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Why Content Marketing Is A Team Sport

This article is more than 9 years old.

By Chris Vollmer and Matt Egol, Partners at Strategy&, a member of the PwC network of firms (formerly Booz & Company)

Heineken recently put a tennis umpire chair in the middle of Union Square, one of Manhattan’s busiest areas. The reason: It was part of a contest in which fans could win two U.S. Open tickets.

Unlike in professional soccer or basketball, rowdy fan chants are not exactly encouraged in tennis. The beer maker, one of the U.S. Open’s major sponsors, set out to see if it could apply some of tennis’s venerable decorum to New York’s noisy streets by having volunteers sit on the umpire chair and quiet passersby. Heineken’s whimsical take on tennis’s umpiring (see full video here) has no direct link to beer—the event’s call to action doesn’t even urge participants to buy anything. What it does, however, is generate the sort of high-value emotional connections that build the brand through engagement in more interactive experiences involving content and community.

In an increasingly crowded media landscape where anyone with a smartphone can produce viral media, brands such as Heineken can no longer rely on just commissioning stale 30-second promotional ads. They have to stand out by producing memorable experiences—both online and offline—that generate emotional connections and help turn viewers into fans. Creating that sort of content is a real team sport involving people working across different functions. Heineken’s “Quiet Please” campaign brought together the company’s sports sponsorships, its PR team, and, of course, internal and agency creatives to craft and execute the concept.

British fashion house Burberry has also fostered intimate relationships with legions of young shoppers by producing a steady stream of immersive and trendsetting digital content that spans its owned media assets as well as engages consumers via social media. The company recently partnered with Google to develop Burberry Kisses, a whimsical interactive experience that lets users send friends an email sealed with a virtual kiss. Touch-screen technology also lets senders overlay their kiss with a specific Burberry lipstick shade. The company also recently unveiled Burberry Acoustic, a music video platform showcasing both emerging and established artists that further reinforces the company’s relationship with millennials as a leading lifestyle brand. Much like the “Quiet Please” campaign, the Acoustic platform doesn’t push customers to hit the “buy” button on one of Burberry’s classic trench coats. Instead, it has bolstered Burberry’s cool ethos by building goodwill among a young and creative audience that could end up both buying some of the company’s luxury products and influencing their peers to do the same.

Burberry’s creative push extends to its in-store efforts as well. The brand’s creative director, Christopher Bailey, has attempted to replicate online endeavors at the company’s 44,000-square-foot flagship store on London’s Regent Street. In-store attendants carry iPads to show how a sweater might look on a client or to order out-of-stock items. The company’s merchandise is also pegged with radio-frequency ID sensors that deliver content on a specific item directly to special-purpose mirrors. Anchoring the digital in-store experience is a 22-foot-high screen that live streams Burberry’s spring and summer fashion shows. “When you walked into the Regent Street store, we wanted you to feel exactly the same atmosphere, to be able to engage with it in the same way that you might be able to engage online,” Bailey explains. Again, the immersive content wasn’t produced by a single group but is the result of a team approach. Bailey wasn’t just coming up with next spring’s collection; he also had a role in transforming the Regent Street store into a cutting-edge digital gallery. For the “Kisses” campaign, the fashion house partnered with a team of technologists (in this case Google’s Art, Copy & Code group) to create its digital work.

It’s not just retailers and consumer goods companies that are rewriting the online playbook. Iconic industrial companies such as GE are also focusing on content as a means of heightening brand engagement and building a more sustained conversation with customers around thematic interests. The conglomerate oversees a number of online media properties, including GE Reports and Txchnologist, which publish informed and entertaining stories on GE technologies. Across various mediums, including blogs, Tumblr posts, videos, and even 3D printing initiatives, GE harnesses its team of digital creators to tell its story.

GE’s Instagram account, launched in 2011, provides nearly 174,000 followers with stylized images of engines, wind turbines, and other products manufactured by GE. The photo stream is just one way GE is telling its story, part of an integrated content marketing strategy to engage customers across platforms and deliver branded experiences. It will help boost sales and generate long-term brand value, according to Beth Comstock, GE’s chief marketing officer. “I’ve made it my calling to say business marketing does not have to be boring marketing,” she explains. “You can’t sell anything if you can’t tell anything. We’ve had to create content that appeals to a wide range of customers and shareholders.”

Over at GE, creatives (writers, videographers, UX/User Experience designers) work closely with the company’s marketing and PR teams to create digital experiences that highlight some of the company’s key messages. To get its Instagram account up and running, GE commissioned photographers to travel the world shooting art-gallery-worthy photos of its turbines, jet engines, and other industrial products.

GE, Burberry, Heineken—these brand success stories all share something beyond offering compelling content experiences across platforms. They illustrate the decision to approach content as a team sport and to fuse creative talent with business acumen. They bring together multiple disciplines to drive a new way of engaging customers along their path to purchase, in order to win over both hearts and minds.