If you dig around a bit in the various studies on the topic of brand content, you will quickly be both pleased and surprised a few times. Pleased because many things indicate that the vast majority of people (fka consumers) want brand content, even demand it and react positively to it. This leads to a conspicuously increased willingness to buy and the best performance of the brands. Especially, by the way, among the young, who are afflicted by an epidemic allergy to advertising with fierce defensive reactions. So it's shining brightly over there, beyond advertising. Hooray!
On the other hand, one is surprised to read in the studies that 60 per cent of the content produced is so bad that the brand message is simply not conveyed and 74 per cent of all brands would not be missed at all by potential buyers. - Oops! That's quite an avalanche of advertising money coming down the mountain of humility into the dark valley of knowledge, triggered by the graceful burping of butterflies. What could be the reason for that?
We can assume that it's all about lack of relevance, and that most brands are simply nowhere near as relevant as they think they are. The bottom line is that they are commodities, with logo, advertising and mainly a lot of that-was-then-that - so they are not really brands at all. The only really effective way to get this relevance is A) to develop a B) lifelike brand story as the heart and engine of a C) storyworld for relevant content.
A) Development means: discovering and uncovering inside, in the company or brand DNA.
B) True-to-life brand story means: radically recognise longing and values from the audience's perspective.
C) Storyworld means: the space where brand and audience values interweave and multiply.
Doing this is creative hard work, but the only right way. Everything else sounds like a brand story and content, but it's just butterfly burps in a different key than before.
When the posters of the new Erste Bank campaignrecently appeared in Austria, something like hope blew through the cold heart of the Story Dude. Something new could emerge, the wasteland of bank advertising could suddenly become arable. After the half-announced National Council election was cancelled altogether, the danger of Erste Bank becoming the strongest parliamentary group through this campaign was also averted. Yes, the potential for exemplary brand communication is flaring up, and we have not exactly been spoiled with that in recent years, certainly not by banks and Erste .
Will the hope be fulfilled? That is what time shows us and will be illuminated in one of the next columns.