Monetising content is for professionals, not for brands
Mondelez: making content that is good enough to make money?
The idea that brands can turn their content into a revenue stream is a puzzling one, writes Dominic Mills
For various reasons – such as chairing last month’s Mediatel/ITV session on content and judging the CMA international content awards – I’ve been thinking a lot about the subject recently.
We all know that content is rising inexorably up the marketers’ to-do lists. Thanks to a number of factors – consumer resistance to straightforward ad messages, the rise of platforms that allow different types of messaging, the way content allows brands to offer relevance and engagement – marketers have jumped on content as the new big thing.
But one thing puzzles me about it: the idea that brands can turn their content into a revenue stream. It is by no means universal, but it is gaining currency. You can see it here in this piece by Marketing Week explaining how the likes of Pepsi, Mastercard and Mondelez are all chasing the content pound.
Indeed, Mondelez has taken it a step further by appointing someone with that explicit responsibility – one Laura Henderson, who goes by the title of global head of content and media monetisation. This, as far as I can tell, is a first.
Yes, it is true that the likes of airlines and retailers have always sought to monetise their content. But they do this through selling advertising in and around their content. For airlines, the audience is essentially captive. Here’s a piece about how content specialist Cedar, whose clients include BA owner International Airlines Group, is exploiting an owned media portfolio that gives it clout in the travel and leisure area.
For retailers, it’s the advertisers who are captive. As long as the content is good enough – and the stuff produced by the likes of Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose is pretty top drawer – it’s an obvious place for FMCG advertisers to go, albeit sometimes with one arm shoved behind their back by the supermarket.
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But they are monetising the audience, not the content per se. The one thing they don’t do is charge for the content. Sure there are exceptions: the Lego Movie is one, and Red Bull’s many live events are another, where the experience or the content is the thing being monetised.
But not everyone can be a Red Bull or a Lego, and those that try to copy them are, at the very least, late to the party. Besides, something like the Lego Movie is a huge financial risk. Most brand owners have labyrinthine and sclerotic budgeting processes that are completely at odds with the Hollywood mentality of film producing or that of TV broadcasters commissioning programmes.
Mondelez’s aim – as expressed by Laura Henderson in this piece in Ad Age is to make “content that is good enough to make money.”
This is such a global statement that it raises so many questions. How? What sort of content? What is this content designed to do? Why? What happens if it doesn’t? How do they judge success – by selling more chocolate bars, chewing gum and biscuits, or by selling the content – ?
As it’s been explained to me, Mondelez’s aim is to make money by creating media properties that either other media owners will buy off them, or that people will pay to consume.
One example was the skyjump this summer by Luke Aikens, supported by Stride gum, and with various TV and social media streaming activities linked to it. Hmm, well this sounds a) like advertiser-funded programming and b) Felix Baumgartner’s Red Bull jump. So nothing very new there.
But the thing I really can’t get my head round is the motivation behind a move like this, and I suspect that the motives are mixed. A part is simply to play in the bright new world of content – after all, it sounds dead cool and means Mondelez marketers can play at being in the entertainment business; and the other part, I suspect, is to look to content as a means to defray marketing costs. In other words, as Mondelez sees it, it’s a win-win: it gets to sell loads more stuff, and get some of its marketing money back in the process.
And this, I think, is where it all falls down, for the simple reason that, in nearly every case, producing content that can be monetised and that also sells product involves going in different directions. The more you do of one, the less you get of the other. The two do not sit comfortably together.
And when push comes to shove, as it always does, which way do you think Mondelez will jump? Towards that that sells product – naturally.
There is one thing Laura Henderson says that I do agree with. It’s this, in her words, that seeking to monetise content, Mondelez will be “held to a higher bar.”
Hooray for that, because there’s already more than enough crap content around. In seeking to monetise its content, Mondelez will absolutely have to try harder.
But it still won’t be good enough. Because there’s too much professionally produced content out there trying to find a home anyway, and the sooner the likes of Mondelez recognise this, the better.
I note that Henderson was appointed to her role by the former Mondelez marketer Bonin Bough. A Marmite character, who seemed as interested in promoting his own profile as serving his employer, he has since moved on.
I’ve got a feeling that it won’t be long before this Mondelez initiative will end up with Crème Egg all over its face, and Henderson’s role will be moved on also.