The Story Lab’s Strategy for Good Content

By Digiday • May 29, 2013 • 2 min read •

Consumer media consumption habits are changing. The television spots of yesteryear are giving way to content that pushes consumers to act, not passively watch.

Angela Courtin, chief content officer of Aegis Media Americas and president of The Story Lab, says that brands need to master storytelling. “A great media strategy can never compensate for average content,” she said. Having a good marketing strategy can then allow a brand to promote great branded content on relevant channels.

Courtin recently spoke at the Digiday Innovation Summit on how content marketing needs to be rethought. Courtin believes that content is the currency of the converging world, meaning the gap between content engagement and consumer transactions is shrinking. Here’s Courtin’s action plan for creating great content and amplifying it:

1. Auditing Brand Inventory
Finding where content and consumers are currently meeting is the starting point for any brand audit. Asking how consumers engage with branded content and making sure all relevant points of the social ecosystem are being used to amplify content is key.

2. Creating Content
It doesn’t have to be a decision between traditional and new digital methods of creating content. Thinking about partnerships and sponsors as well as enabling customers to create brand content themselves fills the gaps of any brand’s media content planning. As well, brands need to be thinking about themselves as content producers.

3. Context
Once brands have content, they need to take those ideas to bought, owned and earned environments and allow it to manifest. “Brands need to make sure they’re engaged with every piece in that [bought, owned, earned] model and amplify and scale their content,” said Courtin.

4. Optimization
Brands often miss optimizing their content. Brands don’t really do anything with the content after it’s out there, according to Courtin. Brands need to push it out and keep a close eye on how people follow and grab on to the content. By watching what works, brands can scale their content in different environments. “What happens is,” Courtin explained, “you have a feedback loop that’s engaged through social, optimized through technology, and scaled through smarter investments in terms of media, whether that’s through trading desks or repurposed back through social.”

5. Analysis
Rethinking measurement is important for brands stuck on a currency of convenience. A television spot is not the same thing as a branded content experience. It might take a little to set up a system to measure how branded content plays a role in consumer consideration, intent and purchase. “Time and time again, we go back, and we can show that not only do we deliver on an ROI,” Courtin said, “but we help every ad out there do better.”

Watch the full presentation from the Digiday Innovation Summit below.