Brands as Publishers
Marketers are an uneasy lot now. The traditional Marketing Mix everyone is used to is expanding. The 4 P’s extended to become 7, and now with the rise of digital media there is an eighth P – Publisher.
Till about few year back, creating content for the brand was limited to the communication (advertising), product information (brochures, etc) and some PR (which was company’s POV or related to events etc). Even during the early days of the Internet, content was just an adaptation of the traditional medium – be it in form of mailers, website, or advertising communication.
Today however, Internet is a sum of Content + Conversation. Every second, millions of content (text, images, videos, games, etc) and conversations are created, shared, and consumed. The platforms could range from websites, widgets, emails, blogs, to social networking sites. While most content and conversations might not be relevant, but to its creator and a few people within their network, still a vast portion of content and conversations impacts a brand.
Brand, as we know, is a perception that customers have in their mind associated with the product/company. Be it the physical attributes like the symbol, the name, the slogan or the psychological attributes like attitude, belief, feelings that build the perception. It is a misnomer that the marketers controlled their brand. It was just that they had the rights over the brand, but never the control. The brand was always in the minds of the customer, and since before Internet, the platform to voice their minds was limited or was very expensive – it usually remained unheard.
To maintain the perception it has become crucial for marketers to create content and conversations in the digital space. Since the existing brand content is limited, creating new and fresh content every day becomes a challenge. A brand needs to live everyday and should have a story to tell regularly. This thought of the continuous need to have brand content to tell and share is what that makes marketers uneasy.
In his golden rule, John Battelle says, Brands have to be publishers. To be relevant and to keep the perception alive in this digital age, brands need to focus not just on communication – but also be active conversationalist. Say for example, a brand is associated with ‘active life and sports’ it is but natural that the brand presence is seen at places where there is content on sports, and not only that the brand also keeps the faith by having content related to sports and active life but also join such conversations.
As the net expands rapidly with more and more content & conversations, brands need to keep up the pace of creating its own set of content and joining the conversations so as not get lost in the sea of data that is being generated. This is only possible if brands think and act like publishers
As a publisher the brands needs to:
- Have engaging brand stories to tell regularly
- Reinforce the perception through associated content
- Build content through the conversations
The days of telling the brand story in a ‘30 sec packaged container’ are over. This is an era of the stories having relevancy and longevity. The impact of the same in the near future is that marketers and their partners (read: ad agencies) would need change from just being curator (of the brand) to becoming creator (of brand content)
Cheers
Santosh
Reference link: http://battellemedia.com/archives/2011/11/brands-as-publishers.php
Till about few year back, creating content for the brand was limited to the communication (advertising), product information (brochures, etc) and some PR (which was company’s POV or related to events etc). Even during the early days of the Internet, content was just an adaptation of the traditional medium – be it in form of mailers, website, or advertising communication.
Today however, Internet is a sum of Content + Conversation. Every second, millions of content (text, images, videos, games, etc) and conversations are created, shared, and consumed. The platforms could range from websites, widgets, emails, blogs, to social networking sites. While most content and conversations might not be relevant, but to its creator and a few people within their network, still a vast portion of content and conversations impacts a brand.
Brand, as we know, is a perception that customers have in their mind associated with the product/company. Be it the physical attributes like the symbol, the name, the slogan or the psychological attributes like attitude, belief, feelings that build the perception. It is a misnomer that the marketers controlled their brand. It was just that they had the rights over the brand, but never the control. The brand was always in the minds of the customer, and since before Internet, the platform to voice their minds was limited or was very expensive – it usually remained unheard.
To maintain the perception it has become crucial for marketers to create content and conversations in the digital space. Since the existing brand content is limited, creating new and fresh content every day becomes a challenge. A brand needs to live everyday and should have a story to tell regularly. This thought of the continuous need to have brand content to tell and share is what that makes marketers uneasy.
In his golden rule, John Battelle says, Brands have to be publishers. To be relevant and to keep the perception alive in this digital age, brands need to focus not just on communication – but also be active conversationalist. Say for example, a brand is associated with ‘active life and sports’ it is but natural that the brand presence is seen at places where there is content on sports, and not only that the brand also keeps the faith by having content related to sports and active life but also join such conversations.
As the net expands rapidly with more and more content & conversations, brands need to keep up the pace of creating its own set of content and joining the conversations so as not get lost in the sea of data that is being generated. This is only possible if brands think and act like publishers
As a publisher the brands needs to:
- Have engaging brand stories to tell regularly
- Reinforce the perception through associated content
- Build content through the conversations
The days of telling the brand story in a ‘30 sec packaged container’ are over. This is an era of the stories having relevancy and longevity. The impact of the same in the near future is that marketers and their partners (read: ad agencies) would need change from just being curator (of the brand) to becoming creator (of brand content)
Cheers
Santosh
Reference link: http://battellemedia.com/archives/2011/11/brands-as-publishers.php
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