by Robyn Daly (@robyndaly) Brand narratives are the buzzword of today, so content marketing is on the up-and-up. But who’s telling the stories… and is it really such a new thing, after all?
Last month, an extraordinary thing happened. Okay, it’s not in the league of Air Malaysia being shot down (eish). But it is a ripple in the evolution of local publishing and marketing.
Entering a new dimension
Esteemed travel writer, author of 14 books on art, literature and travel, multiple Mondi-award-winner, former deputy editor of Getaway and editor of Getaway International, Justin Fox entered the realm of content marketing. He did so by producing a digital magazine for eBucks which launched last month.
Fox is one of many journalists and editors who were part of the consumer-publishing boom in the late ’80s and early ’90s, when a new title sprung from nowhere nearly every month.
He, along with his fellow journos, now find themselves in a new dimension: they’re telling brand stories. In other words, they’re content marketing.
Seeping into the comms strategies
The most-searched-for marketing term on Google, content marketing is seeping into the communication strategies of every brand.
If there’s a website with blog content or a blog site — then they’re content marketing. Got a Facebook page posting anything more meaningful to fans than promotions? Then it’s content marketing; the same with Twitter et al. Magazines, digital magazine, white papers, videos… you name it, if it consistently delivers stories with the compliments of a brand, it’s content marketing.
Where does this leave the traditional stalwarts of consumer media? They have no choice but to evolve to stay in the game. So you’ll find a Mondi-award-winner who also once headed up the Rhodes University Journalism Department — Don Pinnock — writing an international hard-nose investigative piece on rhino poaching for the Independent one day, and a fluffy feature on how to retire comfortably for a brand magazine the next.
Think like marketers
Personally, that’s what I love about the game — the variety. But this business of content marketing demands more of writers and editors than pretty prose and solid research. They have to think like marketers. They are, after all, becoming bards of the brands.
While there is some tongue-in-cheek here, I use the word “bard” intentionally. I hope you’ve seen Elizabeth, the 1998 film directed by Shekhar Kapur starring Cate Blanchette. There’s a point in the film where Elizabeth realises that, in order to lead, her kingdom unequivocally, she has to become untouchable. So she rebrands. Her ladies-in-waiting chop off her hair and she gets a bright red crissy wig, her face is painted snow-white and (in spite of scandalous rumours of her affair with Lord Robert Dudley), she emerges as… ta-dah … the Virgin Queen.
Beyond the movie and into, er, history, the Virgin Queen branding needed marketing, and who else to do this for her but poets and playwrights? Suspend your disbelief for a moment and you’ll see Edmund Spencer’s tome of a poem, The Faerie Queen, as content marketing.
Survive the marketing renaissance
With few exceptions, marketing people do not know how to tell stories. But writers do. They’ve just got to do a bit of a mind-switch, step back in time and think a little bit more about 16th century Renaissance poetry in order to survive the marketing renaissance (small caps intended!) of today.
Robyn Daly (@robyndaly) is content director of Narrative, a content-marketing media company.
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