idio Platform

This post was sparked by the news that Conde Nast moving towards the agency space, by offering creative services for brand clients. Since everyone else is moving into their territory, I think it’s great that Conde Nast are choosing to attack rather than defend. Business model innovation is the only way those gorgeous offices have a hope of surviving!

So, talking about changing business models…. let’s get on to the meat of this post…

The massive shift I am seeing in the market is a move away from independent, siloed reporting, and towards branded/brand-authored/brand-hosted content (or content marketing, or custom publishing, or aggregated content, or blogging, or whatever form and guise it takes). I have written about the value of this before, and since that post, I have heard clients, agencies, media companies, web development shops, PR firms and e-commerce execs all say the same thing.

Content sells.

As the saying goes, there is nothing new under the sun. Before the move to digital communication forms, companies promoted their wares amongst relevant content (newspaper and magazine advertising), or the more adventurous marketing directors launched custom print magazines to engage their audience. Much to old media’s dislike, the shift to digital communications has shifted the power away from them, as anyone can curate, copy, or compete with their quality content through a huge variety of means. Upstart competitors are. Customers are. And their previous big-spending advertisers are.

When the price of purchase falls near enough the price of rental, rental no longer makes economic sense, despite its advantages. This is what has happened with audience attention. Media companies used to rent out their audience’s attention for advertising revenue, but now brands are realising that in many ways, and in most markets, they can indirectly buy that audience’s attention by creating their own relevant, quality content.

Whether it is by licensing news or magazine content, syndicating news feeds, employing journalists, aggregating relevant material, or even tweeting, the appetite for content marketing is growing rapidly.

I’m not one for giving predictions, but I think two very interesting trends will emerge over the next 18-24 months.

• Firstly, just as most agencies have now (at least) tagged on a “social” department, content offerings will begin to be refined into clear products and strategies on a campaign level. I’m not saying this is good (great content is ideally produced as an ongoing function of the business, rather than for a one-off launch), but it is necessary given the current agency engagement structures.
• Secondly, the amount of brand-funded jobs in editorial, journalism, content curation and the like will increase significantly, as companies realise that this skill is vital to their online success. Brands will hire directly, and PR, advertising, and marcomms agencies will build out their capabilities.

So what should you do? Well, if you are doing nothing with content at least start with the below.

• If you are a brand, start experimenting in a small way. Set up a blog system, or aggregate some industry news. Look at the results.
• If you are an agency, look carefully at what is working in this space. Identify the emerging supplier offerings, and look at trialling content-driven campaigns with a few clients.
• If you are a media company, decide now whether you want to work more closely with brands. And if you do, start looking at branded content insertions, or pitch content microsites options to your largest advertising clients.

And of course, do shoot me an email. I’d be very interested to exchange ideas, and most of the people and approaches I recommend won’t even be our own.

Lots to think about.

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