Your ad agency needs content strategists

Digital content is permeating more and more of our daily lives. Brands can 'broadcast' their content in a whole range of places – from apps and services like Spotify to in-store displays and metrolites.

For this reason, the content created by businesses is beginning to have a greater impact than their TV, print and ambient campaigns.

This really struck me when I saw this example of branded content from Honda. It affected me more than any ad I've seen in a while. It was able to break free of the retail and structural limitations of TV and create something 'purer', more engaged with the product and the viewer. Plus, I could enjoy it on my own terms.

And so we've entered the content era. How enjoyable, useful and shareable something is determines its value to both businesses and their customers.

Building brands with content strategy

Content strategists have been using content to build experiences for years. In digital agencies, they typically focus on the technical and strategic side of things. CMS consulting, editorial planning, metadata strategy and IA development are our bread and butter.

But this expertise is also extremely useful in advertising. The skills we use to build websites can be used to construct brands and campaigns out of content.

Content strategists understand digital content from a structural and creative perspective. They trade in it and wield it like an archer wields a bow.

When it comes to advertising, content strategists live in the details of brands. Digital strategists come up with the 'bigger' insights, and we work with UX and creative to determine what we need to build and where it needs to go.

This includes studies of new possibilities for content marketing, POS content and interactive tools and games. From here we can construct content-led strategies that examine every interaction a customer will have with a brand, and exactly what content they need at each stage.

I've worked in this capacity with large insurance companies to determine new ways of expressing themselves with more diverse social content and interactions, and better UI content on their website. From content upwards, we worked out what this meant for their product marketing, and what it meant for their brand.

I've worked with a multinational bank to work out what content – video, in-store or social – was going to yield the best new brand direction. Then we briefed their media company and their digital partners to build a platform around it.

A new vision for content strategy

Content is no longer simply words on a page or videos on a YouTube channel. Content can be anything that lives in a brand's digital space, and our users expect it to be relevant and enjoyable.

Many of the things content strategists do in digital agencies make a lot of sense in ad shops. Editorial planning, style guide development and community management have obvious roles.

But we can also build content-led brand structures. These giant, sprawling things explore and solve human interactions with a product using our understanding of what users want, need and enjoy. We do it for websites, and we can do it for brands.

Our understanding of how content works at an emotional and experiential level means that we can truly straddle the lines between the old, the new and the technological. Thus we can assist with building more integrated agencies.

Granted, it's not always so clear-cut, but when given the chance to work with planners, marketers, CEOs and creatives, we produce more meaningful and more effective work.

Ben Barone-Nugent is a content strategist at Proximity BBDO (CHE). You can find him on Twitter at @benbn

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