Over the years, the only issue I’ve learned is that content material advertising is the exact opposite of advertising. When we’re brainstorming thoughts for a video, I’m constantly cautious now not to make it appear like an ad. I’ve realized that the primary concept that comes to my mind is normally the incorrect idea. Wrong, because it comes from a place that has grown up looking at films and ads on TV. After I cross past the first idea and dive deep, making exhaustive lists from regular brainstorming, newer, extra-relevant designs emerge.
Content, to me, starts with an obsessive consciousness of the customers. In my fights with emblem managers throughout agencies, I’ve realized that at the same time, as a brand, managers are the custodians of the emblem and represent its interests; on the subject of content material, we (the content material creators) constitute the target market, the customers. The content must be within the customers’ hobby first and the logo subsequent. The consumer revel in, right from the first second of the video until the stop, will decide how they engage and interact with our content.
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When we take the side of our audience and create for them, inspire them, solve their ache factors, rejoice in their lifestyles, help them express who they are, or give them a car to make the sector a higher place, we see authentic engagement. They then make the video their own and take it ahead via sharing the content with their friends. You recognize your video has gone viral, and you see others importing your video as personal on YouTube and Facebook. It’s the content material version of ways pirated copies of bestselling books are sold at site visitors’ lights in India.
They don’t surely care about us.
Ads employing nature have been positioned in the BS class in our minds. Whenever we see an advert, we transfer channels; we forget about billboards and appearance away; we transfer windows while we see an advert and scroll past their posts. As an audience, we’ve come to be ad blind. Our brains have evolved to ignore them. Ad publishers get nightmares just considering how advert blockers are rising on phones and browsers. Every 12 months, the wide variety is going up.
People in the commercial enterprise of creating advertisements normally get unsettled after crossing on the offensive like this. But the truth is that if you ask everyone about the videos they bear in mind sharing with their pals within the final week, nine out of 10 times, it’d be a content video and no longer an ad. When we create content material that tries to make an impact on their lives and provide price or help them specifically who they are, then we don’t just get lovers; we get brand ambassadors, evangelists, and tiny influencers who will gather around water coolers and communicate about our content material. Our emblem turns into a conduit in making that take place. That’s the sport we need to win at—growing above the BS and providing cost first.
So, how do you combine your brand with the content material?
I emphasized that the proper brainstorming degree when choosing proportion-worth subjects is that the logo DNA has to flow via the thoughts. Not the emblem, but its DNA. Figure out what that one aspect your emblem stands for, celebrates, or is aligned with. It’s larger than what you do; it’s approximately extra about why you do it, what the underlying cause is, and logo identity. When all your ideas have the logo DNA, and you’ve created the content material, the next step is the diffused art of emblem integration. My rule of thumb is that the brand has to be a part of the video, not as an interruption or plug but as part of the narrative. It must be included so the story and the video can move forward.
Sure, you may have it as a watermark logo on the pinnacle of the video, display it within the starting with the name, and quit with it inside the conclusion; however, while we integrate the brand as a part of the narrative itself, it works better. Also, ultimately, make sure to add your emblem with its CTA (call to motion: “download now,”
“signing up, “prepurchase,” “be part of us,” and so forth). For instance, while we created the travel hacks films, they contained the logo DNA of the journey and started with the handiest approximately how to % your luggage, and many others. But after a few hacks, ixigo’s features were shown as a travel hack. When we created the language video series (“How to Speak Bengali,” and so on), one of the terms turned into traveling, and ixigo was shown as the solution. Or, while we create a rap track, the brand call becomes used as the rapper’s signature within the tune. In all the cases, the presence of the emblem became diffused and took the narrative forward. It did not exist as a blatant plug.
