Custom Media

Coca Cola no longer relies on traditional ad agencies for creative ideas, instead taking a collaborative approach to storytelling and content creation, according to its global advertising strategy head.

Media and marketing strategies are like a jigsaw puzzle – for the picture to be complete you need all the right pieces to fit together. But, for a lot of retail brands hoping to create customer loyalty and up-selling opportunities, there’s an important piece of the puzzle that’s missing.

They need a marketing vehicle that connects their e-commerce web sites, social media pages, blogs, premium clubs, and traditional advertising.

I am talking about a digital brand magazine packed with entertaining lifestyle content that attracts customer attention, associates the brand with the satisfaction of customer interests, and leads loyal customers to more purchases.

Here are three companies using variations on this concept to influence customers:

• A flip book from New Era Caps
• A microsite Sherwin Williams Paints
• A flip book from grocery chain Hannaford

Custom brand content can be packaged in digital magazines, custom apps, print magazines, microsites, and a variety of other formats. It’s all custom media and it helps your brand to become the best source of information on the lifestyle interests of your best customers and prospects.

With an abundance of sports coverage easily accessible across mainstream media, why do sports organizations develop their own custom content programs? There are several good answers to this question that Barry Janoff discusses in his article, Sports Custom Content: The Fans are the Stars, published in the latest issue of Content magazine.

This article talks about several sports teams but I pulled quotes below that relate to one of DCP’s major sports clients, the San Francisco Giants.

The main goal behind sports custom content is to keep loyal fans rooting for their teams. How is that accomplished?

1. Provide “more nuanced, more intimate” access to players and teams.

“Information is everywhere, and much of it is free,” says Mario Alioto, Giants senior vice president of corporate marketing. “We have access and information about our players that other media don’t have.”

2. Give fans an opportunity to share their stories.

“It’s one thing to have a magazine that interests fans, but the best kind of content marketing is when people feel they are part of it,” says Jeff Gire, senior editor at Diablo Custom Publishing. “The team wanted Giants Magazine to have stories that involved the fans.” As a result, we created a new section, “Our Fan Story”, which gives fans a place to share personal stories about the Giants.

Be sure to read the article to get the whole story.

Take a look at this very interesting whitepaper, Leveraging Loyalty to Transform Publishing, produced by the CMO Council and InfoPrint Solutions. It addresses “The Impact of Relevance in Publishing and Advertising.”

I recommend downloading this 12-page whitepaper that includes the detailed findings about what people want from their magazines. It confirms what we all believe is most essential—relevance.

Here's some info pulled from the first page of the whitepaper.

“To get a clear picture of what opportunities might exist for publications transformation, the CMO Council asked consumers what they wanted from their magazine experience.

The audit revealed that consumers do not want to give up their cherished print publications, and further that their experiences within these preferred pages has shaped and molded their buying decisions.

In a world where the internet threatens to change the face of loyalty—offering new and exciting real-time connections—magazines seem to be the one constant that consumers are not ready to relinquish. According to our survey:

92 percent plan to stick to print when it comes to their magazine consumption

Only 24 percent intend to eventually switch over to some form of e-reader device

The real message consumers want to send to publishers is keep the content relevant, be it editorial, advertorial, or advertising. But, well placed, content rich and even personalized advertising will lead to new opportunities (and even renewed opportunities) for profitable customer engagements."

Click here to download the whitepaper and read the detailed findings of the online consumer survey.

Diablo Custom Publishing (DCP) is excited to announce that John Rodenburg has joined our organization as the Director of Custom Media. John previously held the position of Vice President and Publisher of Travel and Leisure Golf for American Express Publishing. As a long time veteran of Time Inc., John held several senior positions at Sports Illustrated, including the Associate Publisher of Marketing and Associate Publisher of Sales. Prior to moving to New York in 2000, John was the Northwest Advertising Director at Sports Illustrated and a resident of the East Bay.

Barney Fonzi, Group Publisher for Diablo Publications comments, “John’s background makes him the perfect addition to our team, and we welcome his seasoned experience, strong business development skills, energy and business acumen. We are confident that John will be able to leverage his proven strategies that have worked in his past endeavors, as well as his entrepreneurial forward thinking.” 

Speaking about his new role, John said, “I’m very excited about returning home to the Bay Area, and I’m equally excited about the opportunity to share my experience to help DCP reach new heights by leveraging their great reputation and brand, their diverse client portfolio of top notch work and their talented team of professionals. DCP is poised for growth and I’m excited to be a part of this expansion.”

In the next month, expect to see a blog entry from John summarizing his outlook for the Custom Media market.

According to a new survey from the Custom Content Council (CCC), U.S. corporations spent a record $47.2 billion on branded content last year. The 10th annual industry “Characteristics Study: A Look at the Volume and Type of Content Marketing in America for 2010” includes the study of electronic and other forms of content marketing for the first time—which explains the significant increase in spending from 2008.

This year’s study reveals that 32% of the overall marketing, advertising and communications budget were dedicated to content marketing. This is the greatest-ever proportion of funds dedicated to content marketing in the 10-year history of this study.

What does this mean?

Marketing organizations recognize the need to communicate regularly with their audience and provide them with meaningful content. Marketing today is not as much about flashy marketing campaigns as it is about constant interaction and sharing of relevant information with a targeted audience. Since today’s consumers make highly educated decisions, marketing organizations need to play a key role in the transfer of knowledge and participate in their consumers’ decision-making process. The more valuable content an organization provides, the more likely they will build and grow a loyal customer base.

How are companies communicating with their audience today?

Custom Magazines/Newsletters Still Strong:

• In 2009, average circulation per issue increased to an all-time high of 48,162 copies per issue.
• The number of unique printed custom publication titles decreased from 1.9 in 2008 to 1.7 in 2009. That said, those titles published increased in both page count and circulation.

Other Forms of Branded Content:

• The most common other forms being used are website updates of articles, blog post and e-newsletters.
• The least common are mobile and e-zines such as flipbooks and interactive PDFs.

What marketing vehicles are companies expecting to add in the future?
While mobile content is not yet widely used, it does rank as the medium that most marketers believe they are likely to invest in next year. Beyond that, marketers plan to invest in video and audio.

Custom Content Council Executive Director Lori Rosen said, “As more and more companies explore custom content solutions across print and digital platforms, we will continue to see an increased financial investment. Things are changing rapidly—the data shows just how much change the industry has undergone in 12 months-and we haven’t even touched social media surface. Next year we will be measuring Twitter, Facebook and more. It’s an exciting time to be involved in content marketing in all its forms.”

Are you tired of all the negative business reports from 2009? “Marketing budgets are slashed.” “Print is dead.” I’m sure you’ve heard them all.

Read these two brief articles for some very encouraging news regarding the record growth in the custom media business.

• Minonline: Custom Content Has Best Year Ever
• Publishing Executive: Custom Media Spend Rises to an All-time High

The bottom line is marketers invested more money in branded content in 2009 than ever before (two times as much as in 2008) and 51 percent of that money was used to create print publications, according to a recent survey.

So let’s celebrate the good news and look forward to a prosperous 2010.

As a marketing director, I’m well aware that you’re not supposed to plug your own company’s products on your blog. So please pardon me for breaking this rule but I really think you should take a look at a powerful new online magazine tool from DCP.

Over the years, we’ve provided our clients with different ways to publish their valuable print content on the Web. We started by offering a basic HTML version of their print publication that we call an ePub™.  Functional and inexpensive, this simple solution does a nice job of converting print content into an HTML-based online publication. But its templated approach doesn’t take full advantage of the design and interactive possibilities of the Web. While it replicates the print content, is doesn’t give clients the ability to extend it.

When the digital “flip-book” products gained popularity, DCP jumped on that trend. The good news with the digital magazine solution is that you preserve the beautiful layout of your print issue. The bad news is that it’s hard for your audience to read digital magazines because the print layout doesn’t translate well to a computer screen. The font is typically too small to read when viewing a full page, causing readers to have to constantly zoom in and out. Navigation is also a bit tedious. Clearly, this is not the most user-friendly solution.

DCP performed extensive research to find the best solution to bring a print publication to life online. WebExtra™, our new product, is a powerful, cost-effective online magazine tool that allows you to extend the reach and effectiveness of your magazine without spending an arm and a leg!

Some of the biggest advantages of WebExtra:

• With an easy-to-use Content Management System (CMS), you can regularly post fresh content — including articles, videos, slideshows, and audiocasts—that keep your audience engaged 24/7/365.
• Make your magazine a two-way conversation with your audience through article commenting and Ask the Expert features.
• Extend the content from your print edition by linking readers to relevant videos, podcasts, slideshows, etc.
• Promote news, events, or whatever you want in real time with WebExtra’s built-in event calendar that is highlighted on the home page.
• The custom designed feature stories look even better online than in print!
• This fully hosted solution presents no burden on your IT department and links seamlessly to your main website.

Take a look at the latest edition of WebExtra produced for UC Hastings College of the Law at magazine.uchastings.edu . Imagine what WebExtra can do for your print content!

Hospitals around the country are beginning to make better use of audio and video patient testimonials on their websites and service-line microsites. Granted, as an industry they’ve been slow to the party, but that’s largely because of their deliberate caution related to issues like privacy, Medicaid reimbursements, and other liabilities. All of that seems to be changing now, and you see plenty of examples of audio and video programs on hospital websites, particularly with the large academic medical centers. Here is a nice example from UCLA Medical Center.

For smaller organizations, the high cost of professionally produced video has been constraining. On the other hand, “cheap video” shot by someone’s nephew and posted on YouTube doesn’t necessarily do service to a hospital’s effort to extend its brand and build consumer affinity for its services.

There are, however, relatively inexpensive ways to produce and present high-quality audio and video. I think one of the best examples that may serve as a model for hospitals is the series called Patient Voices done by the New York Times. These are 2 minute patient testimonial audiocasts with 4-5 corresponding photos in a slide show. They are very moving even though their production value is modest. There’s no program introduction, no music, no voice over, no graphics other than the photos, and you can tell the audio edit of each was minimal. It’s just the patient telling his or her story.

For people facing life-altering or life-threatening conditions, hearing from other patients with similar stories is engaging and supportive.

DCP is working on projects like these for hospital (and non-hospital) clients. Call me if you want to know more about it.

The YouTube phenomenon is an oft-cited example of the explosion of video on the web. Now, an increasing number of studies reveal the effectiveness of video for creating “stickiness” on websites, for keeping eyeballs on your site longer and prompting them to return more frequently.

The data about the effectiveness of video, when combined with the demographics about broadband penetration (over 90% among “active” Internet users according to a February 2009 report from Neilson Online) makes a powerful case for marketers to integrate video into their web content toolkit.

Why are online videos effective marketing tools? They allow your prospects to see and hear firsthand what makes your organization unique, rather than having to sift through pages of text. Videos offer a personal touch and guarantee that your message is being communicated completely and accurately. There is no better way to share customer testimonials.

Here are some interesting statistics:

• Most users consume video. 80% of Internet users watch video, moving to 88% by 2012. (Ad Age Web Video Report)

• People are spending more time watching videos online. According to a survey by comScore, 73% of U.S. Internet users watched an average of nearly three and a half hours of online video during the month of February 2008, with Americans viewing more than 10 billion videos online. According to the Nielsen Online VideoCensus, the time per viewer spent looking at videos online jumped 49% in May 2009 compared to May 2008.

• Videos drive people to action. Of the people viewing marketing-oriented videos, over half will take some action after viewing a video...including 12% who will buy the product being offered. Typically only .5% to 2% of visitors to a "text only" web site will purchase a product. (Online Publishers Association and Adweek)

• People spend more time watching videos than reading text online. 65% of online surfers will view video advertisements to their completion. Less than 20% read "text only" sites to completion. (Online Publishers Association and Adweek)

• All demographics are watching videos.
Who Watches Online Video
      Men 63%; Women 51%
      Ages 18-29 76%
      Ages 30-49 57%
      Ages 50-64 46%
      Age 65+ 39%

• People share links to videos. 68% of people who watch online videos pass links for these videos onto their friends. (Online Publishers Association and Adweek)

• Video is highest performing advertising unit online. Pre-roll video outperforms all traditional display units on brand lift, brand recall and lift in purchase intent. (Ad Age Web Video Report)

Now, with the cost of video production declining significantly and with the option to host your videos on other websites, web videos are viable for more organizations. DCP is expanding our video web services. Contact us if you’re interested in finding out about our video offerings.