The Ever Changing Face of Content and its Creators

There's nothing new about the impact influencers can have on a brand and their products, but are we reaching a tipping point whereby they can truly displace the traditional media players from "ad budget feasts" at today's CMO's table? 

Many brands have been building better relationships with these influencers over the years and lots of "content creator" aggregators have popped up offering the services of these influencers. But it's become an increasingly challenging endeavor by brands to truly leverage this emerging talent pool whilst staying on the right side of editorial impartiality - not to mention the FTC.

Yes, it's happened. As influencers and content creators grow in importance, savvy brands are looking to squeeze value from them and flood them with calls from their PR and social team. So, how do these new social super-players transition into a fully commercial enterprise?

There's a couple of paths to monetizing their audience and adding value already in play. First, and probably the most common, is to use the audience size and traffic to their channel, blog or site by running ads in front of their content (YouTube ads, display ads or even solus email broadcasts to their database) and the second option is to co-create content with brands looking to leverage their creativity, editorial skills and POV. The latter is certainly more desirable for brands and certainly feels more native. However, it comes with big juicy FTC asterix for both the creator as well as the brand. FTC guidelines are being shaped constantly in this fast moving and volatile space based on emerging case studies. This makes it extremely difficult for brands to stay on the right side of the law, whilst also achieving their objectives.

But it's definitely worth the effort and brands should continue down this path of co-creation. Some of the best (and most impactful) pieces of content out there aren't carefully crafted by the typical publishers, but are in fact produced by the nimble and the creative who manage to find the sweet spot between timing, context and an interesting POV.

In the golf space (my playground), there's one guy in the UK who's carved out a nice little enterprise by offering real, informative and authentic content to golfers around the world. His name is Mark Crossfield and his YouTube channel Ask Golf Guru has over 130k subscribers. He's transformed himself from a PGA professional teaching and selling golf equipment into a global influencer and respected voice on the performance and comparison of golf equipment for the everyday golfer. He's quirky, interesting and entertaining (expertly finding the sweet spot I mentioned earlier) and even has a catchphrase - "Let's get stuck in!" - you know you've made it when you have your own catchphrase right?

My point here is that anyone, anywhere and at anytime can create compelling content by being creative and using the plethora of free tools, distribution platforms and endless opportunity that the internet and connected devices provide. The audience is there and is hungry for engaging and entertaining content.

It's hugely exciting to work in this ever changing landscape of content and its creators, and brands will only truly succeed in navigating the space by putting the consumer first and delivering real value.

Breaking Ads

Is 2015 going to be the year of convergence in the digital advertising, social and content worlds?...the year where we break traditional digital ad behavior?

The battle for audience and traffic is as strong as ever and the CMO has some challenging times ahead. The rules of engagement (no pun intended) are forever changing and whilst the notion of paid, owned and earned has been clear in the past, does it really matter now? It's all one now...right? It's just "blended content".

The walls between ads and content are coming down...and native advertising coupled with content discovery networks are leading the charge with the hammers in their hands.

The consumer doesn't care where they first saw the product, the campaign, the message or the content...or who published it...all they care about is - is it interesting? is it resonating with me? and is it engaging me and driving me to learn more?

Let's examine some of the evidence. Standard display ads are dead. Nobody is clicking on banners, especially on mobile (if they do, it was probably a fat-finger or a bot). Plus, are media impressions and SOV (we're outspending our competitors, so we must be doing the right thing) really viable metrics in today's world when it's all about engagement and tangible ROI? There are some pertinent questions you should be asking yourself - how much wastage is there in CPM? is my video 100% viewable? do 30 sec pre-rolls do more harm than good?...and so on. Just put yourself in the shoes of your consumers - "would I like to be marketed to in this way?"

Don't get me wrong, there's a time and a place for ads...but just be smarter this year, challenge your media agency for other options and ask for real-time analytics or more frequent campaign reviews. If you wait until the campaign has finished, then...well...I'm afraid the ship has already sailed.

Consumers are savvy. They are savv-ier (I know that's not a word, but stay with me here) then ever before. "Stop selling me features & benefits" we hear them cry..."lead me to the great experience and the value and loyalty will follow". It's not rocket science. But we're impatient as marketers and slip into the old behaviors too easily. Executing a great creative campaign, with a mediocre media strategy that drives 1% sales/market share growth is much easier, than it is to be brave and change consumer emotions, feelings toward the brand and an overall better lifetime value.

Do some research, get insights, ask your consumers. Stop having "one night stands" with your consumers. You owe it to yourself, your CMO and even your CFO - who may even buy you a beer at the end of the year! But most of all, you owe it to your consumers, who just want to have a better relationship and experience with your brand.