This document discusses content marketing from Dentsu Aegis Network, a marketing agency. It provides definitions and perspectives on content marketing, including that it is marketing using content rather than advertising. Content can take many forms, such as videos, text, pictures, apps, and physical objects. It can be distributed through bought, owned, and earned media channels. The document discusses how content marketing can be used at different stages of the consumer purchase process and decision journey. It also provides perspectives on using content marketing from both a marketing and communications planning viewpoint, including how it can be used to increase a brand's mental availability and build new associations with consumers.

1. Dentsu Aegis
Quarterly
On Content Marketing

2. Dentsu Aegis
Quarterly
On Content Marketing

3. 5
The world of business is changing fast. We face new chal-
lenges at work in a capricious market.This situation sets
demands on you as a marketing professional and as a client
and on us as your marketing service partner and as an
agency group.
To give you the best possible advice we are reliant on solid
insights. Not only about your products and your industry, but
foremost about the consumer. The consumer behavior shapes
how you should act as a business, and how we advise you to
create effectful solutions that taps into this consumer behavior.
We know how important such insight can be for you and
for your business.We think this knowledge will make your
business more profitable and more competitive and stimu-
late innovation.That is why we decided to point our critical
eye at consumer-centric and market-oriented commercial
issues and share our findings with you in a new series of
analyses. It is customary for us to share this information
exclusively with our clients and business associates; No one
else. This is one of the many benefits you receive using our
network as your partner in areas like marketing, communi-
cation, media and digital platforms.This report will provide
you with insight and information about the consumers
relation to content marketing and some of the business
opportunities this creates. This is something that we know
you are curious about, and also something you need to
know and understand as a business. Many of you have
asked us to share what we know about what is happening in
the digital landscape, why things are happening and what
consequences this has for marketing. We hope this report
provides you with the insight and knowledge you desire.
Dentsu Aegis Network has 24000 colleagues in 110 coun-
tries around the world, and they are dedicated to helping
your business succeed in your market.
Everyone works together to provide the best platform possi-
ble to enable you to navigate through this time of upheaval,
not only to survive but also to thrive.
Paal Fure, CEO
Dentsu Aegis Network Nordic & publisher
Marketing in an
era of transformation

4. 6 7
Contents
Marketing in an era of transformation ............................................
Our definition of content marketing .............................................
The marketing perspective .........................................................
The communications planning perspective ..................................
The performance perspective .....................................................
10 golden rules for content marketing .........................................
Content marketing from a social media perspective .....................
Creating a content strategy ..........................................................
Content measurement ...............................................................
5 easy-to-apply principles for content marketing ..........................
Publisher:
Paal Fure, CEO Dentsu Aegis Network Norway
Strategist & Editor:
Simen Hanssen, Strategic Director Vizeum Norway
Project Manager:
Siv Natalia Lima, Office manager Isobar Norway
Layout/design:
Taran Steen, Designer Isobar Norway
s 3
s 6
s 10
s 12
s 16
s 20
s 22
s 28
s 30
s 32
C 2015
Text:
Peter Petermann, Managing Director Strategy Carat Germany
Dan Calladine, Head of Media Futures Dentsu Aegis Network UK
Agnete Pedersen, Head of SEO iProspect Norway
Daniel Novello, Head of StoryLab Dentsu Aegis Network Norway
Simen Hansen, Strategy director Vizeum Norway

5. 8 9
Content Marketing is essentially what it says – marketing
with content, rather than with advertising. The new digital
age has produced far more sorts of content – pictures,
videos, apps - and therefore far more way for brands to use
content in their marketing.
We are in a time where some people choose to block ads,
and others choose to pay to avoid ads (for example in
Spotify and Netflix); content marketing can bypass some
of this avoidance.
To some degree content marketing always existed – think
of Guinness producing the Guinness Book of Records (to
solve arguments in the pub), Michelin producing a dining
guide for hungry travellers, food brands producing recipe
cards and booklets, and more. However now we are seeing
more of it, and new names to describe it, for example
‘Native Advertising’ so it’s important to understand what it
is, and how it can be distributed.
If we take the structure of ‘Bought, Owned and Earned’
media, content marketing is most associated with Owned,
as in the examples above, but can also be Bought and
Earned. For example: A printed supplement inserted into a
magazine about holiday planning, paid for by a credit card
company – bought media. A short film made by GoPro,
and widely shared on YouTube – Earned media.
There is a large overlap between owned and earned – but
the point is that some films take on a life of their own, far
beyond the intention of the original creator.
Form
Content Marketing comes in many forms. We often think
of it as videos (often the easiest examples to give) but just as
there are so many different types of content there are lots
of types of content marketing.
Video – Yes, YouTube, but lots of new video formats
now exist, allowing all sorts of content, like 6 second
comedy Vines made for brands like Hewlett Packard and
Honda, and 15 second summaries of catwalk shows made
by Burberry on Instagram.
Text – Anything that can be written down, ranging from
recipes and ‘how-to’ guides, to ideas for using the products,
to advertorials in publications from traditional newspapers
to the more modern article styles on sites like BuzzFeed.
For example ’The Toughest Places to Survive on Earth’ for
ADAM, the tough new Vauxhall / Opel car.
Pictures – Pictures have always been used to show the
brand in action, and can get lots of interest in new forms
like Instagram. Digital photos are often very sharable, for
example photos created by brands on Twitter to capitalise
on trends like ‘The Dress’.
Infographics – An alternative to a text-heavy approach
is to present things attractively as an infographic guide.
The beauty site LaurenConrad.com did this last year with
Our Definition
of Content Marketing
a very well presented and useful wedding planning guide –
as a shareable infographic.
Apps – Apps can provide useful service for consumers.
There are lots branded apps, for example adidas’ miCoach
app, and also ones that just entertain, for example the
special ‘Rio’ levels created in Angry Birds to promote the
animated movies in 2011 and 2014.
Physical objects – Another way of looking at using
images as content is to produce physical objects, and let
people photograph them. This has been brilliantly done
by LEGO, for example when they made a giant X-Wing
fighter and placed it in New York’s Time Square for people
to phtograph.
Curation – Brands can also do content marketing by
curating what others have produced. This can take any of
the previously discussed forms, but presenting it with their
own spin. For example Innocent Drinks has a Pinterest
board ‘Fruit for Thought’ of funny pictures of fruit, to
show fans how much they love the fruit that goes into their
drinks, and their slightly irreverent personality.
Distribution
Content, in whatever forms, can be distributed in a
number of ways. Ideally content should be engaging, well
produced, timely, relevant, and easy to share.
Bought – Bought is the easiest form of distribution.
Content can either be designed for paid distribution, like
advertorials on news sites or sites like BuzzFeed, or paid
to be distributed as bits of social content in networks like
Twitter or Facebook, where they will appear as they were
a piece of content, but with a little note underneath to
explain that they are a paid ad.
The rise of native advertising has generated new possibil-
ities for brands to plug their content directly into editorial
contexts. This blending of branded content and editorial
content has created great debates, but is inevitably a new
and fertile channel for content marketing.
FORM DISTRIBUTION

6. 10 11
Owned – This is the second easiest form of distribution
– create your own destination. It could include things like
printing your own leaflets and books, but it also includes
creating your own sites, including micro sites for specific
purposes, and your own profiles on social sites.
For example Shelter, a housing charity in the UK, created
a site to show how much housing cost in different parts
of the UK. Using the idiom ‘there isn’t enough space to
swing a cat’ they created a site called Catswing.io to show
how many thousands of pounds it cost to buy ‘enough
space to swing a cat’. They then used PR to direct people
to find the site.
Earned – The hardest form of distribution, but po-
tentially the cheapest, earned is where people willingly
share the branded content through their social channels.
It generally depends on the quality of the content – how
engaging, funny, timely, emotional, scary and so on – but
also on how easy it is to share. For example the ‘Catswing’
example above was very easy to share because people had
worked out the cost to swing a cat, there was a pre-popu-
lated tweet and Facebook status update to share with the
numbers included.
Brands need to understand content marketing as one way
of communicating in the digital world. It’s not right for all
marketing jobs, but done well it can reinforce brand values,
increase the perception of a brand in the mind of the con-
sumer and drive consumer action.

7. 12 13
The Marketing Perspective
Without wanting to go too much into the details of
Byron’s theory: there seems to be a lot of merit to this idea
and it explains rather plausibly why some brands are more
successful than others despite a similar media budget. The
theory behind “Mental Availability” explains why and how
regular advertising is most effective to drive brand growth:
by continuously reminding consumers of the key brand
message; by “refreshing memory structures” as Byron
Sharp calls it.
In other words, advertising works because when you are an
established, well-known brand it takes only a few contacts
a week for people to be reminded of what they already
know about you. Without these messages the mental image
consumers have of a brand would eventually fade away, the
brand would lose its Share of Mind and other brands will
take up that space.
If you want to grow your brand you need to increase your
brand’s Mental Availability or Share of Mind. To that end,
you have to build new memory structures. At this point,
CONTENT can be much more powerful than advertis-
ing: lots of scientific evidence1
suggests that it is a lot easier
for consumers to remember something they actually care
about (relevant content as opposed to advertising); and that
they learn faster through storytelling than through messag-
ing. Therefore, content allows a brand to increase Mental
Availability faster and more sustainably because it builds
new mental associations more quickly and more lasting
than advertising.
“Mental Availability” is probably one of the most interest­
ing new concepts in marketing today. It was developed by
Byron Sharp, author of “How Brands Grow”, and it de­
scribes the influence a brand’s presence in people’s minds
has on their market success. In a nutshell, Byron claims
that there is a direct correlation between the number of
associations a consumer has with a given brand and the
propensity to choose this brand over another.
1
For example: Levin, Joel R.; Levin, Mary E.; Glasman, Lynette D.; Nordwall, Margaret B. (April 1992). “Mnemonic vocabulary instruction: Additional effectiveness evidence”
When it is relevant to them, people are genuinely interest-
ed in content even when it comes from or is sponsored by
a brand. In fact, they don’t mind at all that brands attach
themselves to content – this is the price they are willing
to pay for free content. But today’s consumers are quite
savvy, especially around content and, therefore, brands do
have to be careful about the content they choose and how
they deliver it. If a brand wants to compete for consumers’
attention the content it delivers must have value. It has to
be (more) entertaining, (more) informative or educational,
or (more) inspiring. Moreover, you need to make sure that
brand has “a right to play” in a given content area. For
example, Coke’s ability to work in music or Red Bull’s cred-
ibility in adrenaline events are unquestionable. But could a
financial services brand authentically deliver beauty tips?
If you want to grow your brand
you need to increase your brand’s
Mental Availability or Share of Mind.
Philadelphia cream cheese was under pressure from private labels. First they tried to in-
crease Mental Availability by building new associations around food: from being associated
mainly with breakfast occasions to becoming a versatile addition to many other types of
food. They delivered thousands of recipes demonstrating that the brand literally “Goes with
everything”.
In Italy, however, the brand went even further: because Mondelez realized the audience’s
obsession with fashion they extend their content strategy and created lots of associations
around models, fashion photography, designers etc. This was a different interpretation of
“Goes with everything” and thus the content around this idea built entirely new memory
structures. This strategy allowed the brand to win back significant market shares.
In 2008, Seth Godin, one of the most influential authors
in marketing, claimed that “content marketing is the only
marketing left.” A lot has happened since then and clearly
there is still a lot of traditional marketing going on – quite
successfully. However, content marketing has undoubtedly
become one of the most powerful weapons in the arsenal
of modern marketing. And not to use it would certainly be
foolish for any marketer.

8. 14 15
Many claim that the consumer purchase process has been
dramatically changed due to the increased availability of
information and the rise of the internet. It is no longer a
linear funnel, but a circular process where the consumer
can enter at various stages and throws brands in and out in
their active evaluation phase
We are not going to dwell on the changes in the purchase
process, but we will state that the biggest implication on
communications planning is the “active evaluation” stage.
The consumer has an enormous space to explore when
evaluating different options and brands, where they con-
sume different types of content to get closer to a decision.
People used to get this information directly from the brands
or the retailers, now the distribution of this content comes
in a myriad of channels. Content also comes in many
forms, such as video, infographics, articles, reviews etc,
which in sum ads complexity to your channel eco system.
We do believe that content marketing can play a major
role in all stages of the process, but the heritage and the
heart of it lies within the active evaluation phase: to move
TRIGGER
INITIAL
CONSIDERATION SET
MOMENT OF
PURCHASE
active evaluation
information gathering shopping
l
oyalty loop
postpurchase experience
ongoing exposure
THE PURCHASE FUNNEL
THEN
AWARENESS
FAMILIARITY
CONSIDERATION
PURCHASE
LOYALTY
CUSTOMER DECISION JOURNEY
NOW
content marketing could actually drive real business results
for these brands, as this will usually break the category
language and set them apart from the competition.
In low interest categories many brands have designed their
own content universe which lifts the content from dry and
boring product specs to focusing on the end benefits of the
category and the brand. The consumer loan player GE
Money has created the webpage “artofmoney” which fo-
cuses on how to save up money, tips for your car and home,
travel tips, and other lifestyle related content. (http://www.
artofmoney.com.au/)
The Scandinavian airline SAS has created the webpage
“Scandinavian traveler” that equally talks about travel
destinations, food trends, culture and lifestyle. (https://
scandinaviantraveler.com)
By elevating into the category they find new ways of com-
municating to the consumer in a relevant way, and create
new mechanics for driving both share of mind, brand value
and conversion.
The communications
planning perspective
the consumer mindset from being interested to generate
purchase intent. But the recent development of digital
distribution channels and smart use of data enables content
marketing to also play a vital part both in the earlier and
later stages of the purchase process. So it needs to be care-
fully planned by setting the correct role for content market-
ing in your communications mix, and also setting the right
KPIs. Do we want more people to discover our brand? Do
we want to develop deeper insights and drive brand value,
or are we using content to drive direct sales. By answering
these types of questions it becomes easier to plan and struc-
ture your content marketing initiatives, both when it comes
to form and distribution channels.
From brand to category
Some brands say that content marketing is not relevant for
their business and their channel ecosystem. They usually
operate in a low interest category where price or distribu-
tion is the determining factor for success. We believe that
defining the role of content marketing
in your ecosystem
“content form x distribution channels
= options = complexity”

9. 16 17
The push dimension
Most of the business objectives we receive in briefs are
about growing the business. If we are to use content
marketing proactively to grow your business at a satisfying
pace, the content needs to be proactively pushed out in dis-
tribution channels to generate reach in the relevant target
groups. Depending on the purpose of your content there
are several options to action on this, both when it comes to
form of content and the distribution aspect.
But the main implication is that you are moving from
owned channels and toward bought or earned channels.
Owned channels still play a part in the push dimension
through channels such as newsletters and Facebookpages,
but these channels mainly communicate with your existing
customers, thus driving frequency and not further penetra-
tion of your brand.
Channels such as native advertising, paid social media and
various paid video channels are good vessels to gain rapid
reach far beyond your existing customer mass, thus setting
the scene for more people discovering your brand and
growing your business.
It is always important to look at the short term KPIs such
as direct sales, but other important KPIs in this dimension
is reach, traffic and interaction rate. You are setting the
scene for generating sales, both on short and long term.
The pull dimension
This dimension relates to the “active evaluation phase” of
the consumer journey, when the consumer shows interest in
your category or brand. In this dimension we are moving
towards owned media as the most important contributor,
which for most brands is the hub of your content. The
most important factor is to be found when the consumer is
searching, so make sure that your content is search-friendly.
A more recent and interesting part of the pull dimension
is to identify users that show interest in your category and
pull these users towards your content. The rise of auto-
mated processes and use of data enables us to use both
contextual and behavioral data to identify consumers that
most likely are interested in your category or brand at a
point of time, and pull these consumers with relevant con-
tent towards our own channels. We can plug content into
the spaces traditionally used for advertising, thus blurring
the lines between advertising and content marketing. By
categorizing your content and using data we can deliver the
relevant content to the right user, at the right time.
Harvesting on the benefits
of content marketing
If you successfully drive traffic to your site by doing good
push content marketing (or other push activities such as
advertising or PR), you have also set the scene for harvest-
ing on this potential.
We often refer to the ecosystem of channel planning across
the consumer journey and the paid, owned and earned di-
mension. In the world of digital communications you need
to have an equally sophisticated ecosystem of data collec-
tion. So when designing your channel eco system you also
need to think about how you collect, store, merge and use
the data collected. This will be your ally for harvesting the
potential content marketing has created in earlier stages of
the purchase process. A set of content marketing initiatives
combined with a strong performance marketing program
can both grow your brand footprint and drive direct short
term sales.
Attention Interest Search Action Share
facebook
facebook
native ads you tube search
content web
crm ecommerce
remarketing
Example of how a content marketing approach fuels your ecosystem by working across through the consumer
journey and across bought, owned and earned media.
Fueling your ecosystem

10. 18 19
Performance Publishing
In a performance perspective, data and web analytics make
the very basis of content marketing. The numbers tell us
what to talk about, what platforms and channels to distrib-
ute the content through and which keywords people use
when they search for information. They tell us what people
are asking for, and what questions should be answered
through your content. From a performance perspective,
content marketing can be described as performance pub-
lishing.
Getting to know the user
through analytics and keyword research
Google and other search engines are the #1 channel when
it comes to both research and decision making, all over
the world. We use it for research, for decision making, to
get information, to shop online, to gain knowledge about
everything. We use it to understand and to find our way
through the jungle of online content.
So what does this mean to us from a performance market-
ing perspective? This mean that good content marketing =
good search engine visibility = better results. Content mar-
keting from a performance perspective means to answer
people’s questions in a language, shape or form that they
recognise, through great content. This will give you good
visibility and relevant traffic to your owned media.
Content marketing from a performance perspective always
starts with the user; the potential customer. The num-
bers, keywords and behaviour. What are people looking
for online? What keywords do they use when they search
for it? What do they want? When do they want it? And in
what shape or form? What makes us share, like or link to a
webpage, a picture or a video? To get to the bottom of this,
to get to know the potential customer, we always start with
the numbers, the web analytics data. We often start with
the keywords. What keywords do we use when we search?
Locally? Globally?
The Performance Perspective
Content marketing from a
performance perspective always
starts with the user; the potential
customer. The numbers, keywords
and behaviour.

11. 20 21
Do we search from a mobile device or a desktop? Then we
look at all the available user behavior data. What do people
do when they visit your website? What can the internal
search data tell us? What makes them stay? What makes
them return? How do we get them to convert? Accurate
keywords and user data lead to good and relevant content
creation that will give you great and measurable results in
all digital channels.
When the content is created and published, we keep on
analyzing. And by doing this, we get accurate results from
our content marketing. Content marketing in a perfor-
mance perspective always start with analytics and keyword
research.
How do we behave in the search engines?
Visibility online, and especially in the search engines, are
a key factor to getting results from your content marketing
efforts. When you spend a lot of time and resources on cre-
ating great content, you should also make sure people find
it. And they usually find it through the search engines.
We know this: The #1 organic result gets around 33% of
all the clicks in a search result on a desktop and 30% of all
the clicks from mobile devices. The #5 position organic re-
sult only gets 5% of the clicks. When your content is visible
on page 3 in the search engine results, you will get only 5%
of the clicks from desktop, and close to 0% of the clicks
from mobile devices. With mobile, we rarely visit page 2 or
3 in the search result, we stay at page 1, in the top 10*.
In other words; to be on top of search engine results is a
key factor to get the visits. Great content and great usabil-
ity on your website is the key to converting these visits and
The #1 organic result gets around 33% of all
the clicks in a search result on a desktop. When your
content is visible on page 3 in the search engine
results, you will get only 5% of the clicks from
desktop.
“What do people do when
they visit your website?”
“What makes people
stay on your website?”
* Source: http://www.advancedwebranking.com/ctrstudy/ (Average of aug14-jan15, International, exact posision.)
The #1 organic result gets around
30% of all the clicks from mobile
devices. With mobile, we rarely visit
page 2 or 3 in the search result, we
stay at page 1, in the top 10*.
making them count. To get the visibility for your content,
you need relevant content that answer people’s questions,
by using the right keywords. To get them to convert, you
need to know how they behave on your website. This will
get you the best possible results and the best possible ROI
on your content marketing.
CRO - Conversion Rate Optimisation
A big part of Performance Publishing, or content mar-
keting from a performance perspective, is conversion rate
optimisation - CRO. When you use the relevant keywords
and get the traffic from the search engines - how do you get
the visitors to behave the way you want? How do you get
them to convert? With CRO you can test how your digital
content works and make the necessary changes, always
with the performance perspective in focus.
Content marketing from a performance perspective, Per-
formance Publishing, is about getting the visibility, to get
the relevant users to visit your owned media, to get them to
convert, return and share your content. It is effective, user
friendly and will give you great ROI.
“What keywords do
we use when we search?”
“How do you get the visitors
to behave the way you want?”

12. 22 23
1. DOES IT ADD VALUE? Is it in some form useful
to consumers, is it entertaining or inspirational? Be sure to
compare your content not only to other content available
in the category in which your brand operates – you need to
benchmark your content against everything that is available
to your audience.
2. HAVE YOU CONSIDERED DIFFERENT
CONTENT FORMATS? Video and short editori-
al content may be the most obvious types, but have you
considered 6s Vines or animated GIFs as an alternative to
longer videos? What about pictures on Instagram? Or even
live streams? For some consumers non-standard formats
are more relevant.
3. HAVE YOU EXPLOITED ALL YOUR
CONTENT? Viewers are often not only interested in
the videos you produce but also in a behind-the-scenes or
a making-of; you can have other people talking about the
content to extend its appeal. Also, new video technology,
such as Videopath, will allow you to enrich your videos
with additional material – so that you can add depth (and
therefore relevance) to your content.
4. DOES IT TELL A STORY? Does the content
you provide add up to a Big Picture? When you provide
more connected and interrelated content your audience
will build new memory structures faster and more sustain-
ably than through disparate pieces of content. Storytelling
is the best way to learn anything.
5. HOW CAPTURING IS IT?
Especially with video content it is
immensely important that you “hook &
hold” your audience. To that end, the
first few seconds are critical: if they are
not engaging or interesting your audi-
ence will switch off. And remember:
in most media (Facebook, in-banner,
digital OOH etc.) your video content
will have to work without sound – at least initially.
6. DOES IT STAND OUT OR IS IT
UNEXPECTED? This is an extremely important prin-
ciple. Most content doesn’t stand out. It all looks the same
10 GOLDEN RULES
FOR CONTENT MARKETING
in a given category. If doing nothing else, cast unique
people. Also, always do this test before watching new
content from your brand: Imagine what the content will
look like before you see it and if you’re right, that’s bad.
High arousal videos (feeling of exhilaration or surprise)
are shared twice as often as low arousal
(feeling of contentment).
7. IS THE BENEFIT TO YOUR
AUDIENCE CLEAR AND SIM-
PLE? Especially when providing
utility, you have to make sure everyone
gets it. What is the value of your content
to your audience with respect to your
brand? Ask 10 people who saw your
content what the benefit was, and if they
all say the same thing you nailed it.
8. IS IT AUTHENTIC, CREDIBLE AND,
MOST IMPORTANTLY, IS IT “ON BRAND”?
Your brand needs to have the “right to play” in whatever
the content is about; if your brand is not credible in this
content area people will shake their head and move on –
or worse: switch to another brand.
9. DOES IT HAVE A CLICKABLE CALL-
TO-ACTION OR SOME OTHER FORM TO
“LEARN MORE”? In an integrated ecosystem you
do not want to create any dead ends. So at the very least,
your content should lead to the brand website or a central
content hub where your audience can find out more about
the brand or consume further content. Additionally, you
can think about more ROI-relevant mechanisms such as a
link to the online shop.
10. IS IT CLEAR THAT YOUR BRAND IS
PROVIDING THE CONTENT?
The key reason you employ content is to create additional
memory structures for the brand – but of course that will
only happen when the brand is clearly present. Using the
brand’s logo (ideally from the beginning), using other brand
assets or the brand’s color palette will create a mental con-
nection between brand and content. You may also want to
think about an even more blunt approach and use “spon-
sored by” or “presented by” cutins.

13. 24 25
Content Marketing from a
Social Media perspective
Why Social Media is both a tuner
and an amplifier for Content
To play an instrument in front of a live audience, in par-
ticular the instrument of Content Marketing, you will soon
realise that not only will the strings need tuning, but also
amplification. What is your weapon of choice and how do
you make it sing?
The ever so beautiful VOX amplifier is a carefully crafted
box of wood, wires and speakers invented by Dick Den-
ney in the late 50`s. In July of 1962 two young lads from
Liverpool would acquire their very first VOX amplifiers.
Later that year, the group would emerge from the studio
with a song called “Love Me Do” and change the world of
popular music forever. The unforgettable sound of their
jangling guitars would become the standard for great guitar
sound for decades.
Socially able brands are making progress
Social media marketing is an important instrument for
brands and content marketers with a few stories up their
sleeve. It is also very personal in a sense, but everybody
likes something. And that is our cue. Should a Content
strategy be content, audience or media centric?
What shall we post today?
As social media increase to grow across markets, brands
need to fill that space with great content to populate those
channels. Brands are more occupied with this than you
might expect. They have seen results of social media
communication over some time now. But any poor staff
member, responsible for posting content to Facebook and
other social media, face the same issue every afternoon;
what will I post today? Some even concern themselves
with next weeks publishing plan. Those poor souls are bat-
Stories for boys
tered with expectations from top management “to do well
in social media”. And in meetings with agencies and other
suppliers of goods and services in the industry that lies in
the wake of Social Media success, comes even more advice
to publish more, be relevant, and spend more. It is time to
look right and left.
Crossing Abbey Road
Every child learns that they must look left and right be-
fore crossing a busy street. Having said that, it sometimes
appears that this logic is lost along the way to adulthood.
Not only do we live in a world of very rapid shifts, it has
also enabled us to gather and use many little bits of data
to predict, learn and optimize content. One should not
take a step back to gain momentum and oversight. There
is simply no time. Disruptive competition and other brands
will not only overtake you, but also sometimes run you over.
Some would suggest a much smarter approach. Take a step
sideways and look to your left and right. If you step back,
you will pause and loose critical momentum. You soon be-
come irrelevant. The competition is not your only enemy.
The competing brand offering the same products and ser-
vices as you are merely trying to achieve the same as you. A
harmless threat in comparison with your best friend giving
birth, your cause asking for your voice in earthquake relief,
or your brother posting a funny video on your timeline.
It is easy being popular – it is
much harder being relevant
In several content marketing over the years, it has proven
somewhat difficult to explain why a client should eliminate
a very popular piece of content. Surely, everyone wants to
be popular; it means growth, prospects, and business. Or,
does it? The answer is no. Not always. It is quite rare that
a popular piece of content really reaches the specific goals
set for it. Popularity is not a currency of much worth in
the long run. One can say; you can have popularity and
relevance, but not economy. You can have economy and
popularity, but not relevance. You can have economy and
relevance, but not popularity.
What is the difference?
An ongoing matter for discussion; will content marketing
and social media marketing merge, or continue as separate
measures for marketers to deploy stories?
Is it time to let go of the silos altogether and think of an
ecosystem as a whole?

14. 26 27
Jay Baer @jaybaer, president of Convince and Convert,
author of “Youtility” has written this paragraph: “Content
marketing is a device used by companies to educate, inform
or entertain customers or prospects by creating attention or
causing behavior that results in leads, sales or advocacy.
Social media is used by customers and prospects to com-
municate among themselves, and occasionally with com-
panies. This communication can result in leads, sales or
advocacy, but is often less structured and conversational,
and can be reactive too, as social media is increasingly
used as a customer support channel. From the company
perspective, the goal of content marketing is consumption,
then behavior. The goal of social media is participation,
then behavior.”
Jason Millner @JasonMillerCA at LinkedIn writes:
“Content marketing will not replace social media by any
means; they are and will continue to be two very differ-
ent things with two very different functions. Social media
channels are the tentacles from which your content extends
its reach while opening up a direct line of communication
with your customers and prospects. In addition, what were
once known as “social media vanity metrics” (shares, plus
ones, Likes, retweets, and comments) are now playing a
much bigger role in how your content ranks within search
engines and the social platforms themselves. At the end
of the day, content and social will be broken out of their
respective silos and pulled together as an essential part of
an overall integrated marketing strategy.”
Many brands will perhaps be not too concerned if one
takes over from the other. They will continue to seek atten-
tion and deep engagement, and measure how they impact
a company’s sales, sentiment and reputation. Regardless
whatever vehicle in which the content sits.
Content marketing is also about to mature to become like
high quality programming and served through program-
matic buying. Interruptive commercial time or disruptive
advertising will give way to content living alongside jour-
nalistic or entertainment content. There are no contradic-
tions. In fact it provides brands and marketers with great
opportunities.
It seems that a communications strategy that includes con-
tent creation and distribution on several platforms within
the ecosystem of bought, owned and earned are proven to
be successful.
Your Content is your latest product
A rare few brands have treated content, not only as a
marketing tool, but also as their latest and greatest product.
This seems to be the case for several of the brands doing
well in social media. People are not only talking about the
brand, but also sharing, commenting and engaging in the
stories. That provides brands with unique data they should
handle with great care and understanding. Data is input
to output. The VOX amplifiers live on, as does the music
of The Beatles, U2 and many others. Each band has their
sound and much of it relies on how the guitar plays out
through the amplifier. It is time brands start looking for
their own sound and then consider what kind amplifiers
they might use. U2 released their latest content with an
unprecedented move with Apple. Was there ever a better
way to tune The Edges guitar? *
* 72 of 79 U2 shows are already sold out on the bands
forthcoming Innocence and Experience Tour 2015.
From the company perspective, the goal
of content marketing is consumption,
then behavior. The goal of social media
is participation, then behavior.”

15. 28 29
“Stop behaving like a
brand, start behaving like
a publisher”

16. 30 31
Creating a
content strategy
Content Marketing is the fastest growing marketing activity for
many of our clients. However, many of them do not necessari-
ly know how to develop, activate or measure a content strategy.
Here’s how you do it:
Who
WHO IS THE AUDIENCE AND WHAT
ARE THEIR AREAS OF INTEREST?
Beyond the usual sources of data we typ-
ically use to identify the passion points of
an audience. There are two sources that are
particularly useful when you are creating a
content strategy: the Facebook Audience Lab
and Google Trends.
The Facebook Audience Lab delivers a
ranking of the top Facebook pages and other
interests for any given audience segment,
from the TV shows they love, to the causes
they support. It also offers insight on Face-
book behavior, such as likelihood to share or
comment on specific subjects. Google Trends,
on the other hand, can give you a tag cloud
with related keywords that will stimulate Con-
tent Ideation.
What
WHAT TYPE OF CONTENT SHOULD THE BRAND
DELIVER? Once we have identified which content might be
relevant, we have to make sure it is valuable to them. There is little
point in serving more of the content which people are already
getting enough of. So we need to find the gaps: what are they not
getting currently but would like to have? And which of these gaps
can the brand credibly and authentically fill with content? Content
ideation will give you thematic areas. Then, there are four broad
types of content to consider to fill those gaps:
Original content:
Original content doesn’t mean
investing at Red Bull levels.
Oreo is good example of how a
brand can become part of con-
sumers’ conversations through
inexpensive social content.
Co-created Content:
Here, a media owner gets to
create content which their
audiences would value, while
the brand gets association with
content which is authentic to
their values and positioning.
User Generated
Content:
Brands can stimulate this
through activations, such as a
sweepstake, or through special
hashtags for consumers to use
(e.g., “#allin” for adidas).
Curated content:
Via curation engines which
gather third party content from
across the web. Curating con-
tent can be powerful for brands,
given how difficult it can be to
find relevant content.
How
HOW DO YOU LEVERAGE THE CONTENT?
You need to define the depth of engagement you want to
generate with your content. Deep engagement is typically
not the most important objective for your content. In or-
der to generate brand growth you usually want to reach as
many people as possible with your content and build new
memory structures with them.
However, in many cases you will find that there are some
consumers who are so interested in your content that
they want to engage further with it. It would be a wasted
opportunity to not allow these people to “dig deeper”: you
need different levels for different segments.
Where
IN WHICH CHANNELS & TOUCH-
POINTS WILL YOU DISTRIBUTE THE
CONTENT? Many brands are still publishing
content only in their own channels, thereby
failing to reach all potential consumers that are
not currently fans or loyal customers. It is crit-
ical that you leverage both Owned & Earned
media; but be sure to include a significant
budget in Bought media to distribute and am-
plify your content. And don’t forget to leverage
Shared media: use the infrastructure of your
content partners (media owners etc. if you have
any) to distribute your content.
When
WHEN WILL YOU DISTRIBUTE THE CONTENT?
Successful content tends to evolve: e.g. the #icebucketchallenge was
adopted bit by bit by celebrities, Facebook groups and other social net-
works. Therefore, you should create a content calendar that indicates
how your content strategy is rolled out over time. You can populate the
calendar with relevant industry or consumer events and plan out exactly
which assets need to be distributed when. Deploying adaptive creative
programmatically means you can also take advantage of unpredictable
events.
It helps to imagine that we’re magazine publishers. We create or curate
the right content; we publish and syndicate it to attract readers; we sched-
ule regular, editorial meetings to make sure the strategy is still on track
and delivering the expected outcomes.

17. 32 33
Content Measurement
Like all other marketing activities, Content Marketing needs
to be fully accountable. We need to be able to demonstrate
the contribution of content to the brand’s ROI. If we do not
track business metrics such as sales and if we don’t correlate
these measures against the content strategy KPIs we have no
way of knowing whether our strategy was successful nor how
to improve it.
Dentsu Aegis Network has a number of powerful instru-
ments for advanced analytics that can help us to calculate
and model all contributions across Bought, Owned, Earned
and Shared Media. With these tools we can demonstrate the
value our content strategy delivers across the entire ecosys-
tem.
But even before looking at the business outcomes we can
and should analyze – and optimize the performance of our
content strategy while it is live. There are 3 aspects we need
to take into consideration to optimize our content strategy.
Media Delivery
In most cases, the key objective of our Content Strategy is
to increase Mental Availability. To that end, we want to get
as many people as possible to see as many different pieces
of content as possible. Therefore, audience reach is still one
of (if not THE) most critical levers for success.
However, there are two ways of looking at this: cumulative
reach (how many people did we reach in total?) and con-
tent reach (how many people actually saw individual pieces
of content?). The reason we want to track this separately
is that with respect to content cumulative reach (the typical
way of measuring reach) can be deceptive: contrary to ad-
vertising, each new piece of content will create additional
memory structures.
We need to understand (and optimize) each piece of con-
tent. Therefore, our measurement approach should take
into consideration two additional elements:
Engagement
If, indeed, we aim to increase Share of Mind, the key
metric we need to look at is “engagement”; the more time I
spend with a piece of content the more likely it will (sus-
tainably) influence my memory structures.
Thus, we need to track metrics such as “time spent” or
“interaction rate”; these are vital to understand whether or
not the individual piece of content has had enough time to
actually create new mental connections.
With video content a very important metric is the socalled
“View-through Rate” – i.e. the number of full views (from
beginning to end). Quite often, the strong connection
between the content and the brand doesn’t come until
the end of the content video; in that case, a high VTR is
critical to the success of your content strategy. A high VTR
is also important if you want consumers to click through to
the brand’s website or e-shop.
Strategically, there are two things you might want to keep
in mind when creating content: either get a “VTR” guar-
antee from your media/distribution partner (i.e. have them
deliver as many views as are necessary to reach a certain
VTR percentage; YouTube offers TruView ads); or create
your content in such a ways that the association to the
brand is established even if the video is not viewed all the
way through. (Here, you may want to think about innova-
tive tech solutions such as Videopath.)
By tracking engagement (especially VTR and CTR to the
brand’s website/shop) closely and by understanding when
people click or leave, you will be able to optimize the con-
tent production on the fly.
Contagion
The other key metric for your content strategy is Conta-
gion (by that we mean sharability and relevance). When
people share a piece of content with their friends or com-
ment on it that must mean that somehow the content was
relevant to them or that they see it as relevant to others.
Which is precisely why we are creating a content strategy
in the first place: to increase the relevance of the brand’s
communication.
When we find that a given piece of content is shared, men-
tioned or commented on we should do two things:
we should amplify it in Bought Media to spread this con-
tent to as many other people as possible. And we should
try to learn quickly why this particular content was shared:
understanding what works and what doesn’t will help us to
optimize our content strategy in near-real-time.
In summary, we need to track the outputs, outtakes and
outcomes of our Content Strategy – just like with every
other media strategy. Monitoring the outputs (i.e. the me-
dia metrics) will help us to make sure that all our content
actually is seen by as many people as possible. Tracking the
outtakes (i.e., the engagement metrics) will ensure that the
content actually did create new memory structures. And
correlating the content to business outcomes will make
certain that we understand the ROI contribution of the
content strategy and that we remain fully accountable to
our clients.
ROI

18. 34 35
5 easy-to-apply
principles for content
marketing
1Be smart
Be clear about what you want to
achieve and define SMART objectives.
2Be authentic
Make sure you have the “right
to play” in a given content area.
3Be measurable
Track what you contribute to ROI.
4Be relevant
Relevance is key to a successful
content strategy.
5Be valueable
Entertainment, information,
education, utility.

19. Carat is the #1 Global Media Network, and the fastest
growing, according to RECMA. Our vision is to Redefine
Media and create better client business value through our
command of media convergence.
We are a market leader in digital and diversified media
solutions. Established in 1968 as the world’s first media
agency, we are part of the Dentsu Aegis Network. Carat
currently services clients in more than 140 countries and
employs more than 8,000 staff worldwide.
Carat – Redefining Media
Its goal is to deliver a demonstrable uplift in media
performance across TV, Print, Digital and Radio on
a global basis. Amplifi operates across three distinct areas
of specialisation: Investment, Global Media Partnerships
and Programmatic buying (AMNET). Amplifi uses the
opportunities presented by convergence and globalisation
to deliver a value proposition that works for clients and
media owners.
Amplifi - the media investment arm
of Dentsu Aegis Network.
Vizeum was created for the new era of media: A conver-
gent world where consumers and content come together, in
real time, on platforms and devices; a global world massive-
ly impacted by digital technology which is totally reshaping
the environment that brands and people live in.
Vizeum embraces every dimension, linking social, mobile,
offline and online, generating emotions and trust, and
building powerful connections between brands and people
at speed and scale.
Vizeum - Connections that Count
Isobar is a global full service digital marketing agency,
driven by the purpose to deliver borderless ideas enabled
through technology, to transform businesses and brands.
We have over 3,000 digital pioneers in 66 offices, across 41
markets worldwide.
In 2013 Isobar won over 170 awards, including 18 Agen-
cy of the Year titles and we have won two consecutive,
Asia-Pacific Agency Network of the Year Awards. Key
clients include adidas, Coca-Cola, Disney, General Mo-
tors, Google, HBO, Kellogg’s and P&G. Isobar is part of
the Dentsu Aegis Network, a wholly owned subsidiary of
Dentsu Inc.
Isobar – Ideas without limits
International
Across the globe, we make digital marketing human by
bringing everything together – creating the connections
brands need to stay ahead, and giving businesses a tangible
advantage in today’s world.
At iProspect, we’re not just specialists in different types of
digital marketing – we also know how to bring it together. By
putting customers at the centre, we create effective strategies
that connect with people across every channel – and grow
businesses in ways they can measure.
countries.
iProspect – Driving Digital Performance
Posterscope is the world’s leading Out-of-Home commu-
nications agency and location expert. It knows more about
what people think, feel and do out of home.
Posterscope translates this understanding into compelling,
creative and quantifiable Out-of-Home solutions through
its investment in data, technology and people, which make
a meaningful difference to clients’ businesses.
Posterscope - Pioneering Out-of-Home
psLIVE, Dentsu Aegis Brand Experience Network, is a
leading international Brand Experience Network that
delivers engaging and memorable consumer experiences,
all driven through insight, data and innovation. We aim to
make the brand experience a meaningful and memorable
one, augmenting the traditional media proposition, extend-
ing through owned and earned media. We create integrated,
digitally driven and measurable multi-market campaigns
Employing 200 experienced professionals, psLIVE offers
relevant creative solutions and excellent implementation
consistently in all our 22 markets through living our values
of ambition, collaboration and agility. The network has true
international reach and boasts an impressive portfolio of
clients, including leading global brands such as Twentieth
Century Fox, Canon, Sony, Adidas and Allianz.
psLive –Empowering Brands and Bringing them to Life