EXTERNAL DELIVERY - The New Marketing Paradigm

We are 60 days past the half-way mark for calendar 2015. For those on a calendar year fiscal basis, this means their business year is almost finished as we head toward the end of the third quarter.

Business in 2015 has seen a great deal of change, refocus, and adaptation to new ways of doing business. Company CEOs have a multitude of things to be concerned with, some of them from the old school of business, and many of them from the new school.

The one big change that really caught my eye was the change from traditional product to what is now called Content Marketing. By definition, Content Marketing is the utilization of content that will attract people to your brand and turn them into brand advocates for your products. Plus, an added benefit is that while your Content Marketing is about influencing your customers, it is also about capturing those people who can influence others.

So many moons ago, when I was a Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Sony, marketing was a support function for sales. We would advertise products in various vehicles, such as magazines, radio, television, billboards, in-store merchandising displays, etc. The advertisement in its most basic form called out the feature/benefit package, specifications, perhaps a new or improved technology feature, and a headline that was a call to action, such as “Here it is, come and get it” or “Here it is, you can’t live without it.” Not so today with Content Marketing.

First off, today’s advertising vehicles are much more diverse than they were in the old days of brand marketing. Some of the formats used today include, in addition to the standard formats of yesteryear, news, video, white papers, e-books, blogs, infographics, case studies, how-to guides, question-and-answer articles, photos, and more.

Prior to Content Marketing, most companies had a marketing strategy of advertising a brand with the intention of building that brand’s reputation. Content Marketing often has the same strategy of building a brand’s reputation but goes about it much differently. Content Marketing’s strategy is to build an emotional relationship with its customers and with the intention of having those customers influence others to purchase the brand.

Apple is a classic brand that has obviously capitalized on the benefits of Content Marketing. Is Apple a higher quality product than its competition? Maybe, maybe not! Is Apple a more price-competitive product than its competitors? Maybe, maybe not! Is an Apple product better featured than a competitive product? Maybe, maybe not! Has Apple used Content Marketing to attach its brand emotionally to its customers who have become goodwill ambassadors for the brand? Most definitely!!!

One of the best examples of Content Marketing is Accura’s TLX commercial featuring Sid Vicious singing the old classic My Way. You ask, how can Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols sing My Way and be effective selling cars?

When you watch the advertisement and see how the company develops an emotional relationship with you by taking you through the design, engineering, testing, and real-life driving of the car, you will see what I mean. Here’s the link: http://www.hondanews.com/videos/2015-tlx-my-waycommercial. Enjoy!

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John A. Bermingham is former Executive Vice President & COO of 1st Light Energy & Conservation Lighting, Inc. and former Co-President and COO of AgraTech, a biotech enterprise. He was also President & CEO of Cord Crafts, LLC; President & CEO of Alco Consumer Products, Inc., Lang Holdings, Inc., and President, Chairman, and CEO of Ampad, all of which he turned around and successfully sold. With more than 20 years of turnaround experience, he also held the positions of Chairman, President, and CEO of Centis, Inc., Smith Corona, Corporation, and Rolodex Corporation as well as turning around several business units of AT&T Consumer Products Group and served as the EVP of the Electronics Group, and President of the Magnetic Products Group, Sony Corporation of America.