Content: now where maths men and luvvies meet
From the news that two very different sorts of companies are boldly stepping into the world of content to the surprising launch of Hello! Fashion Monthly, there are some major developments we need to take note of.
With all the buzz surrounding content, it’s sometimes difficult to pick out the really salient trends. But, judging by the evidence of the past week, content is a place where the maths men and the luvvies can find common ground.
Yes, I’m surprised too, but it’s my takeout from the news of two very different sorts of companies stepping into the world of content.
From one side comes iProspect, the Aegis-owned search and optimisation agency. iProspect comprises self-declared maths men, whose DNA is all about the scientific rigour and analysis that goes into what it calls ‘performance marketing’.
From the other, we have One Two Four, the result of a merger between Twofour Group’s digital arm, Twofour Digital, events company Rocket Science and Twofour Arabia. Twofour, a well-known TV production company, has credits including Educating Yorkshire, Alex Polizzi’s The Fixer and, less gloriously, Tom Daley’s belly-flop of a show, Splash.
iProspect’s move is almost entirely driven by Google, or specifically Google’s ongoing fiddling with its search algorithm. This now places a premium on high-quality, original, content, so to keep its clients happy iProspect needs to embrace the world of content marketing.
I’ll come back to iProspect in the next week or so to look at its proposition in greater detail, but for now let’s focus on One Two Four.
It thinks its core skills, the luvvie ones (which I describe this way not to make fun, but underline the cultural difference between it and iProspect) of writing, filming and top-notch production, are ideally suited to content.
Actually, it sort of knows this because it’s been doing content for some time now for a range of blue-chip clients, including HSBC, Audi, Sony, Carnival Cruises and the state of Dubai, among others.
But last week saw it effectively formalise its offer, with its official launch as an entity focused entirely on content. Clearly, although the market is increasingly crowded, it sees a world of opportunity.
Interestingly, they have persuaded some other maths men, in the form of Lloyds Bank’s venture capital arm, LDC, to back their vision. Since venture capitalists normally shy away from ‘fluffy’ businesses like advertising, it’s clear that One Two Four are not the only ones to see a promised land overflowing with milk and honey.
As far as I can see, One Two Four has a few aces to play. One, its background in TV production means it either has, or has access to, seriously useful skills, ones that will help differentiate itself from others in this market: expertise in genres like drama, comedy and documentaries; experience in producing long-form, or series-driven, content; the ability to tap into experienced writing, producing and directing talent; and an intuitive understanding of how to hook audiences.
I would not underplay the latter. Unlike agencies, TV production companies don’t employ legions of pointy-head planners who can decode research to understand a brand’s target audience, but they do understand how to produce content that excites a particular audience, and how to get them coming back week after week, or episode after episode.
The second is Rocket Science, which is an dedicated events agency. To me, events is the least understood, and sometimes ignored, part of content. But real, physical, events are vital in terms of brand experience. What is the whole Red Bull Flugtag circus if not event-driven marketing?
And last, One Two Four has a wise head sitting quietly in the background. He is Nigel Long, former client services director of WCRS, but more pertinently chief executive of creative media shop Naked between 2006 and 2011. This was phase two of Naked, after its initial glorious flowering, and the time when it matured from a one-time hotshop into a grown-up outfit.
His experience of the wider world of media-led communications will, I think, help One Two Four steer its course.
That is not to say there is no room in content for the maths men. These days, content is a broad church – indeed, it’s becoming harder to define – and covers a wide spectrum. From where iProspect sits, content is functional, utilitarian and material – ranging from product description and holiday-related information (Thomas Cook is an iProspect client) to user guides – all of which help push its clients up the natural search rankings.
Can iProspect also do the long-form stuff, the sort that is more focused around entertainment or emotional pull? It will have to build that capability, but there’s plenty to keep it going until then.
Well, Hello(!) there, little print number
What’s going on? Last month’s magazine ABCs weren’t exactly much to shout about, but print isn’t dead – as London commuters who will have had a 140-page magazine thrust into their hands this morning can testify.
It’s a new offering from those folks at Hello! (70 years old this month, can you believe it), a standalone fashion title called, in best Ronseal style, Hello! Fashion Monthly.
It’s the third significant print launch (if I’ve missed any, let me know) this year, following on the heels of Porter and Forever Sports, the former Net a Porter’s move into Vogue territory, and the latter a partnership between Sports Direct and Haymarket.
I don’t use the word significant lightly: they’re all paid-for titles, a rarity in this day and age.
HFM’s rationale, three years in the making, is interesting. It’s both an attempt to expand Hello!’s own market – the title is aimed at 18-34-year-old metropolitan, women, a younger cohort than the core mothership audience – and to take ground from the likes of Grazia and Stylist, especially among advertisers.
Hello!’s publishing director Charlotte Stockting says all publishers in this market have learned a lot from Stylist, but one of the key lessons is that this audience group likes print.
Of course, like all modern-day titles, it comes fully accessorised – i.e. tablet edition, mobile and website, some digital-only content, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and click-to-buy technology.
The website is entirely free, and intended to act as an entry-point to either the print, or the tablet/mobile versions. Print and digital cost £1.00 per issue (£0.99p for the Apple platform).
As I’m not in the target market, I can’t tell you much about the content or the title’s fashion creds. The cover star is Olivia Palermo, who is one of those people who is vaguely famous, but no-one knows why. But you can clearly see the parent title’s sleb-focused genes on display, except younger and geared around fashion.
I have no idea whether this will differentiate HFM sufficiently, but one thing will: for a fashion title, HFM has remarkably short deadlines – just 12 days (like warp-speed in the fashion world) – which makes it nimble, responsive and appealing to the all-powerful PRs without whose co-operation no fashion title can succeed.
It’s easy to deride Hello! itself (and by extension as a publishing entity) for living in a soft-focus, bygone, world. But HFM, which has a target sale of 130,000, looks like a pretty aggressive attempt to define itself, in fashionista speak, as catwalk FROW.
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