Content marketing
A quirky experiment proves the value of story-drive content
- By Ryan BIGGE | Strategy September 14th, 2012
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How much is a $3 ashtray purchased at a yard sale worth? Trick question. What if the same ashtray is sold on eBay but includes a short story by William Gibson? Then it’s worth $101.
Still don’t believe in the alchemistic powers of a great story? Then you need to read Significant Objects, a new book that details a quirky literary experiment that set out to prove that “stories are such a powerful driver of emotional value that their effect on any given object’s subjective value can actually be measured objectively.” And as coauthors Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker discovered, whether a famous author or an up-and-comer wrote the story didn’t matter.
By the end of the experiment, they had sold $128.74 worth of insignificant objects for a combined total of $3,612.51.
Once Upon a Newsletter
Although Significant Objects is a fun reminder of the value of fiction, that doesn’t mean you should turn over your newsletter campaign to the staff of the Paris Review. But anyone looking for a reminder of simple but effective storytelling can learn a few lessons from the makers of the Pebble smartwatch.As part of my Kickstarter pledge for Pebble, I now receive regular updates via email. And although the emails are occasionally long and geekish, I’ve been impressed at how the Pebble founders are able to tell a natural and compelling story about their watch in progress.
A recent update promised, “We’re looking forward to sharing all kinds of cool things with you during the next few months, including updates from the factory, links to developer information [and] screenshots of the iOS and Android app as they take shape.” It’s a birth narrative, except for a watch instead of baby. The updates even contain some narrative tension—how soon will Pebble be able to ship watches to eager backers who were promised a September deadline?
Even though I’ve already paid for the watch, this behind-the-scenes tour is increasing Pebble’s perceived value by making me emotionally invested in its development. This process is almost identical to the literary experiment that Significant Objects conducted, except that Pebble is telling a nonfiction story.
As a bonus, by the time Pebble’s founders are ready to sell their watches to the general public, they will have generated a rich, coherent product and brand story via their updates.
Telling Stories for Fun (Not Profit)
As the intro of Significant Objects notes, the experiment proves “the value-adding power of narrative.” But not every brand or product story should have a monomaniacal focus on selling customers something. As Significant Objects coauthor Rob Walker recently noted on DesignObserver.com, telling a good tale is more than just a tool or tactic: “A good story is not a means to an end. It’s an end. It’s a thing of value, all on its own.”That lesson is especially critical for consumer brands that use a content-marketing approach for their social media campaigns. Last year’s series of Coca-Cola Content 2020 videos illustrated (literally) a multiyear commitment to dynamic storytelling. The goal, according to Jonathan Mildenhall, vice-president of global advertising strategy and creative excellence at Coca-Cola, is that “every contact point with a customer should tell an emotional story.”
Does that mean every one of Coke’s stories will end in a call to action? Hopefully, not. Will every story link back in some way to the overall Coke narrative? Hopefully, yes.
Raiders of the Lost Story Arc
The goal, then, is to map out the long-term story that your company or brand is planning to tell. HBO shows are particularly good at doing so. Each season of The Wire focused on a particular institution (civic politics, the school system, print journalism) while the show itself told a five-season story about Baltimore’s ongoing attempts to deal with a rampant drug problem.As you can imagine, such an approach requires a substantial amount of up-front thought and planning. But once you determine your brand arc, you can much more easily ensure that every piece of content you develop—newsletters, videos, tweets, or Facebook posts—is contributing to your overall story, one image, video, or sentence at a time.
Once Upon and Once Upon Again
We have no shortage of blog posts and books that remind us how humans are natural storytellers. Joan Didion, a master of the literary essay, called one of her nonfiction collections We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live.But traditional marketing approaches and templates, such as the lifeless press release, either push story to the margins or eliminate it altogether. To overcome the constraints of tradition, you’ll need to encourage all of your employees to practice storytelling on a regular basis. Here are four easy ways to practice your gather-’round-the-campfire skills:
- Brainstorm a new marketing campaign by starting with the phrase “Once upon a time…” and conclude with “and so customers lived happily ever after.” You’ll be pleasantly surprised at the story you end up creating.
- Write a letter to a friend about your product, service, or brand. The letter format encourages a more natural narrative and eliminates buzzwords.
- Distill your marketing story down to 140 characters. All strong stories can be condensed to a single sentence. Stuck? Start by creating a message map.
- Create an Aesop’s Fable that uses your brand or product as the protagonist. Don’t forget to include a moral.
The Never-Ending Story
Getting into the storytelling habit takes practice. But unlike the authors in Significant Objects, who had to work their magic on old wine glasses, mallets, pink plastic horses, and a penguin dairy creamer, you’ll be starting with a real product or service that offers inherent value, which greatly increases the chances of a happily ever after.
This article was originally published on MarketingProfs on September 6th.Tags: Content, Content marketing, Customer Behaviour, Positioning, Sales, Strategy, Value Propositions
Advertising vs. Content marketing
- By Laura CHAMBERS | Social, Strategy February 23rd, 2012
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Source: Buddy MediaQuick question – what’s the difference between advertising and content marketing?
According to Wikipedia:
- Advertising is a form of communication used to encourage or persuade an audience to continue or take some new action… the desired result is to drive consumer behaviour with respect to a commercial offering.
- Content marketing - an umbrella term encompassing all marketing formats that involve the creation and sharing of content in order to engage current and potential consumer bases.
At all of the events I attended during Social Media Week, there seemed to be a growing divide between those on team advertising and those on team content. It’s an important discussion, and one that should be had by any organization that wants to remain relevant to today’s Internet users. The ‘average’ web user in 2012 is technologically savvy, resourceful and unwilling to like or follow something for the sake of winning a contest. Their loyalty is conditional – they want to be engaged and included in discussions about the things that matter to them.
From the advertiser’s perspective, this new breed of Internet users calls for an emphasis on social design. Social experiences will be put first and foremost in campaigns, with complete digital integration being a must. After all, in order to succeed, marketers need to be where their target consumer is, and that person is online.
For content creators, instead, this is a call for more authenticity. Quality content is the stuff that talks with consumers and not just at them; it’s the stuff that doesn’t have to go viral to be considered successful because it will continue to resonate with its audience more than any cat video ever will. For companies serious about putting fans first, the focus should be on generating interest-centred content that will spur user engagement and build credibility (à la Red Bull – they recently made Fast Company’s 50 Most Innovative Companies list) as opposed to advertiser’s brand-centred content.
Tags: 50 Most Innovative Companies, Advertising, Content marketing, Content Strategy, Facebook, Fast Company, Red Bull, Red Bull Media House, SMW, smwTO, Social Media, Social Media Management, Social Media Week, Social Media Week Toronto, Twitter
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