PRovoke16: WE Panel at Holmes Summit
BY AARTI SHAH, OCTOBER 26, 2016
MIAMI — The challenge of delivering high-impact content amid new channels, changing demographics and evolving consumer tastes was the topic of the “Stories in Motion” panel at PRovoke16.
Alfredo Richard, SVP of corporate communications at NBCUniversal Telemundo, referred to Generation M — the mobile, multicultural and Millennial subset. This group, not only consumes multiple screens simultaneously, but also carries different expectations for each platform.
“We call it ‘double action’ because they are consuming these platforms differently,” Richard said. “The super fans want to have a deeper interaction with the show [on mobile].”
Meanwhile, Aaron Tabas, director of BBC North America’s brand studio, emphasized the need to look beyond quantitative indicators when assessing content.
“Data and analytics are great and directional, but we also need to research the emotional impact the content is having on people,” said he said. “Just because they watched the video doesn’t mean the right emotions are resonating.”
Andrea Duvall, PR manager at spirits holding group Brown-Forman, added a way to achieve emotional resonance is to couple strategic content with more organic stories. For instance, team members are based at distilleries like the Woodford Reserve to capture the unexpected moments.
“We think of it as uncommon knowledge,” Duvall said. “There are the tangible stories, but our most-liked post on Instagram was a couple of horses crossing the street that we tagged as a ‘Woodford traffic jam.’ You can’t plan for that.”
Jackie Price, End Game CEO & co-founder, candidly told attendees that in speaking to “dozens of CMOs, not one has said ‘I need more data.’ No one needs more data, they need their data to be actionable.”
She added, marketers must accept that social and ecommerce platforms — Facebook, Google, Amazon —know more about their customers than they do. For predictive to work, marketers need to blend and pool disparate streams of data to unearth real insights.
Price warned agencies that are moving backwards on measurement, ducking the inevitability of data-driven insights and forging ahead only on media relations are nosediving towards oblivion.
The BBC’s Tabas noted that agencies can be important partners in helping brands develop content and help yield better products.
NBC’s Richard said ultimately he’d like to get to the point where fans are creating the content.
“This means we’ve created a community,” he said.
The session was moderated by Alan VanderMolen, international president of WE Communications.
