Making and keeping the brand promise: How

paid and owned media are stronger together

Robin Bonn

Market Leader, Quarter 1, 2014

SUMMARY
This article discusses the relationship between paid and owned media, arguing that they
complement each other.

Research found that consumers are more likely to be looking for entertaining than informative
content, and that they do not mind how they reach that content. In content creation advertisers
rate the importance of distribution as highly as quality, creating opportunities for paid media to
direct consumers to owned media. A four step approach for better integrating paid and owned
media strategies is described: tell the brand's story, continually deliver content, optimise
distribution, and work with specialist agencies.
TOPICS

 CONTENT MARKETING EFFECTIVENESS

 STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT
 INTEGRATION STRATEGY
 PAID, OWNED, EARNED INTEGRATION

Robin Bonn
Seven

Hype about content marketing is everywhere. But with little consensus about what
'content' is, it is better for marketers to focus on what it does and how it works alongside
traditional advertising. Robin Bonn explores how to go about it.

Why does so much of the general buzz around content marketing seem to rely on it being the
hero, with so-called 'traditional' advertising painted as the antiquated villain?

Our experience is that content marketing actually complements advertising very well, so we
decided to explore this relationship between paid and owned media to provide our clients with
some useful guidance.

Working with YouGov, we surveyed members of the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers
(ISBA), as well as a representative sample of 2,000 consumers. We now have a set of general
principles around the role of paid media versus that of owned media, how and when consumers
prefer to use different types of media, and how those preferences vary throughout the customer
journey and across different sectors.

Establishing some context

Our consumer sample said they were generally pretty positive about advertising. They were
warmer still about content and conversations with brands – with 57 per cent definitely agreeing
or tending to agree that they felt more positive towards 'brands that generate content for people
like me'.

And given this resonance of content marketing with people, our advertiser sample also
demonstrated similar sentiments, with a whopping 60 per cent definitely agreeing with HSBC
group head of marketing, Chris Clark's assertion that: "In the future, brands will be built by
aligning themselves with engaging content, as well as the more traditional advertising-led
approach."

Spend trends

Another contextual consideration for our research was how marketers are spending their ever-
more stretched budgets. First, rumours of the demise of advertising have been widely
exaggerated, with 40 per cent of our sample still spending 60 per cent or more of their budgets
on traditional paid media and digital paid media now attracting an average 29 per cent of spend.

However, owned media now accounts for an average of 21 per cent of marketing spend – a
figure equating to over £4 billion – covering magazines, email and blogs, content on websites,
tablets and mobile, and editorial content in social media.

Not surprisingly, our sample also reported significant increases in those describing owned media
as 'extremely important' and 'very effective', with spend across a diverse range of owned media
channels also increasing.

So it's fair to say that both paid and owned media have their place. The question, of course, is
how one relates to the other.

The role of content

So what is content? More to the point, does it really matter? Rather than arguing about, for
example, whether an ad is content, let's focus on what they both achieve. As our client at
Sainsbury's, marketing director Sarah Warby, said at the launch event for our research: "Our ads
make a promise – to help you Live Well For Less. The role of content is to evidence that. And
content is just stuff that people choose to spend time with. It's got to be useful, entertaining or
teach them something – preferably all three."

Our consumer sample echoed this. For example, people watching branded video content (made
for the web, not just uploaded TV ads) are looking for entertainment and information – around
30 per cent are looking for both, but they're twice as likely to be seeking entertainment as they
are information.

So it's clear that delivering on a brand promise every day isn't just about utility – the 'how to' and
'where can I?' content. Brands must remember that attention is scarce, so they must entertain as
well.
Build it and they may not come

Another feature of effective owned media is ensuring that the quality of the content is matched
by intelligent distribution. Again using video as an example, advertisers rate quality of content
and distribution as of almost equal importance, placing these two criteria well ahead of factors
such as interactivity, duration and measurability.

Similarly, people told us they are just as likely to navigate to video content from paid, owned or
earned media sources. So it's clear that traditional advertising can be the gateway to a richer,
longer-form narrative in owned media.

Paid and owned media throughout the customer journey

To further define the relationship between paid and owned media, we also explored their
respective roles in different channels at various stages of the customer journey. To do this, we
defined a basic four-stage journey and asked consumers which channels they preferred along the
way. We then split the responses by sector.

1. Awareness

As expected, a majority of people cite TV as their preferred means of being made aware
of products and services. This ranges between 54 per cent for retail brands and a low of
25 per cent for travel, with the variation probably reflecting the frequency, demand and
subject matter in each case. Owned media does score relatively highly for awareness in
travel and finance. In the latter case, the importance of content-rich websites probably
reflects the frequency with which we all access internet banking, so the opportunity for
brands to engage people here is clear.

2. Find out more

TV still plays a huge role as consumers seek to learn more about products and services.
This is particularly true in retail, with the weekly frequency of purchase, and also in
finance and automotive, where conversely it may be the long decision-making process
that requires TV's reach to keep people engaged. But we also see the brand's website
becoming more popular, particularly in travel and telecoms, where it usurps TV at
number one.

3. Compare, choose and purchase

Looking at the comparison and purchase stages side by side, we see consumer preference
shift further towards owned media, with the brand's own website relegating TV to second
or third place across all sectors. The message here is very clear – when your customers
are genuinely ready to buy, your website experience is critical to building brand
preference.
 4. Staying in touch

Post-purchase, the picture changes again, with email and direct mail coming to the fore in
all sectors. Perhaps this is a useful reminder that while unwanted sales messages are very
easy for consumers to filter out, helpful or entertaining content that provides genuine
value is well received. Interestingly, social media does not appear as a top-three answer
here. Perhaps people engage with brands in social media in a more active sense – asking
specific customer service questions or 'entertainment snacking', rather than being
positively distracted by more promotional messages.

Practical considerations
From the perspective of marketing effectiveness, it's clear that paid and owned media have a
symbiotic relationship and that their roles, balance and respective importance vary – not just
from sector to sector but also at different stages within the customer journey.

But how can brands bring these two very different disciplines together to achieve the benefits of
a joined-up approach? With advertising well established, the first question is about how to do
great content too – as Warby has been widely quoted as saying: "If brands don't behave like
publishers, they are going to be left behind."

Sadly it's not unusual to see similar sentiments expressed by other people (particularly in content
agencies) as a rather vague rallying cry to 'do some content' without describing what's required.
So the following four steps are a practical guide to creating a publishing process that
complements the promise made by advertising. These aren't intended to provide all the answers
and the steps will certainly vary from brand to brand, but they have certainly worked for us.

1. Tell the brand's story

Behaving like a publisher hinges on using editorial expertise to explain and support the
brand promise, often telling a rich and nuanced story across a wide range of channels.
This can be a challenge, as Sainsbury's found: "You know what you want to say, just say
it everywhere. That's easy to say, but it's organisationally difficult."

For this reason, a content strategy (ideally owned by a single person) that achieves what
we'd call a 'single view of content' should clearly address far-reaching topics, such as
organisational design, process and governance, and bring stakeholders together – often
from beyond the marketing department. This framework enables the efficient creation of
the range of content required to deliver a consistent customer experience. As Warby
warns: "An asset that can only be used in one medium isn't an asset; everything has to be
multi-purpose. Otherwise the customer is limited in how they access it, they're cross and
we've lost them."

2. Be always-on
 Being a publisher also requires a rigorous editorial approach to creating content that
provides people with daily relevance and responsiveness, delivering on the promise made
in advertising.

"We have to evidence our promise every day, so we have a massive amount of content
because it's not up to us what customers want to interact with. We give them a library and
say 'take out of it what you want'," Warby says.

3. Optimise your content

Great content is useless if no-one sees it, so the optimal distribution of content is crucial.
This requires a balance of technical and editorial know-how.

Warby advises: "Telling the story in different ways takes different talents, skills and
effort – including technical optimisation, not just for tablet and mobile but also for little
cards and big magazines, or things that are free and things people are willing to pay for."

4. Find specialist agencies who can work in partnership

As long as the ability to do fantastic advertising and the skills required to create world-
class editorial content exist under different roofs, adopting a complementary approach is
about partnership.

"Content and advertising do different jobs: the difference between concise advertising
lines and the expansive conversation you have in content has massive implications for
how you run your business, as does the campaign versus ongoing approach," says Warby.

Advertising is the headline, content is the story. Sometimes the dial is turned one way or
the other, but they're certainly stronger together. Clear roles, shared briefings and more
flexibility on the 'lead' discipline for any given task enable agencies to roll up their
sleeves and collaborate.

The case for a converged approach

What have we learned from our research and these real-world perspectives from a brand reaping
the rewards of a converged approach to paid and owned media? That far from the widely touted
– and clearly biased – view that content marketing represents the 'death of advertising', in fact
they play a highly complementary role.

Just as content can be more effective when further demand is created through paid media, it's
also true that the value of advertising can increase when it entices people to a deeper story told in
owned media. When working to a single agenda, investment in one fuels return on investment in
the other.

Budgets are stretched as never before and consumers' ability to filter the messages they receive
increases every day, so the value of genuine brand loyalty continues to grow. In that context, the
value of content picking up the baton from advertising and delivering on the brand promise every
day cannot be overstated.

The final word goes to Warby: "Advertising and content are the most comfortable of bedfellows.
They beautifully augment one another – drive some awareness, get some depth. Clearly,
advertising has a huge part to play, but it's content that drives advocacy – and that's more
valuable than straight transactional acquisition."