Although the definition of “television” has evolved dramatically in recent years, consumers’ voracious appetite for video content remains—and continues to grow. More opportunities than ever exist for tech-savvy marketers to identify and communicate with audiences through or alongside video content. This webinar will walk through three dramatic shifts in today’s television world and how marketers can set themselves up for success to take full advantage of these emerging trends. Key takeaways from this webinar included:

Why the consumer is the true driver behind recent changes to the TV industry
A list of challenges that stand in the way of fully realizing programmatic TV’s potential of converting mass reach into hyper-targeted audience outreach
Suggestions for a 2017 video/television media plan to outperform competitors and deliver maximum ROI

Recently I attended the 2013 Rotterdam Design Prize ceremony. The design prize remains one of the few prizes – in the Netherlands and abroad – that makes no distinction between the different design disciplines. I took home an important message from the discussion of jury members – Design in the times to come will be very much about meaningfulness. One of the scout jury observed, “In a world where technology is becoming ever more influential, it is important to me that designers continue to look critically at what it adds.” Now technology is hardly ever a barrier to making what a designer can imagine. As a result, in western world we often have more varieties of things than we can even grasp. Still, new variants and upgrades continue to be added at an ever increasing pace. In this regard it is interesting to watch a video by Lernert & Sander, which is a sarcastic commentary on the ridiculous variety of stuff that we have (in this case, perfumes).

Isn’t time ripe for designers to critically ask themselves, what they are really adding to their subjects’ inner lives by their designs? In sync with the general opinion of the jury, the award went to a tablet/smart phone app that allows schizophrenia patents to tackle on their own, the problem of hearing voices in their head*. The simple app beat nominations such as a flying car and a fancy smoking costume, among others.

Modernism was about emphasis on function and rationality. Post-modernism was (is) about self-expression. Perhaps now we are entering a new era in design – ‘the era of meaningfulness’. And the shift is not just being trumpeted by a handful of elite designers and critics. Quite interestingly, I observed a similar opinion coming from a company, which is as business oriented as any company can be! In his first email to Microsoft employees, CEO Satya Nadella observed – “…doesn’t mean that we need to do more things, but that the work we do empowers the world to do more of what they care about.” It so happens, meaningfulness makes a lot of business sense in present times. Aren’t market capitalizations of companies based on investors’ perception? If something ain’t meaningful, will you value it?

Did you like this post? To stay tuned with me  Follow @nbhaskar888

* P.S.: During one of my master’s courses in 2012, I developed the original concept behind the award winning design for schizophrenia patients. The concept was taken by Parnassia Group (the sponsoring organization of the course), and developed into its present form with the help of a design agency, Reframing Studio.

Despite rapid digital innovation, booming spending on digital services, and spectacular tech-price declines, the New Digital Economy of mobile, broadband, and cloud has had little visible impact thus far on hard measures of growth, productivity, or profits. Optimists argue we just need to be a little more patient. Pessimists suspect that, behind the techno-utopian buzz […]

Listening to social conversations revealed three insights for developing communications strategies geared towards the Hispanic community.

“I think I speak for all writers, when I say that I am delighted by marketing efforts of any sort.”

— Tipping Point author Malcolm Gladwell, commenting in The Guardian on film-style trailers for books, being released online by publishers to build demand for new titles

As the economy continues to digitize at an unprecedented pace, why don’t we see faster economic growth and productivity increases? The answer is that the diffusion process of technologies from the New Digital Economy—characterized by rapidly increasing spending on cloud computing, data analysis, and other services in a world of ubiquitous, Internet connections – has only […]

Is content marketing is dead?  This question was on many people’s minds at the Social Media Marketing World 2016 conference (#SMMW16) a few weeks ago.

Although the vast majority of speakers at the event made it clear that we’re nowhere near the death of content marketing, concern is understandable.   More content is being produced now than ever before, but the effectiveness and readership of that content is declining.  Consider a few troubling statistics:

Only 30% of B2B marketers say their content marketing is effective, down 8 percentage points from last year — yet 76% say they will produce more content in 2016. (Content Marketing Institute) 50% of B2C marketers say they plan to increase their content marketing budget in 2016 but only 37% report having a documented content marketing strategy. (Content Marketing Institute) Chartbeat, a firm that calculates engagement on websites, has reported no correlation between social shares and people actually reading the content they shared. And according to Sirius Decisions, 60–70% of B2B content created goes unused.

Moreover, in one of the SMMW16 sessions, social media guru Mark Schaefer declared, “The economic value of content that isn’t seen or shared is zero.”  A lot of heads nodded in agreement.   It seems as if the content in content marketing is being subordinated to the marketing.  In other words, what your content is seems to becoming less important than whether or not it is shared.

This troubles me.  As someone who relies almost solely on thought-leadership marketing, content is the lifeblood of my efforts to become known, be considered for, and get booked for speaking and consulting engagements — and it’s the primary way I try to cultivate and add value to my business relationships.  I invest extraordinary amounts of time and energy producing (what I hope is considered to be) quality content.

I put less emphasis on the marketing and sharing of my content.  Of course, I actively promote my content on Twitter and I regularly publish an e-newsletter to an exclusive list of executives.  I sometimes post about my content on Facebook or LinkedIn and I curate a Pinterest board.  My website and all of my social posts incorporate SEO and include sharing buttons.  And I do strategically select contributorships and byline opportunities based on the shares they usually produce — but even in those cases, I usually favor quality over quantity of sharing.

But I don’t advertise my content on Facebook or any other platform; I don’t do any search engine marketing; I don’t use marketing automation or link bait.  I’ve resisted publishing breezy free e-books like many of my colleagues do because I’m more committed to providing substantive content than simply generating awareness and followers.  I even bristle at the thought of writing headlines or content with the primary objective of making them search-engine friendly.

I’ve understood the consequences of these choices.  I don’t have nearly the awareness or following that I would like and I’m working on improving.  But I also know I have a limited amount of bandwidth and I’ve always thought it’s better to spend it on the actual content.  Said another way, I believe that the economic value of content depends more on the content and less on the marketing.  I believe if content has staying power, is compelling to its primary target audience, and can stand up to scrutiny, it has more lasting value than a quick content blast.  It’s like the difference between a $1.50 burger from McDonald’s and a $5.00 one from Shake Shack.  The former may cost less, but the latter satisfies way more.

Three recent events have confirmed this belief for me:

When Prince died, he left behind a vault full of unreleased music.  The vault was just opened by Bremer Trust, who was appointed administrator of the estate following the musician’s death.   And inside they discovered enough unreleased music to release a new album every year for the next century.  Marketing-focused observers are probably shaking their heads over what Prince missed out on by not releasing this content.  Just think of all the accolades, not to mention royalties, he could have accumulated — how many more fans he could have reached, right?!  But others understand that Prince was even more private than he was prolific and he deliberately released the content he wanted to release.  He, as the content creator, remained the arbiter of what would be shared and the ultimate judge of its value. Chris Anderson and the folks at TED posted the video “TED’s secret to great public speaking.”  In it, Chris reveals the one thing that all great TED talks have in common:  an idea.  He says, “Ideas are the most powerful force shaping human culture.”  He goes on to describe how to build an idea, culminating in the final point:  Make your idea worth sharing. “Ask yourself ‘who does this idea benefit?,‘” he advises, and be honest with the answer.  If the idea only serves you or your organization, then, “It’s not worth sharing.  But if you believe the idea…has the potential to change someone else’s perspective for the better or inspire someone to do something differently, then you have the core ingredient to a truly great talk. One that can be a gift to them and to all of us.”   Given that TED is all about “ideas worth sharing” and over 2 million TED Talk videos are viewed every day, this reinforces the power of inherently share-worthy content. To fulfill a quick client request, I purchased a small number of copies of my book, What Great Brands Do, from a third-party seller on Amazon. (Like most published authors, I do not get free copies of my books so I have to buy them and I usually buy them through Amazon.)  When the books arrived, I discovered that they were from an unauthorized printing done in India.  The pages and dust jacket were of lesser quality (thinner, smaller pages, off-color jacket, etc.)  To most people, the book probably appeared fine and all the content was accurate, but the book was not up to my or my publisher’s standards, so I returned them and my publisher is investigating the matter so that the remaining copies can be destroyed.  While this might mean that fewer people have access to my book, I don’t want a sub-standard book/book experience out there.  The book is a reflection of me, after all, and I’m guessing authors who care about their “personal brand” would agree.

This post itself may or may not get shared as much as a shorter, pithier piece with lots of links, images, and quotes.  But I wanted — needed — to write it in order to convey the economic value I ascribe to it, to make it a gift to my readers, and to serve as a positive representation of me.

related:

Building Brands by Creating Content (slideshow) Marketing Like It’s 2001 GoPro Shows How to Win by Losing Control

The post the death of content marketing and the economic value of content appeared first on Denise Lee Yohn.

What does it take to drive more sales in a young business? Find out when you watch this fun and inspiring conversation with Brian MacMahon, CEO of Expert DOJO, a premier community of thousands of entrepreneurs in California!  

This week, PR expert Becs Miller shares her 6 simple public relations steps you may follow to boost your visibility and position you as an expert in your field. Take it away, Becs! *** Picture this: You have a continuous stream of new followers landing on your website who already know…

In recent weeks it’s been hard to avoid the digital versus TV war that looks set to dominate marketing.

At the start of May, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki fired first when she told advertisers that YouTube was now reaching “more 18 to 49 year-olds during prime time than the top 10 US TV shows combined”. A day later Joan Gillman, Time Warner’s COO, hit back with the results of a study showing that if YouTube were a TV show it would rank 354th in the nation for audience share.

So who is telling the truth? Crucially, it all depends on your definition of what constitutes an audience. If you look only at reach and ignore time spent or use the “digital views” approach that claims an audience member as soon as they encounter three seconds of a partial, soundless video like Facebook or Instagram, then digital video is the clear winner.

If, however, you dive deeper and measure an audience on a minute by minute basis and then publish the average figure for the duration of the video the results change dramatically. Gillman’s relegation of YouTube to 354th is accurate if you measure audiences on how many you captured per minute rather than how many momentarily glanced your way at any point.

Until recently these distinctions did not actually matter. Digital video used their system and the TV channels used theirs. But as the digital ambitions of the social media platforms have grown and their appetite for big brand advertising has become bigger, the battle between TV and digital video has suddenly intensified and, as usual in marketing, we fight over metrics.

I’ve always assumed a certain questionable quotient with all viewing numbers. Even from the earliest days of BARB the difference between room population and an actual advertising audience was always a bit of an unreliable ratio. But this harmless handful of b.s. it sprinkled liberally across TV audience numbers has paled into insignificance versus the three forklift trucks of b.s. that now arrive, free of charge, with most digital video audience estimates.

Last October, for example, Yahoo claimed its livestream of an American Football game attracted 15 million viewers. That’s an impressive debut given the average TV game garners 18 million. But this is not an apples to apples comparison, it is an apples to oranges comparison.

While 15 million different people did indeed, at some point, briefly encounter the coverage, the average audience per minute for the livestream was only 1.6 million viewers – less than a 10th of the typical TV audience.

It was a similar story when ESPN claimed that more than 115 million people watched the 2014 World Cup from Brazil on digital devices versus a measly 4.6 million on TV. But when you hold that number up to the standard of an average audience per minute those multi-millions turn into a digital tournament audience of 300,000 or about 7% of those watching on TV.

This tells you that every time you see a digital video “audience” it is crucial to ask the metric being used to define it.

Enter Nielsen

What’s urgently needed is a media Rosetta Stone to help translate digital views into TV audiences and vice versa. It’s here that the supremely impressive Steve Hasker becomes marketing’s only real hope. Hasker is the global president of Nielsen and has spearheaded the company’s ‘Total Audience Measurement’ approach. The tool, newly launched this year in the U.S., now enables advertisers to see a complete breakdown of video audiences across viewing platforms using a single, comparable measuring system.

No news yet on what the results tell us but this is one audience associated with digital views that actually is engaged.

The Blake Project Can Help: The Brand Storytelling Workshop

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