The results of chatting with 4 large companies who are investing and significantly involved in content: where they are at; organizational changes; skill sets, agency relationships and customer data

1. Looking at the Content
Marketing Journey in 5 Leading
Companies

2. The Content and Brand Journey in Several
Leading Companies
To understand how
large global brands
are adapting to being
“content producers”
– its impact on
organizations; their
approach and partner
relationships
1
Selected 4 Fortune 100 companies to
interview.

3. The Content and Brand Journey
On a scale of 1-5 how far along is your company in being a “publisher” of
content
1 2 3 4 5
Nascent underway regular integral Excelling
Beginner started some component regular prod’n
momentum
• 80% ranked themselves as a “3”
• regular with some momentum
• 100% identified as a priority, wanting to get to “5”

4. 5
1. Is underway and having an
impact on company
structures, business
processes, interactions with
agencies and resources
2. Adoption to becoming
content producers is still a
work in progress for most
companies
3. Content marketing is changing
perspectives and “rules” for
what the future may look like
inside a large company, as
well as its’ relation with
traditional agency suppliers
4. Customer engagement is
important and measured in
diverse ways
The Content Journey in Fortune Companies
http://www.bettycrocker.com/tips/aboutthekitchens/history

5. “I’m always suspicious of anyone who tries to “bag the truth” to early. I just
think we are still at an early stage on this front. The field is fluid and
continues to get more complex and competitive; son of Pinterest will
emerge; Twitter continues to defy expectations; you can’t set rules now and
expect them to hold up…Frankly, we are still learning a lot and I don’t want
it to be too codified until we explore more ground and really have a solid
sense of what is most effective across markets and brands. Right now we
have a lot of flexibility to work at it and try things rather than tightening
screws on some rigorous process.”
Global Head of Social
“To feed this content beast every day takes a
lot of work and it’s a huge logistical challenge
too; it requires us to think about how we are
structured, how we pay for things, and it is
also a tremendous cultural shift, impacting
how we staff and the talents and skill set mix
changes that we need to make over time”
Head of Social COE

6. Content Responsibilities & Production
Who is responsible for content?
• 90% of respondents mentioned
they are on a journey or that is a
bit of a mix right now.
• 100% of respondents talked about
integration across marketing
disciplines or around “brand
management”
• All noted the importance of
brand/company strategic
leadership
• Most respondents mentioning
they are building up their skill
base in just the last year
The Business/
Marketing
Team
“not another set of separate disciplines
but rather integration. It is all about an
integrated business strategy. We are
just at the cusp of all of this.”
Director, Social COE

7. Content Responsibilities & Production
Organizational Considerations:
• Defining clear roles and
responsibilities, processes, as
well as approvals, is often a work
in progress
• Getting everyone to the table
with social content is critical:
SEO, Legal, the Brand manager,
traditional marketers
• Organizations as “content
publishers” includes a logistical
process of huge undertaking and
new skills.
• There is also a shift related to
market research/“customer
insights” as organizations adopt
listening and content “data” into
these research functions
Bringing the
business together
“If you, as brand leader, assume a legal
risk, you have a responsibility to
understand the legal risk and be held
accountable for it. This gets you to a
different and more collegial working
approach.”
Innovation Manager
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aquariawinterso
ul/4248415006/sizes/o/in/photostream/

8. “Agencies play a really really
important role and where we
see really great results there
is a strong agency
partnership”
Social COE Head
Agency Partnerships
Valued and Subject to Change
• All respondents noted a high degree of reliance
on agency assistance for “production”; Brands
guide content marketing but they are not expert
at “content.”
• The integration of paid, owned and earned is
critical to large companies/brands.
• New, more agile marketing materials, not just
from advertising/creative but whoever is best at
it.
• Most respondents said they are looking at new
models related to agency management and
interaction
• Several companies are looking to media oriented
businesses whose business is content (i.e
traditional media like The New York Times to new
media outlets such as Buzzfeed, Gizmodo or
Gawker; as well as blog platforms like a Blogher
and Federated media)
10
“Brands are not experts at content
the way media companies are.
Fundamentally, we are in the media
business; so some of our resources
will start going there…they are
media companies, afterall...”
Global Head of Digital
http://bit.ly/18rE2vU

9. The Company- Agency Skill Set Partnership
On a 5 point scale (1 – not important, 5 – important), assess the roles and imperatives of internal vs. external support around
content
28
Company Skill Sets (rank order
by F100 Respondents)
1. Strategic Leadership (Ranked a
5 by all respondents)
2. Monitoring Listening (Ranked 4
by most respondents)
3. Measurement Analyses
Community Management
Engagement
(ranked 3 by most respondents)
4. Web Design, Writing,
SEO/SEM, Multi-media
production (all ranked 2)
Agency Skill Sets (rank order
by F100 Respondents)
1. Multi-media production,
Web Design, Writing,
Monitoring Listening
Measurement
(Ranked as 4 by majority of
respondents)
2. Community Management
Engagement, Strategic
Leadership (Ranked a 3 by most
respondents)

10. Content Responsibilities & Production
What to Watch for:
• Integrated and merged marketing
teams rather than separate
disciplines; less “campaign” and
more “always on” orientation
• Content becoming closely
intertwined with other parts of
business – including customer
research and insights
• 100% noted shifting resources
• 2/3 of respondents suggested the
“role” of community manager
will change, i.e think about the
importance of timely content
activation/sponsorship; not
something a traditional media
buying company is on top of, but
it is a media buy
“we need to expand our “content”
beyond that core capability or
traditional marketing materials and into
more diverse types of content, more
agile content, smaller forms of content
that are more timely, as well as can be
used in more diverse distribution
networks. Today the processes are quite
siloed and where we are going is to be
more collaborative and sharing both of
information and insights as well as
content. The resources will also shift to
foster working across different business
divisions” Social COE Lead and Head of
Corp Communications
http://www.flickr.com/photos/95284782@N06/8684911125/

11. Content & The Customer
http://www.flickr.com/photos/95284782@N06/8684911125/
“Im increasingly coming to believe
that consumers don’t care who
publishes the content as long as
meaning and relevance to them
and helps them lead better more
complete lives.
Because of the reach of large
brands and their budgets you will
see a lot more coming from brands
in the future.”
Global Head, Digital
Our job is to touch and engage as many
people where this is relevant…so really
it is about awareness and engagement.
The driver you want to drive back to is
consistent measurement. We can’t
have digital measurement that does
not add up. That’s how we look at
things…We look at did it reach people
and then do they do anything with it
(direct and indirect)—it’s not always
the sharing or liking….
Director, Innovation /Social COE
“Our customer insights team
is working to document the
'sum of the whole' versus the
individual piece parts in
showing consumer decision
making..”
Head of Social Media COE

12. Content: the Customer &
Engagement
What is meaningful:
• Did it reach people and did they do
anything with it
• Some have benchmarks of what their
average engagement with a piece of
content is; therefore focus to
regularly achieve that “average” or
do better – continually doing content
marketing better;
• Innovate to drive more engagement
• Common forms of measurement
include: likes, shares, comments,
traffic, share of conversation; some
have their own internal mathematical
equations of the above
we know we can no longer just buy
customers’ attention; we have to earn it
through quality and meaningful
content….and that content is smaller
and reaching smaller audiences, but we
are also producing a whole lot more
content….Social content is more
targeted and therefore one might
suggest it is more efficient (less
wasteful) than TV ads
Head of Corporate Communications
and Head of COE

13. Website & Blog: http://richardbinhammer.com
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Thank you
Email: Rbinhammer@gmail.com