Content isn’t working, why don’t you give it a Creative push?

The 76% of global Marketers see Content as their No1 challenge. If you’re sticking with your content approach from three or five years ago, it’s now 50% less effective, less shared.

If you wait for a solution from your agency (without any brief and strategic direction from you!), you’ll continue failing below market average. In this new world of Content saturation and falling social shares, the big winners are sites that have built a strong reputation for original, authoritative content, or Brands that still push their Creative appreciation by audiences (wait, I don’t mean creativity for the sake of a strong ‘punch-line’, but true Brand positioning ideas…).

Of course, it was always the case of a bold Marketer to drive and approve such campaigns. Beware: social sharing of content has been cut in half since 2015; Google sites now drive twice as many referrals to publishers; Facebook changes have had a major impact on levels of engagement and the types of content that get shared. What will you do for your Brand in the long-run?

At least make your Content interactive!

If you’re not investing in campaigns that create your brand experiences’ leadership “effect”, at least work more (yourself and your agency) in more interactive (yes, two-ways) content that captures attention and enhances audience experiences:

• This 360-degree video of HBO’s Game of Thrones, an instant hit on Facebook
• The team behind Martha Stewart Living integrated Rich Pins on Pinterest int their strategy
• This Twitter poll conducted by Taco Bell for market research
• Toms #withoutshoes campaign on Instagram, aimed at giving 100,000 new pairs of shoes to children in 10 nations
• The huge global viral “ALS Ice Bucket Challenge” (here’s with Ericsson former CEO)!

Some good practices and examples

For PR & Ad agencies, anything and everything that a Brand posts (share-worthy) on social media are promotional material:

• Content on Twitter (posts, polls, videos, GIFs, quotes, mentions)
• Facebook and Instagram hashtags and participating in discussions on Facebook, Instagram, Quora, Reddit etc.
• Best-case of GE. The social media-savvy company launched #Droneweek. The campaign used Periscope and allowed viewers to get a drone’s eye view of the firm’s facilities (exclusive and surprising)
• Best-case of Toyota Prius Goes Plural campaign. Toyota created a fake controversy by sparking off a debate over the plural of the word Prius and promoted the campaign on different channels by creating a video, promoting Tweets and opting for target audience outreach on Facebook. This got a lot of people interested in the campaign, who participated in the debate excitedly. Needless to say, there were shares, mentions and increased traffic on their website.
• Use social videos more
• Learn more and think as an analogy the Elon Musk’s PR stunt SpaceX project
• Get the stimulus out of “Oprah for President” for when you want to position a public persona or an issue

Digital channels and tools at the hands of Digital, ad, and PR industries will continue to evolve with the growth of the internet. But it’s upon them and their Talent if they will activate and support Brands in unique ways. Strategic, Creative, Long-term experiential and engaging for audiences

Closing

We come to the same conclusion: Marketers, agencies, industry groups have to rediscover the essentials of building Brands. Not tactical ‘stunts’. Not promotional panic. Not ‘one-off’ nice-to-have thing, but long-term activations.

But that takes the right Client, the right Brief, the competent Creative, the open-to-try-new-thing audience. For the time being, I’m on the impression that we have only the last parameter …the audience waiting for something good.