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Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/325830
P r o m o t e d C o n t e n t C A N A D A W I D E M E D I A L I M I T E D P r o m o t e d C o n t e n t I t's not news that the ad-business- as-an-assembly line has been obliterated. The model whereby the client paid an agency's account executive who briefed the brand planner in charge of media insight, who briefed the media planner, then punted it to the creative team to create content for all channels (including the juicy TV spots) and then handed off a brief to the producers and directors to shoot, is just an AMC memory. The reasons are many: the Internet's elimination of the middlemen; corporate belt-tightening as the recession slogs on and marketers are looking to do more with less; and, of course, human nature and the fact that we all ultimately want to consume media on their own terms. We're control freaks and proud of it. So why would clients throw big dollars on mass-produced TV spots on rented platforms, when they can just convince their target audience to share their message with friends who trust them? Don't get me wrong. A big TV spot is still highly effective (as is a gorgeous glossy print ad, and much cheaper, too), but increasingly Chief Marketing Oficers ( CMOs) are looking to complement, not interrupt, their target's media consumption. (See the brieing about the "Native Advertising" trend on page 152.) But despite knowing that the end game is a one-to-one, customized relationship built on the utility and value that a brand can provide, more often than not, marketers violate the covenant of this new reality: trying to sell too hard on social media or not offering anything of value and just adding to the noise that we all retreat to our curated social channels to avoid. Small wonder, then, that an average tenure of a CMO in the U.S. has dropped from 22 months two years ago to 18 months today. Many marketers don't know where to turn. Their incumbent agencies share in their confusion about how to operate in the chaos while new upstarts—content marketing agencies, brand journalists, social media whisperers—are promising a better way. Kraft, for instance, works with about 75 marketing service providers. The AOR still exists, but there are increasing hedges against it. Consumer behaviour is also changing, of course. As Ian Schafer, founder of digital agency Deep Focus and the real- time marketing service called Moment Studio told Ad Age in 2012, "People are being drawn to content not through publishers and pages but through carefully customized people and feeds. We rarely ask ourselves which website should I visit now? Content inds us through our densely connected social networks. We explore content because it is relevant to us topically, personally and culturally. And nothing is more relevant to a consumer than right now." This point is a big reason why interruptive advertising is being written off. A brand's proposition needs to naturally attract its target market. This means, Schafer goes on, that marketers will need to put out original content that "consumers genuinely want to engage with and pass along to others. This content entertains, amuses, informs, serves a function or satisies a consumer need. It's welcome instead of annoying or interruptive." Dig deeper into the buzzwords that you hear around ads these days and you hear how a brand's messaging needs to be authoritative, transparent and trustworthy. Or: why Canada Wide Media is feeling pretty good these days by Tom Gierasimczuk Why Agencies Wish They Were in the Magazine Business Examples of Canada Wide Media's recent content-based ad campaigns in print and online. THE MEDIA LANDSCAPE p148-155-CWM40.indd 150 14-06-04 11:46 AM