Adam Britton is the Managing Director of TrunkBBI who, to give some background, heads up a team of over 80 creatives in an agency who has won 4x“Large Agency of the Year”. So, to have him take to the stage to talk about content marketing at our London event last year was a privilege.
Adam was swift to get underway and discuss content marketing strategy as he opened his talk with the statement “Money is being wasted…”
- 90% of consumers expect brand to provide content in multiple forms
- 58% of content is being wasted as it’s not meaningful
“It’s proven throughout this research [by WARC] that using more platforms through your integrated approach increases ROI… yet even in 2022 some brands are still taking a single channel approach” and Adam goes on to explain his approach to content strategy is to take a global look not just at your clients but at what’s going on and ensure all your content is pointing to the same purpose, whether on TV, paid media or organic content.
Of course planning and executing campaigns across multiple channels costs money but when it comes to budget it “doesn’t really matter” Adam announces, as a light chuckle ripples across our audience of cash strapped marketers! But, he has a point… For every £1 of marketing spend you should be getting £10 back (numbers obviously vary) so therefore “if you’re not getting ROI on your spend, why are you even bothering? you may as well spend it on the Christmas party”. And whilst this was a flippant remark and obviously there’s more context to this, I believe this is the cornerstone to marketing and should always be present in our minds.
“Okay kids, now that’s out the way, it’s Cbeebies Story time” Adam presents a couple of tales based on true events taking place in marketing departments across the country. You can watch the full seminar to see both stories as they are rather entertaining but, to summarise; siloed thinking, where there’s no communication, wastes time and budget. Whether it’s between departments or clients and agencies, sharing common goals before campaigns start results in an output that is almost always far more efficient and cost effective.
Towards the end of Adam’s talk he asks “which comes first creative or channel”? Ask a creative they say one thing, ask a channel expert they say the other but Adam believes “both supercharge each other” and must work together simultaneously to achieve real results. To prove the point, he shares a few examples where brands were previously using channels to push various giveaways and freebies but not getting much response. Upon review and now enlisting the help of creatives, they were able to build campaigns using the same channels but this time applying the psychology behind gamification and earning the same giveaways as prizes, which got a far greater response. Channel and Creative working together.
I think the lasting point from a very valuable session is; Whether within the business itself or working with external suppliers and agencies, if you’re not all on the same page it’s impossible to create the integrated, multi-channel campaigns that generate far greater response which we all aspire to achieve. We’d like to thank Adam for his time presenting his talk and look forward to him joining us again soon.
