Content Campaigns Will Get Smarter And More Personal In 2016

The best marketing campaigns have always been complex.  They were never just about delivering a single message; they were about delivering that same message wherever the customer happened to be. Whether they were watching a show on prime-time television, driving down the highway or buying a drink from a kiosk, the brand message would always be right there in front of them defined by color and design, photography and image.

Coca Cola would run a television commercial that made viewers a character in its story, then remind them of that character whenever they saw that red and white branding on a billboard or in a store. Each channel took a piece of the story and tried to connect it to the viewer.

Digital marketing has at the same time made delivering that story both easier and more challenging. There are now more places than ever on which a brand story can — and must — be placed. The story, delivered through content, is now vital. But it hasn’t always been implemented well, especially by companies used to traditional marketing.

In 2014, Johnson and Johnson, a healthcare firm, released a video commercial that didn’t promote one of its many products. Instead, the film focused on family in general and fatherhood in particular. The format was a smart choice  — video is becoming increasingly important online — but the topic too was thoughtful. It put the company and the brand firmly into the most important aspects of the lives of its customers.

Content Just For Dads

We’re already starting to see that kind of storytelling spread and the trend will continue into 2016. Coca Cola might have been the king of advertising but its content marketing platform has struggled to win engagement. The company was quick to understand that traditional static content had its limits; it was slower to notice that audiences now expect that content to be targeted at them personally and allow them to interact with it.

Last year, the drinks firm showed that it had learned that lesson with its Crossroads campaign. A series of films subtly identified the brand not with a happy teen lifestyle, as it might have done in the past, but with the importance of tackling teen problems including bullying, pregnancy and homophobia. These weren’t the kinds of messages that Coca Cola can easily place on a billboard but published to YouTube, they let the company reach its teen audiences with stories that matter.

Other companies will also learn to produce episodic narratives in 2016 but we can also expect companies to get better at targeting that content to those audiences. Placed on YouTube, Johnson and Johnson’s video can be seen by anyone who comes across it. That makes the distribution similar to a traditional television commercial where advertisers choose placement based on broad demographic data.

Today, though, we can target even videos much more precisely. We can make sure that the personas we’ve created match exactly the audiences we expect to watch the clips. From shares and comments to on-screen choices, we can build in close engagement with those audiences and we can adapt the same message so that it matches platforms from websites and Facebook to Periscope and Snapchat.

Marketing campaigns have always been complex, and where there’s complexity, there’s also room for errors. The plethora of platforms that content marketers now have to deal with hasn’t made life easier. But it has made results better and in 2016, we’ll all learn more about how to spread the same message through storied published on different platforms to the precise audiences we want to reach.

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