are the only global awards to recognise brands, agencies and media partners who, together, create the most effective cross platform, cross border, content-driven advertising campaigns.

Sonos was the biggest winner this year taking away the WMA Grand Prix, as well as scooping up the Technology & Telecommunications prize for its innovative multiplatform campaign, ‘Brilliant Sound at Intersections of Culture and Cool’. In a currently over-crowded smart speaker market, Sonos’s challenge was to cut through the noise of its competitors to deliver a brand message about greater sound quality to an audience who may never have even heard of them before.

“Sonos edged out the competition with an entry that succeeded on every level – they outlined a clear challenge, addressed it with a multiplatform, wide-reaching creative approach and backed it up with fantastic results that demonstrated brand lift and revenue growth,” said Christoph Woermann, WMA Judge and CMO Corporate Bank, Deutsche Bank. “Brilliant Sound demonstrates all the attributes of an award-winning content campaign and is well-deserving of this year’s Grand Prix award.”

Alex Delamain, President of the World Media Group and SVP Global Client Partner at The Economist said, “As the World Media Awards celebrates its fifth year, the bar has been raised yet again. Not only did we have a record number of entries from all over the world – up by 100 percent on last year – the quality of the shortlisted campaigns was exceptionally high. Creating authentic content through creative storytelling that crosses multiple platforms and borders is at the heart of what the World Media Group does. In my second year as President, I have been surprised and delighted by the fresh perspectives and new approaches in content marketing; I’m excited that the WMG is able to highlight and celebrate this great work.”

A panel of 30 senior jurors from leading international advertisers, agencies and publishers co-chaired by Woermann and Josh Krichefski, CEO, EMEA at Mediacom, were tasked with selecting the eight category winners and the Grand Prix winner from the many global submissions. The full list of judges can be seen here.

For more information on the World Media Awards and to see the winning entries in fullvisit: http://sandbox.world-media-group.com/2020-winners/

 The winners of the World Media Awards 2020, along with comments from the judges, are as follows: 

Automotive

Winner –Volkswagen: For the Many, Not the Few – The ID.3
Entered by: PHD Global Business
Credits: DDB Berlin

“This campaign provided a great solution around the democratisation of new electronic vehicle technology to make the Volkswagen ID.3 synonymous with e-mobility.”

Brand & Media Owner Partnership

Winner – Samsung: TV is Making History Again
Entered by: Starcom
Credits: CNN, Leo Burnett, Adam & Eve/DDB

“If you’re going to do a media partnership, this is the way you do it! This immersive experience into space showed how you could bring out the product benefits of technology by using a really visual entity.”

Highly Commended – Astana International Financial Centre: My Kazakhstan
Entered by: Astana International Financial Centre
Credits: Bloomberg Media, Bloomberg Media Studios

“A well-considered media partnership that made fantastic use of Bloomberg’s content bringing to life the entrepreneurial spirit of Kazakhstan through storytelling.”

Corporate Influencer

Winner –Tech Mahindra: In the Future
Entered by: The Trust: The Wall Street Journal | Barron’s Group

“A well-adapted, creative and focused campaign that drove real business results.”

Highly Commended – Shell: The Great Travel Hack
Entered by: Mediacom
Credits: Vayner Media, Wunderman Thompson, Edelman, UEG Worldwide

“A very engaging campaign with a brave creative approach.”

Financial Services

Winner – Astana International Financial Centre: My Kazakhstan
Entered by: Astana International Financial Centre
Credits: Bloomberg Media, Bloomberg Media Studios

“This ambitious ‘country rebrand’ demonstrated some beautiful character profiles that brought to life the entrepreneurial spirit of Kazakhstan. It successfully presented a country that, as an investor, you’d want to back, and achieved impressive business results.”

Highly Commended – UBS: Are You Investing in What Matters to You?
Entered by: Spark Foundry
Credits: The New York Times, T Brand Studio

“This excellent multimedia story with a personalised CTA challenged readers to think about sustainable investments and learn more about how they could make a difference with their portfolio.”

Luxury, lifestyle &Fashion

Winner – Levi’s: What Does Performance Mean to You?
Entered by:OMD EMEA
Credits: TCO London (Huck Mag)

“This partnership redefined masculinity for a brand that’s synonymous with dusty pick-ups and ruggedness, prioritised storytelling over product and delivered significant bottom line uplift.”

Highly Commended – Essity: Viva La Vulva
Entered by: Zenith
Credits: Poke, AMV BBDO, Ketchum

“One of those campaigns that is likely to be written into media folklore for many years to come. It tackled a very delicate topic with respect and humour to effect real cultural change.” 

Media & Entertainment

Winner –Electronic Arts: FIFA20 Play Wrong
Entered by:m/SIX
Credits: Copa90

“A brave and fresh approach to the category. Strong storytelling with authentic content that also had local resonance, and a partnership that played out well across all of the creative concept.”

Technology & Telecommunications

Winner& Grand Prix Winner –Sonos: Brilliant Sound at Intersections of Culture and Cool
Entered by: Vizeum & 360i, Dentsu Group
Credits: ACAST, Amazon, WeTransfer, Anomaly

“The campaign leveraged smart insights into the audience and their passion for their subjects. It combined OOH in cities around the world with great digital, podcasts and innovative Amazon placements, resulting in a really well-integrated campaign.”

Travel & Tourism

Winner –Tourism Australia: From Country to Company
Entered by: UM Australia

“This campaign was developed from having genuine empathy for the needs of their target audience and demonstrated a fantastic use of partnerships.”

Highly Commended – Narok County Government: Moments of Wonder
Entered by: Reuters Plus

“A stunning campaign that really brought the beauty of the country to life.”

CONTENT LEADERSHIP & INNOVATION

This award is for the individual recognised by peers for their talent in creating exemplary content-driven campaigns with brand bravery, creativity and innovation.

Winner – Johan Jervoe, Chief Marketing Officer, UBS

 #ENDS#

Media contact: Charlotte Panther, M: 07834431206, E: charlottepantherpr@gmail.com

*About The World Media Group
The World Media Group is a strategic alliance of leading international media organisations that connects brands with highly engaged, influential audiences in the context of trusted and renowned journalism. Its members include The Atlantic, BBC Global News, Bloomberg Media Group, Business Insider, The Economist, The Financial Times, Forbes, Fortune, National Geographic, Reuters, The New York Times Company, Time, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and associate members: Moat and The Smithsonian.

 

Moat Analysis shows Trusted Media continues to deliver increased engagement and viewability for advertisers during Covid-19

New analysis released today by the World Media Group (WMG), a strategic alliance of the world’s premium media brands, confirms that advertising campaigns viewed within a trusted editorial environment are yielding significantly better results for attention and viewability than the industry standard.

Analysis from Moat by Oracle Data Cloud shows that premium digital inventory running across WMG’s brands in Q1 2020 outperformed Moat’s benchmarks for that same period by up to 73%, as further detailed below.

The analysis measured the quality of engagement delivered by WMG brands across Display Desktop, Mobile Web and Video Desktop during 1st January 2020 – 31st March 2020.

Display Desktop: Display ads viewed on desktop across WMG inventory achieved an Active Page Dwell Time of 68 seconds, 35% higher than the industry average according to Moat’s benchmark for Q1 2020. Engagement exceeded Moat’s benchmark for the same period by 73% with an average In-View Time of 50 seconds.

Mobile Display: WMG inventory also performed well on mobile encouraging 10% more interactions (Universal Touch Rate) than Moat’s benchmark. Active Page Dwell Time was 47 seconds, 13% higher than the benchmark for mobile. Engagement exceeded Moat’s benchmarks for the same period by 56%, with an average In-View Time of 26 seconds.

Video Desktop*: Desktop videos viewed across WMG inventory achieved 15% above Moat’s benchmarks for engagement based on In-View Time. Consumer attention to videos was also strong, with Audible and Visible Complete Rates coming in 56% higher than the Moat Q1 2020 benchmarks, and the Human Audible & Fully On-Screen for Half of Duration Rate (with a 15 second cap) 35% higher than the Moat benchmarks for the same period.

“The Moat data covers the first quarter of the year when we were starting to learn more about the global impact of COVID-19,” said Damian Douglas, Managing Director EMEA, Time and Vice President of the World Media Group. “We know that titles in the World Media Group’s portfolio experienced an increase in both user numbers and engagement during this time as consumers looked for content from trusted editorial sources. Moat’s analysis confirms that high levels of engagement were also attained in advertising across WMG titles, demonstrating once again that audiences are more responsive to advertising when it’s presented within a high quality editorial environment.”

The Moat data is based on analysing desktop, mobile and video advertising campaigns running in Q1 2020 across the following WMG brands: The Atlantic, Bloomberg Media Group, The Economist, Forbes, Fortune, National Geographic, Reuters, TIME, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.

The results from the Moat analysis are as follows:

 

Measure/Benchmark World Media Group Lift compared to Moat Q1 2020 Benchmarks
Display Desktop Active Page Dwell Time (secs) 68s +35%
Display Desktop In-view Time (secs) 50s +73%
Mobile Web Universal Touch Rate 13% +10%
Mobile Web Active Page Dwell Time (secs) 47s +13%
Mobile Web In-View Time (secs) 26s +56%
Video Desktop In-View Time 19s +15%*
Video Desktop Audible and Visible Complete Rate 36% +56%*
Human Audible and Fully On-screen for Half of Duration Rate 37% +35%*


*Desktop video numbers are based on nine WMG publishers that had video inventory monitored by Moat during Q1 2020 and therefore represent a smaller sample than on the other platforms.

About Oracle Data Cloud
Oracle Data Cloud helps marketers use data to capture consumer attention and drive results. Used by 199 of AdAge’s 200 largest advertisers, our Audience, Context and Measurement solutions extend across the top media platforms and a global footprint of more than 100 countries. We give marketers the data and tools needed to help them in every stage of the marketing journey, from audience planning to pre-bid brand safety, contextual relevance, viewability confirmation, fraud protection, and ROI measurement. Oracle Data Cloud combines the leading technologies and talent from Oracle’s acquisitions of AddThis, BlueKai, Crosswise, Datalogix, Grapeshot, and Moat.

About Oracle
The Oracle Cloud offers a complete suite of integrated applications for Sales, Service, Marketing, Human Resources, Finance, Supply Chain and Manufacturing, plus Highly Automated and Secure Generation 2 Infrastructure featuring the Oracle Autonomous Database. For more information about Oracle (NYSE: ORCL), please visit us at www.oracle.com.

Trademarks
Moat is a registered trademark of Moat Inc. (an Oracle affiliate). Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Why content marketers must look beyond traditional KPIs

When audiences are likely to judge a campaign based on factors such as interest, tone, integrity, accuracy, relevance and credibility when deciding whether to engage or not, are traditional KPIs such as ‘engagement’ and ‘time spent with content’ still relevant?  Alex Delamain, President of the World Media Group and SVP, Head of Client Services, EMEA at The Economist highlights this important subject.

To read this article published in MediaSector please click HERE

Key Take Outs: Rebooting your brand/business in the post Covid-19 world

Rebooting your brand / business in the post Covid-19 world

As businesses plan for life after Covid-19, a crisis with no precedent, how do they approach a world challenged by economic recovery? That was the topic posed to a panel of four industry experts today in the World Media Group’s third webinar, hosted by Damian Douglas, Managing Director EMEA, Time.

Douglas framed the conversation by looking at where we are in the news cycle and the financial markets. While both suggest we are in recovery mode, the situation is still fragile. The crises of recent memory (the dot.com bubble 2001, the financial crisis 2008) were economic in origin, and neither led to mortality or unemployment on such a significant scale, which adds another layer of complexity. When previous playbooks and recovery strategies can only be indicative, how can businesses build or rebuild brand equity through a period of huge disruption?

Douglas began by asking Louisa Loran, Vice President at Maersk responsible for the company’s brand communications strategy, how the logistics firm, which is instrumental to the global supply chain, had handled the Covid-19 crisis.

Strong customer focus

Loran explained that when she joined Maersk, her challenge was to understand how an asset-driven company could become more customer focused as part of its digital transformation. The decision to become customer-centric proved its worth, firstly a few years ago when they had a cyber-attack and now during Covid-19. “It’s the ability to understand your customers and put together value propositions and solutions to match their needs that enables you to be successful,” she said. “So Covid has been business management for us, not crisis management.”

Gordana Buccisano, EVP Global Client Transformation, Havas Group, who works directly with Loran on the Maersk business, agreed. She said her role had not changed through the crisis – she was still focussed on both long-term brand positioning objectives and short-term commercial objectives supporting Maersk’s digital transformation. “Covid or not, what matters is having the agile mindset to be able to adjust,” she said.

Authenticity is still key

Douglas then turned to David Wheldon, Vice President at WFA and the former Chief Communications and Marketing Officer for RBS, to ask what we should be looking for in brand behaviours, and how brands could build consumer preference, particularly against challenging economics. The key is authenticity, Wheldon said, and “a brand, knowing what it is and what it does, and doing it in the right way, with the right tone.”

Referencing Wheldon’s time at RBS, Douglas asked what the sentiment around that brand was when he joined in 2015, following the damage to its reputation in the 2008 financial crisis. Wheldon described RBS as the “least trusted brand in the least trusted sector.” His first job was to take an honest look at what RBS was: “A failed attempt at building a global brand.”

He discovered that the Royal Bank of Scotland brand – what customers who banked there called it – wasn’t as damaged. A brand strategy separating out the consumer facing brands, focusing on its customers and telling them the truth led to the bank’s recovery.

Authenticity and value are an important part of Maersk’s new brand strategy. “In the past, Maersk had a perception of being reliable,” Loran said, but they needed a different strategy to grow the brand. “We landed on being trusted, open and brave,” she said. Instead of saying, “We’ll tell you exactly when the vessel will be there,” it allowed them to say, “You can trust us to find the right solution for you.”

Loran believes that being brave is also about being honest and taking responsibility for what you can solve. “There are certain things we do with the strongest belief that they’re the right things, but we also admit our failures when they happen,” she said.

Consumer confidence on the rise

With consumer confidence playing an essential role in how well brands perform, Douglas asked Phillipa Leighton-Jones, Editor At Large – The Trust – The Wall Street Journal | Barron’s Group, to talk about its consumer confidence reports and what they meant for brand behaviour.

Leighton-Jones described The Wall Street Journal | Barron’s Group as a bellwether of what the C-suite is thinking. “These are the decision-makers who will be shaping the economy of the future in many respects,” Leighton-Jones said. “And when you’ve got marketers who are fighting hard for every dollar of discretionary spending, you need to make sure that they know what kind of environment they’re talking in and what kind of conversations they need to be having.”

So what are the decision makers thinking? According to Leighton-Jones more than half of the1000 respondents surveyed across The Wall Street Journal | Barron’s Group expect the economy to get better in the next three months, a 22 percentage point gain from mid-March. They also anticipate an increase in expenditure on personal goods and travel, she said.

Less twaddle, more focus

With that in mind, Douglas asked Wheldon if it was safe for brands to revert back to type and start entertaining us again after months of being circumspect.

“I think people have had enough of ‘we’re all in this together, with you every step of the way’ type communication,” Wheldon said, adding that some of the brands doing it looked “pretty inauthentic” and there was a lot of “twaddle” around. He praised KFC for really understanding their market. While they were closed, the fast food provider encouraged customers to make their own KFC at home and post their attempts on social media, then responded with “relatively insulting” comments about people’s efforts. It went down well because “they understood their audience, got the tone right, and were sensitive to what was happening,” Wheldon said.

Relieving Customer Pain Points

Returning to The Wall Street Journal | Barron’s Group’s Leighton-Jones, Douglas asked how publishers could capitalise on what has been a period of growth, with increased audiences and engagement. “People are looking for brands to talk to them,” she said. “Not necessarily to sell to them, but to demonstrate some value and leadership. It’s always going to be about putting the customer first, and thinking deeply not about what products or services you want to sell them, but how you can solve their pain points.” Demonstrating what she called “edifying utility”, allowed businesses to tell “brave brand stories that are authentic, and that show your leadership,” she said.

How far to plan ahead

Picking up a theme from audience members, Douglas’s final question was how far should brands plan ahead when everything is changing so frequently.

Based on his conversations with CMOs, Wheldon said, “On the whole, it’s a 30 day rolling plan with the 90 day horizon, and financially that kind of works for most people. Because beyond that, how would you know? So zoom in tight on 30 days, and be flexible and pragmatic.”

Loran said Maersk will continue to operate on many levels, optimising on short-term weekly cycles, evaluating their value proposition communications three months out, and planning ahead much further – three to five or even eight years – for their brand architecture and repositioning. What won’t change, she said, is their brand vision “to connect and simplify our customer supply chain,” which is not an overnight turn.

Be bold and brave

Douglas wrapped up the webinar by revealing the results of an audience member poll asking how optimistic they were that the advertising industry would bounce back before the end of 2020. The results, he said, were fairly evenly split (35% optimistic, 42% pessimistic and 23% unsure), reflecting where we are right now with the ever-changing news cycle.

Finishing on a positive note, he pointed out that brands and businesses had “everything to play for” and this was an opportunity to be brave as we navigate clients and businesses through a period that no-one’s experienced before. “As humans we will make mistakes,” he said, “But ultimately, I think we’ll get judged on motive and generosity.”

Should anyone wish to hear more about the Consumer Confidence study Phillipa Leighton-Jones mentioned, please do get in touch with phillipa.jones@wsj.com

3rd webinar: Rebooting your brand/business in the post COVID-19 world

A really fascinating webinar took place today by The World Media Group.  Our highly esteemed panel held a thought-provoking discussion about how you build/rebuild brand equity through a period of significant disruption.

The panel concluded that to survive the post COVID-19 world brands need to be authentic, meaningful and add value.  The customer has to be the key focus.  The quote of the session was:

“Less Twaddle more focus” David Wheldon

“Connect and simplify” Louisa Loran

Trust continues to grow in importance and brands need to recognise you have to earn this – so doing the “right” thing is vital.

Communication is paramount and brands are encouraged to be bold, but must strike a balance using the right tone.

Data is also the gold thread in strategy but the human interpretation is paramount.

Full key takeouts will follow but in the meantime, if you missed the webinar today please click HERE to watch this really insightful panel discussion.

Key Take Outs: Editors’ Perspectives: How global leaders are responding to the COVID-19 crisis

World Media Group Editors’ Perspectives: How Global Leaders are responding to Covid-19 – Key Take Outs

Five months after the first cases of Covid-19 were reported, there is hope that much of Europe, along with Asia, has passed the peak of infections. But with global leaders responding differently to the crisis, there are discrepancies about what’s being measured, whether we can compare countries, and what we should to do next. The World Media Group invited a panel of journalists, reporters and analysts from six leading international news outlets to shed some light based on their own experiences of reporting on Covid-19.

The panel was chaired by Arif Durrani, Executive Editor, EMEA, for Bloomberg Media Studios. In his opening question, Durrani asked how outlets had covered the virus and what they had learnt as a result.

“What we’ve learnt is to expect the unexpected,” said Adrienne Carter, Asia Editor for The New York Times, based in Hong Kong. “Everything we think is true…is always countered by a different narrative. Everything changes from moment to moment.”

The value of imperfect data

For Alan Smith (OBE), Head of Visual and Data Journalism at the Financial Times, it has been the realisation “that imperfect, uncertain data has never been more valuable.” The crisis has elevated the importance of data and analysis to the news agenda, he said, as “it’s almost impossible to make sense of the situation without using data.”

With the deluge of information since the pandemic was declared, Durrani asked how the panel prioritised what to cover, and how they were tracking what was resonating with their audiences.

Aria Bendix, Senior Reporter at Business Insider USA, based in New York City, who was the first BI reporter assigned to cover Covid-19, explained that Business Insider had always relied on data from their community to determine the focus of stories. She said the “unending stream of interest in the virus” over the past three or four months had led to a greater need for service journalism. Readers have “really simple questions that actually don’t have simple answers in this time,” she said. “And I think that our mission is to satisfy that information first and foremost.”

Smith agreed with the need for service journalism. He said the Financial Times had made much of its Coronavirus coverage free to allow people to keep up with a story that was constantly changing.

Durrani turned to Ishaan Tharoor, Today’s Worldview Columnist at The Washington Post, to understand how he decides what to write about. Although he is based in DC, Tharoor explained that his role was to provide “a more global story and craft and, in many ways, try to hold up examples elsewhere in the world to the American conversation.”

That means drawing comparisons, for example, in showing how South Korea can offer certain lessons to the US and also showing how the US could never emulate what South Korea did, he said. It’s about “recognising the political tendencies of certain types of leadership, leadership styles and how the pandemic is triggering non-health risks to democracies and republics elsewhere,” he said. “It’s about trying to stitch together a sense of where we’re going in this incredibly unpredictable, unprecedented time.”

On the ground challenges

Durrani asked about the challenges and developments in specific regions. Laura Bicker is the BBC Seoul news correspondent, based in South Korea, which has now crushed the curve of Covid-19. Bicker found herself running “into the fire” when Daegu became a hotspot. While she took advice from a high-risk safety team, the situation on the ground often played out differently and she found herself having to make difficult decisions for herself and her team about how close to the frontline they could safely get to tell the story that the readers or viewers needed to know.

Mindy Massucci, Head of Global Content, QuickTake by Bloomberg, based in New York, explained how she has tapped into Bloomberg’s network of journalists across 120 countries for on the ground reporting as the world gradually returns to ‘normal’. Whether she’s talking to a reporter in Berlin getting his first haircut in two months or receiving a photo of what social distancing looks like at one of the oldest shopping malls in Chile, these first-hand accounts demonstrate “what it’s like for life to slowly start creeping back,” she said.

How do we measure progress?

As our minds turn towards recovery, what sort of metrics should we be looking at? According to Business Insider’s Bendix, “Our primary responsibility as journalists is to contextualise this current moment for the public. Obviously, we won’t know where we are in history in the moment, but to provide some sort of educated guess about where we are in the trajectory of this pandemic.”

One of the problems, she said, is that when comparing regions or countries, we are not always comparing ‘like for like’, which can lead to false equivalences because there are “so many confounding factors, right now that can influence how an outbreak actually manifests within the population.”

That’s where a tool like the FT’s Coronavirus tracker comes into play. According to Smith, its “under the bonnet assessment” of different types of data sources reveals just how much you can rely on them to make comparisons – or not.

APAC as a barometer

Looking to the future, Durrani asked what lessons we can learn from countries such as Korea.

Echoing Bendix’s concerns, Bicker said that “it’s not ‘like for like’ so it’s very difficult to say that what’s worked here in South Korea will work in the UK or the United States.” That’s partly because Korea was prepared with testing, she said, so there was never a need for lockdown. The success of the strategy has also come at the cost of privacy, which wouldn’t have been deemed acceptable by other nations.

Carter believes there are lessons the US, UK and Italy could learn from South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. She talked about what’s known as ‘everyday life quarantine’ – infrastructure and a social culture that enforces social distancing and hygiene measures – to allow people to ease back into life without a treatment or a vaccine.

Massucci argued that the cultural difference in the US is too extreme for this. Referencing the current protests over mask-wearing, she said, “People, especially, in the United States, are so protective of their rights. They don’t like it when government comes in and tells them they can’t do something.”

Even once we’ve crushed the curve, Bicker believes it will take time to get back to normality. In South Korea, health officials are telling the public a second wave is inevitable, she says, giving an insight into what’s likely to come in the UK, US and Europe.

New levels of engagement reflect hunger for trusted news

Despite polls suggesting that trust in journalism is at an all-time low, engagement appears to be higher than ever. Bicker referenced BBC.com getting 40 million average daily visits in the first couple of weeks of April, and Smith said that the Coronavirus tracker was now the most viewed FT story by “many million page views.” According to Carter, The New York Times has “seen more interest in our journalism than ever before” and the pandemic has “reinforced the importance of on the ground reporting of trusted sources.”

It’s a reminder that in a situation where information can potentially save lives, there is no place for fake or inaccurate news. In the race to break a story, Bloomberg’s Massucci reiterated journalists’ responsibility to double check sources. “One of the things that I say to my team all the time, is I’d rather be late, last and right, than first and wrong.”

Belinda Barker, Director World Media Group

2nd Webinar – Editors’ Perspectives: How different parts of the world are responding to the pandemic and life beyond

A really interesting and thought-provoking webinar took place today by The World Media Group.  Our highly knowledgeable panel held a fascinating discussion about how different parts of the globe are all responding quite differently to the current pandemic climate.

Top quotes from today were “it’s better to be right, than first” and “it’s a crisis but it’s a crisis from which we’ll learn a great deal”.

Full takeouts will follow but in the meantime, if you missed the webinar today please click HERE to watch this really insightful panel discussion.

 

Cause and Effect: How global media brands can engage audiences for action around climate change

By Katya Ionova, Creative Director, UK & EMEA, Business Insider – Member of the World Media Group

With the COVID-19 pandemic presenting an existential threat to many areas of economic activity and human development, it’s no surprise to see governments worldwide prioritising economic recovery above all else. But as we mark the 50th anniversary of Earth Day today, let’s not forget another of our existential threats – climate emergency.

In late January, when COVID-19 was beginning its global assault, we were embracing the Decade of Action with a renewed commitment to sustainability at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Climate change and sustainability were the most discussed topics. For the first time, WEF’s Global Risk Report was dominated by the environment, with “failure of climate-change mitigation and adaption” cited as the year’s number one long-term risk, according to impact, and top second risk when measuring event likelihood.

Now, just three months later, we’re approaching Earth Day with 2.5M confirmed cases and 175K dead as a result of coronavirus. What may not be so apparent is the direct cause and effect relationship – both positive and negative – between these two existential threats. Global warming has been linked to an increase in diseases that could transfer from animal to human, and mass globalisation has facilitated the spread of such diseases. With more than a fifth of the global population under lockdown, however, COVID-19 could trigger the largest annual fall in CO2 emissions ever this year, due to interrupted energy demand and reduced economic activity.

In 2019, the “Greta effect” elevated climate change onto the global stage and into our collective consciousness. Now, COVID-19 has taken that a step further by enforcing behavioural change on a global level. As we prepare for life after COVID-19 – whatever the “new normal” may look like – we have a real opportunity to impact long-term change. As media organizations with global footprints, we have a responsibility to think about our own cause and effect: the critical issues we choose to cover, from pandemics to sustainability, have the potential to empower audiences into making meaningful and positive change.

At Business Insider that can be seen in our dedication to reporting on companies that balance profit with purpose. In 2018, our CEO and founder, Henry Blodget, issued a call for “better capitalism,” saying that sustainable economic growth comes from providing value for all stakeholders: employees, customers, and society. Since launching the Better Capitalism platform, sustainability has been a core editorial pillar of the company, with a focus on companies that deliver practical outcomes, not just PR hype.

We tell stories about the people and organisations working to solve our biggest problems. One of our most popular series was Saving Our World, a 2018 in-depth newsroom examination of how climate change is altering the way we eat, live, and power the world. This resonated deeply with our audience with engagement far surpassing our expectations.

In 2020, our focus is on the Circular Economy. Coinciding with the UN General Assembly in September, we’ll be launching Closing the Loop, a series about how corporations are operationalising closed-loop systems, and what it will take to make these practices widespread.

We’re not alone in our efforts. Many other World Media Group brands are dedicating more time and resources to ‘impact’ or ‘solutions’ journalism. The New York Times, for example, delivers a comprehensive weekly newsletter from its climate team with stories and insights about climate change, and tips on how to help.

The Washington Post launched Climate Solutions in partnership with Rolex last year, with a focus on individuals, companies, and other organisations that are exploring ways to address our most significant environmental problems. The series highlights people who are committed to reducing their own carbon footprints, and its Climate Curious feature provides readers with ideas for doing the same.

Last September, The Economist dedicated its weekly edition to climate change, with Editor-in-Chief, Zanny Minton Beddoes, saying, “Climate change is sometimes portrayed as something capitalism cannot deal with – or worse, does not want to deal with. That is not our view. Our reporting clearly shows the scale and scope of the problem; we accept that it cannot be solved simply; but we think free markets, smart regulation and liberal values are the key to an effective response.”

 The Economist continues to report regularly on climate change and produces a fortnightly newsletter featuring climate-change analysis. The Economist Films has produced three series of ‘The Protectors Oceans’, examining the science and radical thinking at work in tackling the crisis facing the world’s seas; and The Economist Group’s World Ocean Initiative (WOI) fosters a year-round global conversation on the greatest challenges facing the seas and the progress towards building a truly “blue” economy.

Bloomberg Media launched Bloomberg Green in January, a new editorial platform dedicated to the business, science, and technology of climate change. Focussing on climate change news, analysis and solutions, it includes a website with a global, interactive climate data dashboard, a daily email newsletter, a podcast and a magazine.

Finally, National Geographic has created its first ‘flip’ issue this April to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. The issue features two magazines in one, revisiting environmental milestones of the past half-century and looking ahead at the world our descendants will inhabit in 2070. The magazine presents two possible outcomes – firstly, a verdant green earth in which we have successfully reversed climate change; then a browner earth suffering from longer droughts, deadlier heat waves, fiercer storms, and more.

As we approach this year’s Earth Day, ask yourself, which outcome do you want to be responsible for creating?

The next few months will be key. As we search for the path towards the strongest possible economic recovery, media companies have a choice about the causes we continue to spotlight. The COVID-19 outbreak has given us a unique opportunity to heal the planet, but will we be prepared to socially distance ourselves from unsustainable business practices needed to flatten the curve of the persisting environmental crisis?