Content Marketing is one of the hottest buzzwords nowadays. But it’s often referred as blogs, videos and infographics .etc. In fact, Content Marketing is part of a marketing strategy that serves the following functions:
- Value-add service to customers
- Customer engagement tools
- Measurable outcomes for revenue generation
I summarized 4 typical case studies to demonstrate content marketing trends for 2016:
Case study 1 - IKEA: improve communication at home
Emoji is a small digital image or icon to express emotions. It was created in 1995 and was widely spread since their international inclusion in Apple’s IOS operating system in 2011.
IKEA has engaged its consumers using a series of Ikea Emoji as one of its branding assets. Ikea Emoji is designed to reduce misunderstanding between men and women in everyday life. it’s sometimes a better tool than words to convey love and understanding. This set of Emoji uses well known Ikea products such as the Swedish meatball offered in the Ikea restaurants. They can be downloaded from Apple/Android app store.
The rapid change of digital marketing technology has allowed content marketing to utilize new ways to make content creative and vivid. Coca-Cola’s Javier Sanchez Lamelas, Vice President of Marketing, Coca-Cola Europe said marketing technologies are evolving at a pace where, seemingly daily, new products promise to revolutionize the effectiveness of your creative. By and large, the premise that smarter technology will advance marketing effectiveness is true.
Case study 2 - GoPro PGC
In 2015, GoPro allowed users to license their videos and sell to companies interested through its GoPro Licensing platform. This move opened a profit making channel for GoPro and its users. This also represented that GoPro has become a content company from a hardware producer. GoPro is billing this service as only providing high-quality videos. Its next goal is to build a social content producing platform.
Many companies have focused on UGC (User Generated Content). In reality, there are tons of UGG (“User Generated Grass”) which means content such as non-essential comments or small ads generated by users/fans. GroPro, on the contrary, set the bar higher by concentrating on PGC (Professionally Generated Content).
Case study 3 - Nike Last: Nike Celebrates Marathon Season With A Soulful Tribute To Last Place
The commercial titled Nike Last shows a scene when a marathon competition was near the end. The staff started cleaning the roads, but a girl, the last runner, insisted on running towards the finish line.
Case study 4 - John Lewis Home Insurance Advert 2015 - Tiny Dancer
John Lewis, a chain of upmarket department stores from England, likes to tell stories from the children’s perspectives. John Lewis created a series of videos with the theme of children to sell its home insurance products. The video captured a little girl wearing black glasses, dancing in the house while breaking the furniture. When moms watch the video, they will naturally think about their daughters. Not every girl is a princess. Most of the girls are ordinary. But no matter if they are ordinary or not, every girl has the right to pursue her dreams. At the end of the video, it says “if it matters to you, it matters to us.”
John Lewis understands that every customer is a true, unique person and creates an emotional engagement within the customer communities by letting ordinary people influence ordinary people.
Photo credit goes to Touch Marketing.
