It is nothing new for companies to use content to present themselves in a good light. The "Globi" books from the Globus department store company come to mind, as do the weekly magazines from Migros and Coop. Or, from nearby countries, the "Michelin Guide" restaurant guide, which was created by the tire brand as a guide for motorists, and "Red Bull", which can easily be described as an entertainment company with an associated sweet drinks production. And since everyone can be their own publisher on the Internet, companies in particular have aligned and strengthened their communication accordingly. They have ramped up their social media experiments and discovered and learned to appreciate the value of dialog with their customers. But they soon had to learn that if you have lots of friends but only ever publish junk, these messages will never reach the recipient.
With the "Panda upgrade" in April 2011, Google began to focus on valuable content when selecting good hits, investing heavily in programs with artificial intelligence. And at Facebook, it is the "Edge Rank" that determines what a user gets to see (see Werbewoche 03/2012, 17.2.2012, p. 29). If you don't want to fall by the wayside here, you need good content - and that's how content marketing came about. Content marketing is already well established in the USA, where there is a content marketing institute with associated events and a magazine. Now the term is also becoming increasingly common here. As a survey of a selection of leading companies shows, many have already realized that they can only gain a foothold in social media with good content. They have aligned themselves accordingly or are in the process of doing so. Others are not so easily rattled by a new trend. For example, the three large public companies of the Confederation.
While Swiss Post cannot report any experience of its own, Sepp Huber, Head of Media Services at Swisscom, makes a clear statement: "From Swisscom's point of view, high-quality content is of great importance, as this is the key to retaining customers online." Lea Meyer, media spokesperson for SBB, is similarly clear: "Storytelling is crucial for our Facebook page. No user wants to be confronted with advertising messages via social channels." Communications managers at ABB, AXA Winterthur, Nestlé, Novartis, Raiffeisen, Roche, Siemens, Zurich and Zürcher Kantonalbank expressed similar views in the Werbewoche survey. Some companies also mention that new jobs have recently been created to cope with this development. At Hotelplan, Prisca Huguenin-dit-Lenoir, Head of Corporate Communications, reports: "In the last six months, 15 new jobs have been created in areas such as content management and social media." According to Sepp Huber, the Social Media Care department at Swisscom has also been "greatly expanded in recent years" and the company is currently looking into "increasing resources in other online areas as well".
New jobs have also been created in these areas at Orange in recent years, as Therese Wenger, Director Media, PR & Political Affairs, explains. And she concludes: "The work of communications staff in PR, social media etc. is comparable to journalistic work: Monitoring, topic planning, researching and analyzing topics, preparing them to suit the target group and the communication channel, etc." Unlike traditional publishers, who hardly have the means or the interest to consistently and skillfully apply new forms of communication such as video, multi-media and infographics, these are in demand in content marketing. Simon Roth, Head of Corporate Communications at Pictet & Cie. Banquiers, notes that they have just hired someone to produce video productions quickly and competently in-house in future. When companies embrace content marketing, they produce content that is usually distributed in their own media (customer magazine, website, etc.) or in acquired media (reach on social media). This is how customers or fans can be reached. However, established media are needed to expand a brand's reach.
In addition to the familiar forms of advertising, there is also the well-known public reportage (advertorial). In times of declining advertising revenues, shrinking editorial budgets and simultaneously expanding corporate communications departments, new rules are emerging, especially in the USA, around the buzzword "native advertising". New online media such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are offering "Promoted Videos", "Sponsored Stories" and "Promoted Tweets" to integrate third-party content into users' regular information streams in return for good money. Traditional brands such as Forbes or the Economist (see Werbewoche 21/2012, 23.11.2012, p. 31) are also experimenting with sponsored content. The example of the traditional magazine The Atlantic, which went completely wrong, is currently the subject of much discussion: An article was published on the website in which the controversial Scientology religious movement was portrayed in the best possible light. Although labeled as "sponsored content", a storm of indignation soon erupted on Twitter and in the blogosphere. The text was subsequently removed and replaced with a statement announcing a review of its own guidelines for dealing with sponsored content.
From the uproar at The Atlantic, these important lessons can be learned:
1. unlike publicity reports, sponsored content is the responsibility of the editorial team, not the sales department. This is an important difference and means, among other things, that editorial teams must have the knowledge and resources to deal with such content suppliers. The better a content sponsor and a publication fit together, the greater the success for both sides. If this is not the case, as with The Atlantic/Scientology, both brands, that of the sponsor and that of the publication, risk being damaged.
2. a partnership-based relationship should be established with suitable content suppliers from the companies. Requirements and processes should be handled amicably, including mutual access to the editorial agendas of both partners.
3. sponsored content is unique and must be tailored precisely to the respective distribution channel. What worked as a "Promoted Tweet", for example, is unlikely to make a great impression as sponsored content on a website. And an infographic must also correspond exactly to the design specifications of the respective publication and can therefore not be used elsewhere without further ado.
4. editorial offices must experiment and learn how to deal with sponsored content. Important new revenue streams can hardly be ignored, as can the fact that there are major risks involved, the handling of which requires the utmost professionalism.
Unlike content marketing, native advertising in the form described above has hardly arrived here yet. There are also Swiss companies that buy ads on Facebook and Twitter. And, of course, clever PR practitioners are always trying to get their content into editorial reporting via relationship channels or with good arguments. When asked, the media offices of Ringier and Tamedia point out that they actively market publicity reports and special supplements and apply clear rules, such as those laid down in the Code of Conduct of the Swiss Media Association. However, native advertising agreements are not reported. Ringier states: "We produce our own editorial content and do not take over any content in the form mentioned." And Tamedia states: "We have not noticed an increase in requests for the placement of self-generated content. Companies seem to be using self-generated content primarily for their own media and social media."
The importance that native advertising will have in the future depends largely on the willingness of editorial teams to adopt such cooperation models. This can be promoted by companies with good offers that must meet the respective editorial requirements (and not primarily their own ideas). There are then good reasons for editorial offices to take them into consideration: they receive well-founded specialist or background articles, for example, or can publish attractive videos and animated infographics on their websites, which would be unattainable without the support of the sponsors. As the guest articles by investment specialists from banks in the local and regional press or in specialist and trade press titles show, this practice is not new - it remains to be seen how prices will develop under new supply and demand conditions:
What are sponsors prepared to pay to have their content taken over by a publication and thus obtain contacts more cheaply than if they had had to design and launch a conventional advertising campaign? And will the media succeed in concluding profitable agreements with content providers under these new circumstances, or will they be satisfied with counter-deals at zero cost, as is often the case today? The media and communications industry is challenged to define how to deal with native advertising. How should we deal with paid advertisements that primarily offer valuable editorial content and are satisfied with a reference to their own (owned and earned) media presence? Is it possible to define industry rules for this in order to take advantage of the associated benefits? Or will fundamentalists who insist on a strict separation between editorial content and advertising gain the upper hand and banish such things as the devil?
Christoph J. Walther
