Digital Content

TIME FOR AN EDITORIAL APPROACH

The more of anything that exists, the greater the need for a flter. The
staggering growth in bandwidth (afforded by the post digital society that is
endlessly driven to conceive of better, smaller, more intuitive machines that
feed larger, broader, more robust networks, with easier-to-use and faster
built-in publishing and interaction tools) has led to an almost overwhelming
amount of brand messaging, available on a myriad of devices, and the
increased ability of the human brain to begin to flter out what it is and isnt
interested in consuming.
Given the background noise of all this information and data and in an
attempt to overcome this relatively new but instinctive ability of humans to
make fast choices about relevance; brands must work hard to breakthrough
with meaningful and engaging content designed in an unapologetically
biased way for their specifc audience.
At Adjust Your Set we believe that there is a lot that brands can learn
from the publishing industries that have perpetually created and surfaced
content onto a variety of platforms, that tightly defned audiences have
actually seen the value in paying for and pulled inwards into their lives for
tens, if not hundreds of years. We applaud forward thinking and brave
brands that have been at the forefront of the trend to employ professional
editors and creators from the publishing and content sectors into internal
roles to improve the overall design and relevancy of their content, to
streamline the production process and to maximise its overall effectiveness
as marketing collateral.
In this thought-piece our Editorial & Design Director considers the changes
to the marketing communications landscape that have led us to a place
where brands must create more intelligent content than at any other time in
history, and learn to adapt their messaging and approach to storytelling to
appeal to the evermore demanding and brand savvy general public.
Chris Gorell Barnes
CEO & Founder, Adjust Your Set
Foreword
Digital Content
Time for an Editorial approach
Times and technology have changed. The days of perceiving
digital content creation as a luxury are frmly over for the brand
community. The user-experience on most platforms relies upon it
and their customers want it, no, they expect it.
The creation of workable content strategies that (as well as
technology and analytical requirements) describe the treatment
and real opportunity for a vast array of content types and how they
ladder effectively into the over-arching marketing plan is now an
imperative. Designing content with the right voice and tone, that
tells the most relevant stories and in the most appropriate language,
and surfaces in desired places at the best times (appearing
simultaneously engaging, natural and relevant) takes time and
expert advise.
In the following chapters we discuss the changes that have
brought this all about, provide real examples, discuss the pitfalls
and opportunities, pose questions for further debate and present
the beginnings of an Editorial framework for the future of content
creation.
Written and edited by Christopher Lockwood
Editorial & Design Director, Adjust Your Set
THE POWER OF NICHE
THE MEDIUM NOT THE MODEL
THE RAISON DETRE HAS CHANGED
CHANGING GOALPOSTS
PUBLISHING CONTENT
IMPORTANCE OF BRAND ADJACENCY
EDI - COMMERCE
CONTENT STRATEGY
QUALITY OVER QUANTITY
AN EDITORIAL APPROACH
HARNESSING CREATIVE TALENT
SUMMARY
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
The power
of niche
This is a new world and one that
brands can take a much more
dynamic role within.
The power of niche
Arguably the most substantial difference
that Tim Berners Lees humanity-changing
invention (WWW) has had upon all of
our lives is the ability to instantaneously
search and access detailed and accurate
information about anything that we want (no
matter how obscure), at any time and from
any place the world over.
Within as little as a ten-year period this has uniformly
unfettered the true power of niche.
This has allowed anoraks (in a positive
sense) on literally any subject to focus
unashamedly on their area of specialism and
build remarkable platforms with dedicated
audiences of single-minded followers from
every nation, that over time can go as far
as becoming renowned and infuential
communities.
In the same time frame the proliferation
of satellite and cable TV, the increased
fragmentation of traditional TV, and the ever-
growing array of other distractions (video
platforms, social networks, gaming & other
pirated content) all combine, with a desire
for a more personal and specialist playlist
to our individual lives, that pull us far away
from a reliance on just the one newspaper
or magazine for news and gossip, and
primetime on four or fve national TV
channels for everything else.
The medium
not the model
The King is dead. Long live the King!
For at least two decades now industry doom-
mongers have heralded the demise of traditional
media (broadcast corporations, newspaper
groups, magazine empires) as we have known and
loved them for so long. We have routinely and in
increasingly public circles announced the death
of print, the decline of cinema, and the collapse of
network television.
If there is actually factual truth in any of this though;
what we, of course have been describing is the
decay of an old school commercial model and a
one-size-fts-all approach to content creation &
delivery as opposed to any reduction in the power
and effectiveness of the mediums themselves.
Even if our televisions are losing their frst
screen status (to what have until now been mere
comparison devices) the same 20-30% of British
adults still sit down in front of a TV most nights.
They simply now watch content on it that is being
broadcast, re-broadcast, repackaged, frozen in
time or pre-recorded from literally hundreds of
different sources and simlultaneously do other
things on other platforms (the concept of a
collective channel for everyone has been replaced
with a world where everyone can select their own
channel).
Video, as a method for recording
live events, building imaginary
worlds and facilitating all kinds
of storytelling is still by far and
away the most effective and
powerful way to make content
that people enjoy and rely upon
as one of their primary sources
of news, information and escape
- on a myriad of devices.
Pinterest - Beachcombing, David J Nightingale
Not so far behind video and although now
physically very different from its ink-printed
forefathers, is Editorial content (words and
pictures). Newspapers and magazines have
arguably had to reinvent themselves most
radically in line with digital advancements (for
a great example look at www.wibbitz.com).
However, as a basic creative process involving a
combination of editors, investigative journalists,
other writers, image-makers and designers, it
hasnt changed at all.
What we are prepared to pay for, our perception
of quality over relevance, immediacy and levels
of personalisation (if not specifcally yet to us as
distinct individuals, then at least to people more
like us, with shared interests, needs and opinions
as opposed to being lumped with all male
adults 35-40).
If credible content can now come from a vast
array of sources, and we have evolved to favour
niche relevance and personalisation over a
more generalist approach, then that is all the
permission that brands need to begin to consider
their customer base as communities of real
people, with particular tastes and interests, and
to begin to create regular content that dares not
to be long-form advertising, and begins to plug
an ever-growing hole in their marketing mix.
The obvious opportunity for brands is that as a public,
we consume and want more content than ever before
we simply have just changed our expectations about
who should make and provide it.
THE RAISON
DETRE HAS
CHANGED
There is a revolution going on and
it has nothing to do with brand or
advertising.
What excites me more than most
other things about the developments
in science and technology and the
empowerment of the everyday
you and me is that it breeds,
possibly more strongly than at any
other time in the entire history of
humanity, a nothing to lose or get
up and have a go culture, where little
experimentation is prohibited by
cost, and in the truest sense there
is no stigma attached to failure
more likely a kudos for trying, and
appreciation of the knock-on benefts
for those who pick up where you
left off. Technology has leveled
many playing felds. The tools for
development are no longer afforded
simply by the few... Small garage
businesses and lone teenagers can
compete on a world stage against the
behemoths, get noticed, and quickly,
and win
Excerpt from Christopher Lockwoods
chapter in The Digital State, Kogan Page 2013
The raison detre has changed
People can now study at an Ivy League university
without leaving their kitchen table in Norwich; they
can effortlessly buy single items from a shop in
a country that they will never, even in their entire
lifetime, visit; they routinely share meaningful
real-time conversations or gameplay with people
sitting in fve continents at the same time; they
expect to be able to buy what ever they see,
whenever they see it and to effortlessly review
peer-equivalent opinions in order to inform their
purchase decision.
They are exposed to so many different kinds of
messages and content every single day and
have done so for so long that their brains have
actually developed an additional sense: an inbuilt
ability to flter, decipher, prioritise, reorder and
compartmentalise information of many different
shapes and sizes, and to do this deep in their
psyche without perhaps even being aware of it.
To add to this impressive reality, we have also
crafted digital worlds and networks that allow us
to fulfll, on a global scale, our most human of
sensibilities, our ability to connect and be social.
Humans have imagined, built and made ubiquitous such
wonderful technology that is has increased the potential
of the human brain.
Pinterest - Google glass,
Glass Foundry San Francisco
Pinterest - Atari, it8bit.com (Information Superhighway)
Since our original caveman predecessors we have
grouped together in communities, not just to protect one
another and to procreate but in fact and possibly even
more signifcantly, to have shared stories, learning and
knowledge - and it is this that has actually led to the
evolution of mankind.
And instead of lamenting these changes, we have built
other platforms to accentuate them. Twitter imagines
a world where an entire work of Shakespeare can be
distilled into 140 characters, Vine renounces the need for
any flm to ever be longer than 6 seconds and Snapchat
encourages that we reframe all of this content as
disposable.
The industry has changed all at once too: a convergence
of global society; an increased global intelligence &
consumer wealth, increased access to technology
(even in the developing world), greater self-awareness
about over-consumerism and, the realisation in certain
advanced civilisations, that some businesses and brands
have perhaps pushed it too far.
In our new Digital State, technology is always advancing,
manufacturing changing, and the retail landscape,
and the customer journey, simplifying. Thanks to the
information-super-highway (a road now with many more
lanes, much more traffc and all propelled at considerably
faster speeds than its inventors perhaps ever even
envisaged) the movement of data will only ever get faster
and across a broader infrastructure.
We have also responded to this overwhelming volume
of content by becoming noticeably more demanding of
individual pieces of it: constantly switching channels, leaving
the cinema before the end, not reading more than half of a
book, simultaneously multi-screening, clearing our inboxes
and optimising our available memory.
Don Drapers not-so-imaginary Madison Avenue
days are over, but its not the (m)ad men that have
changed, it is us.
A social revolution has taken place that has
changed brand and service marketing forever. The
Media must face facts about the democratisation
of Intellectual Property and genuinely consider the
potential of citizen journalism (cost, speed and
immediacy versus creativity and control).
Brands are seeing peoples approach to choice,
recommendation and purchase change in
front of their eyes. In a digital world people can
routinely avoid advertising, and in a relatively new
development actually go as far as using social
networks as a platform for public disgrace and
defamation if an advertiser does something they
dont like.
In old money a brand could get away with a
limited spend on R&D, cross the world to source
the cheapest labour (often illegal), cross the
world again in the opposite direction to source the
cheapest materials (no fairtrade) and fy products
round and round the planet in the construction
process (without an environmental care).
People (once condescendingly referred to as mere
consumers) are answering back. They vote with their smart
phones instead of their feet and can send a positive trend
spinning across boundaries, oceans and language barriers
within hours and similarly crush a brand, product or content
franchise and reduce its chances of success to rubble.
Subsequently, able to underprice the market, and
with little concern for whether the product was
actually particularly special at all, it was then possible
to commission an award winning ad agency and
persuade the public that they couldnt live without it.
Clearly I am not pointing any particular fngers and
exaggerate to make a point, but most brands have
fallen foul of one or two of these factors at times in the
past, and simply put their public is just not prepared
to let that happen anymore.
In the new world a brand cant just say that a product
is good, they have to prove it. They must make
products available for real people to try, expect and
make provisions for honest feedback, engage with
those comments, and go as far as actually making
changes to the product if the public demands it. They
must demonstrate how careful they have been in
considering people and the planet.
Traditional advertising was never designed to act
like this (such levels of personal relevance and
responsiveness and all at blink and its gone speeds)
in fact it is such an antithesis of approach that it is
diffcult to imagine how advertising as we know could
ever evolve directly to adopt this new guise.
Brands can no longer be dictators, they must retire to a
more indirect place, be more inventive in their approach
to customer interaction and provide useful and interesting
content that dares to put the consumers needs ahead of its
own and to do this 24/7, 365 on as many platforms as real
people choose to use, entirely at their own whim.
CHANGING
GOALPOSTS
Signifcant changes
in the marketing
landscape
Previously unimaginable
developments in technology
and the impact that these have
had on consumer behaviour
have caused a revolution in
marketing communications.
Traditional approaches to
advertising and marketing
appear handicapped by
the new rules whilst at the
same time brands have more
opportunities than ever before;
helped enormously by the
evolution of video and content
per se.
Digital search culture
Consumer fnds brands
Brands develop digital strategy (websites, rich, media & SEO)
Still short-form direct messaging but driving to info online
Information still limited to product
Limited conversation (between brand & consumer)
1996 - 2009 (15 years)
Advertising culture
Brands fnd consumers
Brands make advertising
Short-form direct broadcast messages
Limited info-share
No conversation (between brand & customer)
No real-time sensitivity
Limited real relevance or personalisation
1965 - 1995 (30 years)
Topline
evolution of
marcomms
SOCIAL
CULTURE
2010 - 2020 (10 years)
Indirect conversation-led marketing
Real-time focus on personalisation and relevance
Brand relationships built around sharing
info, ideas and products
Brands and public increasingly exist on
a more equal level
Brands must create content to
promote conversation & storytelling
Multi-screen world
makes video King
Actively time-sensitive and
responsive
Topline
evolution of
video
Enhancing a website/Long-form advertising/ Building an
aspirational lifestyle for consumers to buy into
2008
To provide useful & engaging info/To generate conversation/To
build communities & enable sharing/To get real-time feedback/To
change marketing emphasis from talking at to talking with people
1990
2000
2014
Enhancing digital retail/Guiding selection e-commerce/
Guerilla advertising (single stunts & virals)/How to /
Educating about provenance/ CSR
30 sec ads/Pop promos/Corporate video/ Internal comms/
Education/ Instruction & Wedding videos
9
2
%
20
%
Traditional
marketing
is broken
Percentage of people
who trust peer
recommendation versus
a shrinking number who
feel the same way
about advertising
90
14
20
%
Of Googles
searches everyday
have never been
searched before
9
2
%
9
2
%
Z
Y
&
Z
Y
&
In 2012
Consumers bombarded on average 5,000 times a day
86% of people reported skipping ads where they could
44% of direct mail wasnt opened
99% of banner advertising was never clicked
60% of Americans now on a do not call list
Of under two year olds
already have a
digital shadow
Generation Y&Z
now consider email
totally passe
9
2
%
Need for increasing volume of timely, useful, appealing,
audience-centric & brand adjacent content
Marketing
trends
for 2013
Signifcant move to Brands acting like Publishers
Brands must learn to blend Editorial & Commerce
Personalisation & Relevance are the key
to more responsive digital experience
Video is the hardest working, best feeling content on all
devices (by 2015, 90% of all internet traffc will be video)
Here comes mobile - overtaking PC
as leading entertainment medium
Move from controlling to participating in the conversation
Brands must remember smartphones/tablets not the same
Technology itself more invisible to the consumer than ever before
PERFECT
CONDITIONS
FOR THE RISE
OF SOCIAL
VIDEO
Reduction in relative cost of production
Cameras have become ubiquitous
Increased bandwidth & wireless access
Proliferation of smartphones & tablets
Increase in computer speed per se
East to use self-publishing tools
Rise of social networking platforms
In a multi-screen world video is King
PUBLISHING
CONTENT
Brands must increasingly act like
publishers as well as advertisers
Pinterest - Computerarts.co.uk
Publishing content
If you were interested in a literal translation then we
would suggest that being a magazine these days
means generating many different shapes and sizes
of content: commissioning videos, word & pictures,
hand-picking contributors & super bloggers,
curating as well as creating content, harnessing
social & user generated content and then serving
all of this to its fullest potential across a variety
of digital, mobile and social platforms. But to be
honest, although the word publisher suggests it,
it is little more than a simile and doesnt actually
mean that you should start a magazine on top of
everything else you must do.
The description is relevant however because the
most successful, tried and tested creative process
for the perpetual creation of engaging, timely, useful
and appealing audience-centric content, is that of a
magazine.
Publishers tend to be made up of relatively large
teams of diverse yet complimentary skills - think of
the masthead of any magazine or the long credits
at the end of a movie. This is one of the issues that
we must learn to overcome as an industry but a
similar effect can be re-created with virtual teams of
freelance talent by using a reputable content agency
as the conduit.
The content in question is still your marketing collateral,
designed to do what it has done for a long time: your
advertising, your in-store collateral, your PR, your website
content and or e-commerce platform etc etc its just that
within the new rules this content needs to be presented in a
fresh way, to best appeal to your public.
To be the representative of the audiences
interest in any discussion
To know what information and entertainment
they need and desire
Ability to display a complete understanding
and empathy for your audience
Building process and structure that can package information
in such a way is often more time-consuming than the brand
community have been used to, but the payoff in message
retention and frst mover advantage in any sector for
implementing such changes in customer marketing, often
justifes the extra time and effort.
To know what they are looking for from
you and how they use it
To be a master at the craft of storytelling
& information provision
To know who else provides this
information & differentiate from them
To be creative and apposite instead
of long-winded and/or boring
Publishing is in this sense an attitude, a creative process and
above all a relationship between you (proxy publisher) and
your customers (reader or viewer) that involves a lot of the
following:
IMPORTANCE
OF BRAND
ADJACENCY
One of the hardest elements for
brands and business models that
still rely heavily on an addiction to
advertising and advertising metrics,
is to learn that customers will actually
thank and reward you for deliberately
dialing down your own interests in
favour of theirs. To succeed at this,
brands must move away from a
can in hand approach to marketing
content. Consumers in the social
space are incredibly savvy and get
turned off by overt publicity. The
best content inspires the customer
and sells a dream which subtly aligns
with that brands values.
Case study one: Red Bull
Red Bulls enormously successful video content
strategy focuses on high-stakes adventure
sports snow boarding, extreme mountain
biking, sky diving, even small plane acrobatics,
as well as music & DJ concerts, dance-offs
and other active youth culture - all brought
to you by Red Bull. There is no can in hand
here, no marketing spiel extolling the virtues of
the Red Bull energy drink or talking about the
product overtly. Red Bull aligns itself with big
name independent flmmakers and, extreme
sports stars who themselves are cool. Thus by
endorsing, presenting and curating this content,
Red Bull, is cool.
Although the image I have chosen above has
the most enormous Red Bull branding it is in
fact the last time you see the brand in the entire
8min flm. Brand values: adventure/fun/energy/
risk-taking/achievement
Felix Baumgartner jump: 33 million views
YouTube and 21k shares on Facebook.
Pinterest - Red Bull, Art of fight
Case study two: Expedia
Expedias latest video campaign focuses on the
emotional journey a person takes as they go on a
particular physical one. There is barely a mention
of Expedia the whole time and no travel-based
products are pushed. In each flm, a person
takes a specifc journey for a reason: they must
overcome prejudices and their past in order to
make the journey. In one video a father must travel
to California to give his daughter away at her gay
wedding. He must overcome his prejudices and
preconceived notions and fears to make the journey,
and it turns out to be extremely positive experience
for him. Telling this story Expedia aligns itself with
that positive experience in the mind of the viewer.
With the 31,077 likes 8,548 shares on Facebook and
2,459,584 views YouTube
Pinterest - Expedia Find Yours
EDI-
COMMERCE
Retail brands must learn to blend
editorial & commerce together
on their owned channels
Looking at the UK edi-commerce or pub-
tailing spectrum above we can see, on the
extreme right, purist digital retail brands
such as Amazon & Argos that have until now
resisted the creation of additional supportive
or narrative content, and remained true to their
catalogue style retailer roots. On the far left
we have the complete opposite in the form of
the mainstream press whose content is almost
exclusively narrative and editorial based, and
who have tended not to dilute this position with
any sizeable ecommerce offering.
Brands such as Red Bull and LVMH (with their
Nowness platform) exist in a space left of
centre where they attempt to create as much
pure content as possible and dial down any
overt branding to an extreme level.
The majority of brands however sit in the
orange bands where increasing numbers
of brands experiment with the creation of
supportive content as an alternative approach
to customer engagement.
Whilst Red Bull is regularly heralded as the knight in
shining armour of branded content, it is perhaps fair to
say that retail is somewhat different to FMCG marketing
and that the real heroes in this sector have achieved an
intelligent and seemingly effortless blend of clickable digital
retail and inspirational/lifestyle content.
Net-a-Porter and its possibly even chicer sibling Mr Porter
along with the new and heavily promoted site from J. Crew,
are perhaps the best examples in the current marketplace.
A visit to these sites is sometimes to buy and other times to
look at the content. One can easily lead to the other and
there is no sense of hierarchy whatsoever between the two.
Both are of equal importance and, of course, the editorial is
packed with retail cue points and a purchase journey can
very naturally also involve a story or two.
Pure
EDITORIAL
Womens
Glasses
National Press
Broadcasters
Grazia
Daily Mail
Libertine - inter-
estedwomen.
com
Extreme
Branded
EDITORIAL
Red Bull
LVMH/Nowness
Burberry -
Acoustics
All Saints -
Basement
Sessions
Lego ReBrick
50:50 blend
CONTENT /
COMMERCE
Mr Porter
ASOS
Nixon
Agent Provo-
cateur
J Crew
Fab.com
Gilt.com
AirBnB.com
Beachtomato.
com
Commerce
with link to
CONTENT
Top Shop Blog
River Island -
Style insider
H&M life
Lacoste Live
M&S Style Edit/
TV
Zara - Daily/
takeovers
Waitrose TV
Sainsburys -
Live well for
less
Wholefoods
Vibram 5
fngers
Pure
E-
COMMERCE
Amazon
Argos
Everyone Else!
Current UK spectrum
All brands now need a detailed &
meaningful content strategy
CONTENT
STRATEGY
CONTENT
STRATEGY
Content strategy
With so many of these changes to contend with, so many
devices and platforms to surface content upon, and literally
so many different types of content itself, brands must consider
making a full and detailed plan.
A meaningful content strategy is required to bring about
necessary changes in structure, process, budget, personnel,
briefng and schedules not least in order to help senior
management teams to understand the need for such huge
changes in relation to the way things have been done for so
long now.
The diagram shows that there are as many as 8 unique types
of content (from commissioned videos and editorial content
through to UGC and social conversation) that all need to be
considered in relation to business needs and the marketing
role they fulfll before they are then briefed, planned, and
executed and then managed in such a way as to dovetail
together to form a cohesive marketing campaign.
What is content strategy?
A pragmatic defnition of not only which content is created
and where it is to be placed but also why & how it is created?
A change agent; required to explain why content is such a
huge opportunity for companies to evolve the way they market
and sell by putting the customer at the centre of everything
they do (answering customers top questions with great
content).
A strategic approach to the creation of inspirational and
engaging stories that are either useful or fun for your audience
in general and therefore help to change their perception of
your business, brand or service in a positive way.
A mindset, culture & approach to delivering your customers
information needs in all of the places they are searching for it
across each stage of the buying process.
Hand-picked
contributors
Media-owner
partnerships
Social
conversations
Super
bloggers
Curated
content
User-generated
content
Commissioned
content:
videos, words
and pictures
Content spectrum
Design for
every device
and platform
Daily content
Social, Short-form,
Snacking
Monthly content
Engaging, deeper,
long-form
Digital
showcase
THE 6
STEPS TO
CREATING
A CONTENT
STRATEGY
1 Establish your audience (as real people not marketing
statistics) & their wants & needs
2 Defne the role for each digital platform
3 Defne effective Content Spectrum (8 unique strands)
4 Defne optimum creative partner/production/contributor
teams including: agencies, regular & occasional contributors,
celebrity, experts and real customer contributors, super
bloggers, photographers, stylists and storytellers & defne
an Editorial Board - ultimate creative lead
5 Defne technology requirements: digital/tablet/smartphone
Defne on-going commissioning, build and production
calendars
6 Defne links to e-commerce and consider the new customer
journey and additional distribution plan
QUALITY
OVER
QUANTITY
1 million new blogs are
created every day
200 billion emails are sent
everyday
25% of brands are now
making video regularly to
talk to consumers
80% of businesses in the
US are feeding Facebook
pages daily
6 billion hours of content
was watched in May 2013
(4 billion May 12)
Every 6 minutes 432 hours
of video will be uploaded to
Youtube
We already make
a huge amount of
content
BUT IS
MUCH OF
THIS
CONTENT
ANY
GOOD?
Pinterest - The2ndscreen.tv
So in fact we know that
there is still huge room
for improvement!
What we know:
A lot of people arent paying enough
attention to the different experience on
each device: watching content, reading
content on different devices is very
different and content must be designed
to accommodate the user experience
(mobiles and tablets are not the same
thing).
Many brands are confusing content
creation with making longer-form
advertising; content must be audience-
centric and not too heavily focused on
your own brand.
Lots of content doesnt have a clear
voice & tone: we know that if you use the
wrong language & vernacular then your
audience will assume you are talking to
someone else and switch off.
If a brand makes a lot of content there
must be some kind of direction for all of it,
or it appears as random.
People only really share things that
they fnd funny or useful or emotionally
beautiful or shocking or will present
them in a good light so NO they
dont want to share your ad or
product story.
AN EDITORIAL
APPROACH
Its an AND not an OR
AN EDITORIAL
APPROACH
Regardless of at what stage
a brand might be in its use
of owned media, it should
consider developing an
editorial voice that guides
sustained content creation,
to address the needs of its
audience that arent being
met through other marketing
efforts. Well-designed
content has a clear voice, is
delivered in the right tone
and uses the language and
vernacular of its designated
audience. If content feels
inappropriate for an audience
they will assume that it
wasnt created for them and
switch off.
EDITORIAL
IS CONTENT
DESIGN
Designed for specifc audiences, designed for specifc experiences
and devices, designed to be noticed, designed to achieve certain
behaviours and designed to be enjoyed, shared & considered.
EDITORIAL
IS STORY-
TELLING
It knows exactly who it has been created for, it knows that the details
that it leaves out are as important as the ones it puts in, it knows how
to make the most of the information thats already there.
GOOD
EDITORIAL
It is applied in layers and has a plan, can bring
uninteresting things to life, isnt written in an
undecipherable code and promotes further debate
and conversation.
EDITORIAL
CARES
When done well is welcomed into our safe places
beyond a threshold that traditional marketing content
cannot pass.
Golden rules
of editorial
design
You must establish your audience: understand who you
are making content for - the real people not the statistic partner,
wife, father, businessman, student, friend, manager, employee etc.
Set the vernacular, style & tone for your audience:
...so that they know & feel it is made for them and encourages them
to engage/share
Establish their wants & needs: know what they like, know
what keeps them awake at night...and as a result tell the stories that
will make their life easier, better, richer
Not so interesting and engaging
Less likely to build rapport or trust
Call to actions less effective
Poorer leverage that your channel is a good place to hang out
Trusted voice harder to establish
Less explicit consideration of how it will beneft your audience
Danger of being too corporate or too clever and/or missing the
audience altogether
Defne the role of each platform: Short-form snackable
daily content on a mobile, to longer form educational, more
immersive content on a PC and use the tablets virtues as a slick
presentation tool & showcase
Understand the variety and appropriate frequency of
different types of content now at your disposal:
Making content now means a variety of different things
Commissioned videos, words, pictures
Handpicked contributors and super infuencers
Media partnerships
Curated content
Social conversations & UGC
Content without editorial planning can be a waste:
HARNESSING
CREATIVE
TALENT
The exciting but harsh reality
of perpetual storytelling in a
new digital world is that most
brands havent ordinarily
employed content creators. In
order to make something that
your customers will engage
with, share and thank you
for; brands will need to hire
a variety of highly specialised
crafts people, who in turn
will need management and
direction.
If you know where to look there are a lot
of them out there, but they come in many
shapes and sizes themselves and arent
necessarily used to the way that you and your
organisations work, and certainly arent just
sitting around waiting for the phone to ring.
Creative world
Is a freer and less
structured world,
where genius comes
in waves and feeds on
imagination and craft
skills are developed
over years and years.
Brand world
Is a regimented and
structured world, made
up of statistical analysis,
campaigns, briefs and
budgets. It moves in
right angles and is
driven by order.
Harnessing creative talent
What we are describing is the collision of very different
worlds (see opposite). Content agencies and editors fulfl
the essential conduit role required to move between and
maximise the output of both.
Whether you need: investigative journalists, drama
writers, comedy writers, flm makers, director/producers,
director/editors, writer/directors, digital animators, stylists,
photographers, set dressers, DPs, after effects specialists,
illustrators, typographers, re-touchers (and this list just
scratches the surface and doesnt even begin to describe
sector specialists for each of these creative professions:
fashion stylists, food stylists, interiors photographers etc.),
they all possess a very particular creative ability and in
many cases have extensive training at doing something
that most of us cant just do.
Editorial Board
The creation of an Editorial Board (a small cabal of
creative advisors, contributors and introducers perhaps
with one key senior internal member) is paramount to
the success of a meaningful content creation & curation
process.
Like all procedures there must be a leader and ultimate
decision maker and because creative decisions are often
highly subjective and most of us arent actually trained
in creative decision making things can go unnecessarily
around in circles. A core team made up of a maximum of
4 people should act as regular brand guardians with the
ability and authority based on relevant experience to make
the core directional decisions (tone, voice, story-type,
craft-type, new contributors etc).
SUMMARY
We have reached an
age of participation. For
Generation C (connection,
creation, curation and
community): life is a
complex exposure to a
variety of experiences
viewed through a very
personal lens - shaped
by their race, nationality,
sex, age, family, friends,
specifc taste or interest
or even momentary mood
A glass-half-full perspective on this is
that technology now allows them to do
things they could once only dream of:
with complete freedom of choice to
be as single or open-minded, as deep
and worthy or as fckle, light-hearted
and gossip-interested as we decide on
any given day and on any device that
they pick up.
Summary
However, the harsher reality is that our attention span has
shortened, our expectations have heightened and our
ability to both mentally and technologically flter what we
dont want from our lives is sharper than ever.
The playing feld has tipped enormously in favour of us
the people and to even simply stand still, both brands and
media-owners must act very differently.
Alterations must be made to the creative process. Pablo
Picasso famously said I begin with an idea, and then
it becomes something entirely different. An intelligent
creative process needs to be able to evolve, change
direction, go off in exploratory tangents, return to the core
idea and then take on a life of its own (this can never work
effectively in 3 month campaigns planned 12 months ahead
of the action itself).
Businesses like ASOS and Net-a-Porter launched from day
one with this new kind of integrated approach as opposed
to trying to add it on in a post-rational way.
Brands can no longer confuse content with platform
(website, app, Facebook, YouTube channel, microsite,
brochure) and must learn to become storytellers that
compete for head-space with the most talented writers,
thinkers and flm makers of the day.
Brands are arguably being catapulted into a new
era, that is so fundamentally different, that they may
almost have to start again as if they have had no brand
whatsoever up until this point in time.
There must be a higher priority awarded to social tools and
conversation. Intelligent brands will establish ways to host the
broadest number of elements on their owned platforms (video
content, editorial content, e-commerce content, edited lists of
their fnest product, real-time conversation, relevant trending
info, links to highly relevant curated content, question prompts
direct to customers etc.).
Content Agencies (with Editors/Film-makers/Journalists/
Designers & other Experts) are professionally trained to
deliver the service that you currently need. They will fnd it
considerably easier to put the needs of the audience ahead
of the brand and have easy access to a universe of freelance
genius with a myriad of specifc craft skills. Although this may
seem scary, ultimately it will serve the companys needs far
better as the content they create is actually customer driven as
opposed to corporately driven.
In the near future brands will need to make preparations to
utilise more of the following:
Detectives: people to uncover the truth
(combination of planners and real people)
Engineers: people to build a rich variety of content
(combination of in-house, agencies and freelancers)
Storytellers: people to connect with real people and make
the numbers dance
As a rule, the way that content now surfaces, evolves,
grows, changes shape, moves and links across the grid
means that its increasingly what you write and not where
you write it that actually makes a difference in a digital and
social world.
The King is dead.
Long live the King!
Those that are good will do well.
But those who are brave will do
better still.
These are exciting and transitory times. It takes effort to
break the reliance on the umbilical chord of the past and to
swear allegiance to a new world order. But at Adjust Your
Set we encourage you to be forward- thinking, to be clever,
to be strategic and above all else to be brave.
In his foreword on the opening page Chris Gorell Barnes
spells out our belief as an agency that brands can learn
huge amounts from leaders in the publishing world. Many
professional content creators have responded to the new
rules of the digital world with massive changes to their
output that look increasingly more like the recent re-
design of Esquire.co.uk (pictured opposite): where video,
digital articles, photos, lists, product reviews, retail links,
social conversation and reviews all sit together in equal
prominence and on platforms that respond effortlessly to a
change in device.
Taking the right time to establish who your real customer is,
what content they may be interested in receiving from you
or fnd useful, then deciding how, at what time and on which
device they might like to consume it, ftting this into your
business & marketing goals and collateral spectrum, and
integrating seamlessly with your e-commerce takes time
and courage but is precisely what brands need to do.
Adjust Your Set is a Digital Content Agency
Founded in 2008 in response to a need for dynamic video content for an
increasing number of e-commerce platforms. We are:
Pioneers in content creation, technology and strategy.
Experts in multi-device, digital & social storytelling.
Branded media specialists across owned, earned & paid platforms.
The agency has grown rapidly to over 60 full-time staff and an army of
specialist freelancers worldwide. Based out of dynamic offces in Charlotte
St, London, we have a client roster that includes: Marks& Spencer,
Carphone Warehouse, British Airways, Talk Talk, Debenhams, M&S
Bank, HSBC and can compliment our creative ability with market leading
technology, analytics and client service.
Copyright Adjust Your Set 2013
7-10 Charlotte Mews, London W1T 4EF
T +44 (0) 20 7580 5933
www.adjustyourset.tv
This thought-piece was written by
Christopher Lockwood, Editorial Director of Adjust Your Set.
Christopher has over 20 years experience as a world-class magazine,
digital and mobile creative and publishing director, media entrepreneur and
creative business consultant. He has held senior roles in leading global
fashion and style magazines from Dazed & Confused to Wallpaper*. Before
joining Adjust Your Set he was Head of Invention at WPPs Mindshare. As
Editorial Director Christopher helps our clients to create workable strategies
and to design platforms and the content itself to answer and provide
innovative, tailored solutions to all of the questions that he poses in this
booklet around engaging audiences of real people with stories that resonate
with their day-to-day lives.