Content marketing – not without my brand

Content Overload is in full swing. There are billions of new texts, pictures and videos appearing daily, since it has never been easier to share your “two cents” with the public. Of course for groups and their marketing departments this means: Ways and means have to be found to stay afloat in the flood of contents – through clever content marketing. To be remembered by potential buyers the story is especially important: People, who are not themselves when they are hungry, are memorized just as well as business ladies, who admire adonis-like men filling the vending machine during lunch break. The examples have one thing in common: The brand or the product play the leading role in these stories.

But is this necessary? Might content marketing without brand relation even be the better marketing? Especially during times when ads and tracers are blocked almost by default and blatant brand messages rarely draw attention anymore? I don’t think so!

One example: A man travels the world in a pink tutu. With his wacky appearance he wants to encourage his wife, who is suffering from cancer – and right away he is discovered as a catchy base for advertisement. Emotional and pleasantly authentic. But which brand was this spot for again? And exactly this shows the dangers of content marketing without brand relation: In the end you have possibly created fantastic contents and reached millions of people, but you hardly did anything for the brand.

Therefore, the bottom line basically has to be: content marketing without brand is a nice little pastime that only in the rarest cases pays off for the brand. And that is why I think it’s essential for the brand or the product to play a leading role in the story. A simple “branding” of the content, such as tinting the spot or by mentioning the brand in the closing credits are just not sufficient. Because otherwise people will soon only remember the story and can by no stretch of imagination recall which brand or product was behind it. And to have the whole thing still turn out funny, educational, entertaining and exciting is our challenge as marketers.