What's in your content?
Bring it! I feel like brand’s are upping their content game, and I’m loving it.
What’s to love?
1. Brands are able to be even more real in bringing their purpose to life via content, aligning with people or organizations that feel less corporate and better fit their ethos.
Brands don’t have to go through the traditional channels (e.g., TV, print media) and instead can partner with individuals or organizations that have strong platforms and align better with who the brands are:
Beauty Counter partnered with Maria Shriver to get the word out about their purpose-driven beauty brand.
Katie Couric is partnering with P&G, SK-II, and other brands to tell culturally meaningful stories.
Banana Republic partnered with Goop to record a series of podcasts called “Women on Top” featuring successful women who have broken boundaries.
Athleta partnered with I Am Well and Good to create “Wellness Collective,” a collection of content to address holistic wellness topics from health to career to finances.
2. Brands can create unique, ownable content in a form and fashion that’s completely themselves.
Rothy’s shared styling posts consistent with their products’ colorful functional benefits, showing how their shoes would pair well with different outfits and styles.
Cuyana featured Isabella Rosselini and her daughter, Elettra Wiedemann, as part of its Cuyana Woman Series, celebrating them as representatives that “[speak] to every woman’s freedom to live life on their own terms, a hallmark deeply ingrained in the DNA of Cuyana.” The brand also hosted an exhibit and event as part of San Francisco Design Week celebrating artisans from Ecuador and the craft of weaving toquilla straw. The brand said, “Ángeles Ortiz’s globally recognized work marries culture, human behavior and the arts – connections we value deeply.” Note how the company directly associates their values to these efforts.
Given its mission, “...to design a more enlightened way of working,” Dropbox is building content focused on improving the work world from this partnership with The New York Times about combating the 24-hour work day to its new blog series, “The Mind at Work.”
Mailchimp has a ton of great content targeted towards entrepreneurs, a core target that uses its platform.
3. Brands can extend into spaces that allow people to fully immerse themselves in the brand in real life, in addition to creating potential new streams of revenue.
Heath Ceramics offered a Heath-guided travel tour of Japan that sold out within 48 hours. And then added another one, and the same thing happened again! Now that’s some brand trust and love!
And, of course, Goop has its In Goop Health events, but has now extended to a more physical exercise focused event Goop League, while also hosting events at some of its retail locations.
What do these examples inspire us marketers to do?
Make content brand powerful. Embed your brand values in your content and stand for something. (Think SK-II, Banana Republic, and Cuyana.)
Make content consumer meaningful and useful. (Think Dropbox and Mailchimp.)
Go direct and make it casual and fun, especially if it gets you to do something real and meaningful. (Think Rothy's.)
Choose the right partners. (Think Beauty Counter and P&G.)
Bring consumers closer to your brand and let them be a part of it. (Think Goop and Heath Ceramics.)
Now take some cues from the above and get out there and create some amazing, valuable content!
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Image Credit: Cuyana