Brands as publishers – for real?
In this guest post, Josh Black questions whether some brands can justifiably call themselves publishers.
Barely a week goes by these days when I don’t hear some sort of new marketing jargon. This week’s doozy was ‘micro moments’, a term I’m still grappling to fully comprehend.
Let’s tackle another term instead for now – ‘brands as publishers’, quite possibly the content marketing buzzword champion of the year.
No doubt, brands are pushing out more and more content, but at what point can they really call themselves a publisher and what do they need to do to legitimately earn this title in the minds of the people that matter – the readers and viewers?
When I go to bed and dream about content, publishers, in my mind, are institutions like the Thomson Reuters, Penguin Random House, McGraw-Hill and Harper Collins – organisations that have produced content for generations that has educated, inspired and changed the world.
What brand really produces content that changes the way we think and live like this?
Do any brands produce content that causes revolutions and changes policy? Does any brand produce content that advances humanity?
People pay to view the content produced by these bastions of the spoken and written word. They spend real hard-earned money from their pocket, because the content from the world’s best publishers has incredible utility and value.
Unfortunately, giving the content away for free, like brands do when they ‘publish’ content, provides very little measure for the quality of the content, because no viewer or reader is reaching into their pocket and paying for it.
I’m not convinced that paying for it with their time, as they do with free content, is an accepted measure of the value of the content. As Evan Williams, former CEO and chairman of Twitter says of much of the content being pushed these days, “we put junk food in front of them and they eat it.”
That’s not to say that all brand content is junk – I’d argue that there is some incredible work being produced, but there’s also plenty that just adds noise and clutter. In short, we’re just not consistent enough yet. As an industry, we are still learning and getting the model right.
Brands want audiences. If we could turn back the clock thirty years and deliver mass audiences through one platform, like television in the 1980’s, it would make all of our jobs so much easier.
The reality though is we can’t.
Expectations from management at the world’s largest advertisers are increasing at an exponential rate – just like media fragmentation is.
Budgets, meanwhile, are only just ticking up or, in some cases, staying flat. To ease some of this pressure, advertisers have looked to create brand owned media or have become ‘brands as publishers’. But they ask questions that no editor at the Wall Street Journal or Penguin Random House would ever ask – ‘is this in line with brand strategy’ and ‘how can we insert the brand logo without consumers noticing?’
Herein lies the problem and challenge.
The other challenge is that very few brand-owned platforms truly deliver mass audiences. I say few because there are some, but I’m not sure if these platforms still qualify as true publishers because I’d still question whether people would pay for the content if it came with a price tag. How many of these platforms could financially support themselves with either third party advertising or subscriber payments? How much of the content could support itself without paid media attached to it?
It’s not all doom and gloom – we are doing some great work. But we need to get our batting average up as an industry. First, let’s start using the right terminology for what we are actually doing – we’re not really ‘publishing’ yet. Second, let’s look at the lessons and view the content that we, as an industry, are producing for our clients through two lenses:
1. How can we create content that has such value and utility to our audience that they would reach into their pocket and pay for it if we asked them to?
2. How can we build content destinations that truly live and act like a publisher as opposed to a cleverly masked destinations trying to act like something they’re really not?
The world might be getting smaller, but when it comes to media the world is getting more complex, challenging and fragmented by the day. As the CEO for GroupM’s content business across APAC, I have an absolutely vested interest in seeing more and more content produced and distributed. But unless we produce better quality content more reliably and more consistently, the reader and the viewer will speak louder and louder. We can either choose to listen to them or continue to ignore them, and that, would be to all our peril.
Josh Black is CEO of GroupM Content APAC ’s content businesses across Asia Pacific, which include Mindshare Content+, MEC Wavemaker, Mediacom MBA, Maxus Content, PLAY, Dialogue Factory, Filmworks China, ESP Properties, ESP Brands and GroupM Entertainment.
There’s a craze in Pakistan to become the go to destination for moms, chefs in terms of cooking recipes and kitchen product recommendations. National Foods (Brand) has Made Easy, Creative Chaos (Agency) has Food Fusion and Webiz Media (Publisher) has KFoods.com .. the content does not, as Josh says “organisations that have produced content for generations that has educated, inspired and changed the world.”
ReplyBrands simply don’t have neither the resources, the money nor the good taste required to be a publisher…and should they really be publishers? It’s not their core business.
What they call publishing is basically having some interns in marketing write some drivel about their product and putting a link to it on Facebook…or getting some idiot who runs a blog to write a thinly disguised shill.
That’s not publishing…thats getting someone else to promote your brand instead of doing it yourself.
ReplyI think the missing ingredient is most brand-published content is integrity. People form loyalties to brands that they believe share their values. Content that doesn’t take a stand or state a point of view adds no value. How many brands are willing to take a position on an issue, knowing it might alienate a good chunk of their existing customer? No wonder most brand content is either outright self-serving or just plain forgettable.
ReplyI couldn’t agree more Josh. And I find the use of the word ‘publisher’ somewhat creatively interpreted as well as I too think of world class publishing houses.
Also does the world really need more ‘content’? And is there truly any need for a sanitary napkin brand by example to tell me stories. It’s pretty straight forward utilitarian stuff.
Overload.
publisher |ˈpʌblɪʃə|
Replynoun
(also publishers)a company or person that prepares and issues books, journals, or music for sale: the publishers of Vogue | a commercial music publisher.
It’s also bloody hilarious when you watch a product review on you tube and the person sitting in a shitty poorly lit bedroom, in front of a webcam, speaking awkwardly to the camera says “Welcome to my Channel”…..lol…..my channel?
Its not a channel bud, its just you making a video …. I blame ad and content agencies for sensationalising these terms like content and publishing… and diluting their original meaning with below par nonsense.
ReplyIf Justin Bieber’s fans don’t pay for his music does that mean he’s not a musician?
ReplyJosh, I find much of your commentary reliant on semantics. Your definition of a publisher for example is very narrow, not to mention traditional.
The concept of a brand as a publisher is about disintermediation – not having to rely on traditional media to reach your audience. It’s not about reaching a ‘mass’ audience, or changing the world or ‘advancing humanity’. That is more aptly called journalism, which of course is a separate concept entirely to publishing.
ReplyWanted to address some of the comments…
@WORD – I think there are many brands that have the resources, intent and desire to produce great content. The point was about consistently doing it and I think we are not quite there yet. I wouldn’t agree that most of the work comes from “interns and idiots” at all.
@MIGUEL – I agree, integrity is important and brands are taking a stand on issues, more so today, than ever before. Nike’s recent axing of Manny Pacquiao within days of his comments are a really good example of this. More brands could learn from this.
@EMMA – I think consumers do want more content, but it needs to add utility, value and be entertaining. As advertising revenue declines from print and TV and that money shifts to digital, the problem is that most of this spend goes to 2 sources that spend little or no money actually producing content – Facebook and Google. Influencers and Brands can fill this gap.
@NEAL – I need another coffee whilst I ponder this.
@SCOTT – the key points of my commentary are (a) consistency is not there yet (b) brand-owned platforms still need a lot of work when it comes to reaching their intended audience and (c) unless we add more value to the viewer or reader, they’ll just see us as adding clutter, noise and interruption.
ReplyI don’t doubt many brands have the intent and desire to produce great content…but that’s nowhere near enough..it comes down to capability and expertise.
A multi million $ Netflix tv show is vastly different in its intent and specialist input than a series of mind numbing, self promoting Facebook posts that a brand puts out. Yet both are deemed to be content.
No wonder people laugh at brands’ attempts to create content.
People love content that genuinely entertains, informs and enriches their lives…I don’t think they give two shits about a brand’s content that is always, in some way, trying to close the sale under the guise of creating some sort of fake bond between the consumer and the brand.
ReplyThe trouble in our biz is that we try to create solutions to problems we face. Not what clients face.
The problem we face is declining ad revenues. So we create a category called: Content and pretend we know how to create, curate and commercialise it.
The only thing we ever create is a lexicon around it and use seminars and Linkedin to promote it as the next frontier and the same-self promoters as experts with silver bullets.
The truth is, brands have survived very well thus far without wearing the additional hat as ‘publisher’.
But we don’t care just as long as we get to charge man-hours.
With rising production costs for traditional advertising, how realistic is that the content produced will tick all the boxes of originality, creativity, social currency and utility?
In a perfect world, we can fantasize that punters will pay for content.
ReplyIn the real world, i have adblockers and a delete button.
I personally like Bob Hoffman’s take on content. http://adcontrarian.blogspot.sg/2016/04/lets-call-content-shit.html
ReplyComing a bit late to the conversation but have just come across this story but for what it is worth:
As much as many may not enjoy the new world of ‘branded content’ and argue it’s merit as being worthy of audience attention and commercial investment, it’s not going away as long the internet exists. It will never even be a question for future generations, it just ‘is’ now.
So how do we make it more valuable for audiences and brands alike?
As Josh points out, consistency will elevate the reception and outcomes – when brands respect the difference between cheap and fast vs high production values, their audience will have more respect for the brand and therefore, outcomes are more likely to be achieved. Don’t associate your brand with “shit” (re Conor’s share), and that connection is less likely to be made with the brand.
The other point to raise here is Personalisation. I am unlikely to be presented an ad (or ‘branded content’) about dog food – good bad, long, short, educational or a direct CTA, because I’ve never typed the word ‘dog’ into the internet (well, now I have…).
Brands who execute strategies which use data based insights to deliver content with high production values, to people who might actually be interested in that topic will rise higher above the melee.
ReplyHave your say