‘Content Is Like Millennials For Marketers’

The time and money spent by brands on content is increasing over time. Content is being generated by all the brands and is being consumed by everyone. But today smart content seems to be the need of the hour as brands try to transform individuals into their loyal customers. 

“Content is like millennials. Everyone talks about it, is associated with it, but not many know how to deal with it. Currently, 60 per cent of content generated by brands is not connecting to the consumers,” said Mohit Joshi, Managing Director, Havas Media Group.

Content is generated to inspire, educate, and inform the consumers. As the world is getting digital, almost all brands have a separate team of content marketers. The platform of communication chosen by the brands alludes to the response of the consumers.

The de-link between the content and consumers seems to be the biggest challenge for content generators. “There is very little integration between both content or marketing and the consumer. The brand should not be spoken about without its content,” said Sunil Raina, Chief Marketing Officer, Lava International & Business Head, Xolo. 

For him, technology can be witnessed both as an enabler and a disabler and it depends on the brands how they utilize the new media.

“A great challenge for traditional marketers is how to involve and engage consumers. The consumer today does not want to be disturbed so it becomes a challenge to make him or her recipient of the content,” said Vani Gupta, Marketing Director, Indian Snacks & Foods, PepsiCo India at the launch of the 13th Edition of BW Businessworld Marketing Whitebook.

Gupta also highlighted that the response of the consumers to the content generated depends on the evolution of consumers, and while some may acknowledge the evolution as evasion of privacy, others may find the personalised experience beneficial, it all depends where the individual lies in the chain (of digital literacy).

For Anika Agarwal, Senior Vice President & Head, Digital & Direct Sales, Max Bupa Healthcare Insurance, content marketing is all about live storytelling. “There has to be personalisation of content in order to make the content authentic and innovative. The power of content is to create experience by personalising the available structured and unstructured data,” she said.

She further added that the Chief Marketing Officers are the custodians of brands. It is of immense importance for them to channel what type of content is to be generated and how it is mediated to the consumers.