The Centipede Strategy for Content Marketing

Why Content Matters

Marketers have traditionally focused on pitching the features and benefits of their offerings in their marketing communications. But modern marketers understand that this approach is swiftly losing its effectiveness in digital media channels, where customers have the choice to tune out promotional messages. The new approach, called Content Marketing (or Inbound Marketing), focuses on creating, curating and delivering content that customers find useful, timely and relevant. A key tenet of Content Marketing is to think about Return on Engagement (ROE) - What value do customers get from consuming your content?

You can provide Return on Engagement to customers in many ways - by giving them useful information, by solving a problem for them, by making their life more convenient, by entertaining them, by inspiring them and by connecting them with communities that they care about (see Figure below). In content marketing, you need to start with a pain point or a passion point that is important for your customers. Then you need to design your content around this pain point or a passion point. For instance, the pharmaceutical company Sanofi focuses on the pain point of living with Diabetes, in its Diabetes Experience content hub, while Patagonia, the outdoor gear company focuses on the passion for outdoor exploration in its Patagonia Ambassadors site.

The Content Paradox

Content marketing is a powerful approach to engage with customers, but there is a problem. In the days of mass media, content used to take the form of a few carefully crafted advertising messages created for television, print or outdoor media. Content was created infrequently and it was created in standard forms (a 30 second television ad, a one-page print ad, a billboard, a white paper, a direct mail piece, etc.). However, consumers consume media very differently today. Media consumption has fragmented across a variety of social platforms and media is often consumed in very small chunks in "micro-moments" that happen hundreds of times a day as consumers compulsively interact with their smartphones. The implication - content in micro-moment world needs to also become "micro-content" - hundreds of small content assets that are relevant in the moment. Marketers need to create enormous amounts of content on a continuous basis and they need to accept the fact that individual pieces of content may have a very short shelf life.

Content may be ephemeral, but brands need to endure. This is the content paradox.

Content may be ephemeral, but brands need to endure. This is the content paradox - how to reconcile the short life of content with the long life of a brand. Content marketing demands agility and continuous experimentation. However, marketers who embrace this tactical approach run the risk of losing the forest for the trees. How can marketers make sure that their tactical content hangs together to tell a brand story? How can they make sure that sum of the tactics is more than the parts?

The Centipede Metaphor

To address the content paradox, we can draw inspiration from Centipedes. While centipedes may sound and look creepy, they are fascinating creatures. They may have up to 350 little legs that allow them to move very swiftly at speeds of 420 mm/second - the equivalent of a human being running at 42 miles per hour! Their legs not only allow them to chase agile prey, they also protect them from predators. When a centipede is attacked, its legs easily break off and continue wiggling for a short period to distract predators. Centipedes can then regenerate their legs quite quickly. While centipedes have hundreds of legs, they have one pair of powerful compound eyes that allow them to stay focused on their prey while on the run.

What can content marketers learn from centipedes? Think of your individual content assets as the little legs of the centipede, allowing you to be nimble as you adjust and adapt your content to match customer intent, yet allowing you to "break" some legs as you jettison tactics that don't work. At the same time, remember that the centipede's legs are attached to one body and its direction is driven by one set of eyes. This body is your brand story and the eyes are your brand purpose. This is the lesson from the centipede - marry clarity in purpose and consistency in the brand story with agility in tactics and execution.

The lesson from the centipede - marry clarity in purpose and consistency in the brand story with agility in tactics and execution.

Centipede Marketing in Action

To see how this metaphor works in practice, let's consider a couple of examples. The first company is Red Bull, a master at content marketing. Red Bull has been called "a publishing empire that happens to sell a beverage". The company puts out a slew of content, both digital as well as physical in the form of events. Red Bull creates a rich array of video content branded as Red Bull TV - a full-fledged television content site with channels, shows, live events and clips. The channels focus on specific sports like skiing, motor sports, cliff diving, mountain biking - to name a few. They also publish print content under the umbrella of the Red Bulletin - a digital and print content publication. They offer their content to third parties through Red Bull Studios. Their online presence is complemented by a wide range of extreme sports events that in turn create content that is published across the various digital channels.

Red Bull may seem like a frenzied content creator, but there is a strong unifying theme for its content strategy that is succinctly captured in its motto - Red Bull Gives You Wings. This brand mission is the North Star for everything that Red Bull does in its content strategy. By grounding all its content in the brand mission, Red Bull is able to be incredibly agile in tactics yet incredibly consistent with what its brand stands for. That's acting like a centipede!

Always is another brand that shows the power of combining a Long Idea with a rich array of content assets and initiatives. The brand mission is simple and powerful - helping women live a life without limits through feminine hygiene products and puberty education. Always seized on a powerful consumer insight - puberty is a physically and emotionally difficult time for girls and they experience a dramatic loss in self-esteem as they struggle with changes in their bodies and their hormones. Always aims to build self-confidence by educating girls about puberty and sparking a global conversation about empowering girls and challenging self-imposed limits. Within this clearly defined umbrella mission, Always has created a powerful set of communication messages including its "Like a Girl" campaign. It has also created partnerships with the International Olympic Committee and TED to create awareness for keeping girls in sports and in STEM education after puberty. The tactics evolve continually, but the centipede moves in a coordinated fashion, guided by the brand mission!

Conclusion

In a rapid-fire world of content, it is easy to lose sight of the big picture. In the quest for agility, you can sometimes forget the fundamentals of marketing - that there is a brand story to be told with consistency and clarity. To address this paradox of ephemeral content co-existing with an enduring brand purpose, marketers can draw inspiration from the lowly centipede. I hope this article will inspire you to wiggle your way to success in content marketing!