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Five Content Myths of Luxury and Prestige Brands

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Key Takeaways

“Innovation is seeing ideas today and how they will change the future,
and then pushing for that change.” – Shenan Reed

It has never been more challenging for content to “break through” the clutter of messaging consumers are bombarded with. Every 60 seconds, more than 100 hours of video are uploaded on YouTube, and more than 8,500 hours of music are streamed on Spotify. In order to grab (and keep) the attention of consumers, particularly Millennials, brands must abandon long-held misconceptions about content marketing, and embrace today’s reality.

Myth No. 1: Brands need to stay in control of their stories.

The rise and proliferation of digital and social channels has made complete control over a brand’s perception nearly impossible. While many brands view this as a problem, it actually presents an opportunity to engage consumers more deeply by allowing them to play an active role in a brand’s story. In order to drive awareness of its new mobile app that allowed guests to have real-time conversations with hotel employees before, during and after their stay, Marriott Hotels developed the #appyourservice campaign. The brand reached out to social influencers who happened to be near Times Square on a certain day, and let them make requests using the #appyourservice hashtag. Marriott then sent out “bell boys” to deliver the requests, regardless of what the consumer asked for. The hotel chain had no control over what consumers requested, which added to the authenticity of the activation. The #appyourservice campaign was a success, generating an engagement rate 2,500 times above the hotel industry benchmark.

Myth No. 2: User-generated content can’t be premium.

The camera technology of today’s smartphones has surpassed that of non-professional digital cameras, meaning that anyone can produce premium content from anywhere, so long as it’s authentic, memorable, carefully curated, and strategically distributed. The Instagram content for action camera manufacturer GoPro is 48 percent user-generated, and serves as a celebration of the brand’s community of users. To date, GoPro’s Instagram page has generated more than 40 million engagements.

Myth No. 3: Brands need completely new, fresh content to compete in 2015.

A common mistake made by marketers trying to reinvent their brand is distancing the brand from what made it successful in the first place. Prestige brands in particular are sitting on treasure troves of content they often forget about when developing new campaigns. Tapping into the essence and origin of a brand is a surefire way to create content that is relevant to the brand and larger category. For the 75th anniversary of Tiffany & Co.’s debut at the New York World’s Fair, the luxury jewelry retailer recreated the fireworks display created for the diamond in 1939 as part of its iconic holiday window display. This enabled the brand to use vibrant designs to celebrate the brand’s history in a way that was compelling and authentic.

Myth No. 4: Emerging channels can’t convey luxury or prestige.

In the early days of digital media, many brands would simply take content created for more established channels like print and TV and post them online. Unsurprisingly, the content looked and felt out of place and wasn’t effective at engaging consumers. In 2015, the majority of brands understand the value of creating specific content for each channel, but some luxury brands have used this as an excuse to avoid certain emerging channels, especially in social media. In doing so, they miss reaching large segments of potential target consumers, and can be perceived as outdated. When Burberry shot its 2016 Spring/Summer campaign, the fashion brand collected b-roll from the shoot and, for 24 hours, shared the new line months ahead of the release with its Snapchat followers. By leveraging a very young platform, the well-established brand showed the industry the new look of exclusive.

Myth No. 5: Content is all about reach.

When Facebook and Twitter first rose to prominence, brands were in a race to acquire as many “likes” and followers as they could, and judged success by the number of consumers their messaging reached. Quickly, marketers realized that on social, quantity does not equal quality, and that the true value of social media marketing was in the level of engagement a brand could generate. In other words, an enthusiastic, energized social following of one million is far more valuable than a disconnected fan base of five million. One of the most effective ways to drive online engagement is to connect it to an offline experience. Virgin Money created lounges within its banking locations to give customers a place to relax, collect their thoughts, and discuss financial manners in a comfortable environment. These activations didn’t have a large direct reach, but the experience was so engaging that it turned customers into brand advocates, who shared their experience via social media, amplifying the reach of the activation exponentially. 

Source

"Five Content Myths of Luxury and Prestige Brands." Shenan Reed, President, Digital North America at MEC. The Internationalist 1000 Think Tank Breakfast, 10/27/15.

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