Content Marketing Moves to the Core

The following is republished with the permission of the Association of National Advertisers. Find this and similar articles on ANA Newsstand.

As the pandemic has put a chill on live events, companies have bolstered their content marketing efforts to produce more original content that shines a light on their brand purpose.

As marketing channels proliferate, CMOs and brand managers are surrounded by an ever-increasing amount of content. As a result, the use of the term “content marketing” has come to mean all things to all people. A webpage that provides education for a particular sector, but predominately offers product features? Companies might call it “content marketing,” but that leaves a lot to be desired in terms of precision and accurately describing a key marketing discipline.

In a post on the ANA Marketing Maestros blog, Paul Robinson, director of content and commerce marketing at the ANA, helped to clarify the issue, distinguishing “content in marketing” from “content marketing” proper.

He explained that “content in marketing” is typically a one-to-many approach (think broadcast or digital ads), [whereas] content marketing is … a one-to-limited exercise whereby you’re fully engaged with the target market on their terms by adding value, and not by pushing your brand or product.”

Content marketing should speak in “a customer-first, non-brand-focused voice that is viewed as independent, non-biased and without a sales message,” Robinson said.

Robinson added that while content marketing doesn’t issue an immediate call-to-action, it should promote factors that contribute to customer lifetime value, such as “brand value” and “brand purpose.”

For instance, a bank might develop a webpage that offers tips for securing a mortgage. The company is not making an immediate sales pitch, but it’s providing value and cultivating goodwill among the organization’s demos of prospective homebuyers.

As marketing channels proliferate, CMOs and brand managers are surrounded by an ever-increasing amount of content. As a result, the use of the term “content marketing” has come to mean all things to all people. A webpage that provides education for a particular sector, but predominately offers product features? Companies might call it “content marketing,” but that leaves a lot to be desired in terms of precision and accurately describing a key marketing discipline. Content marketing must be in a customer-first voice, sans any sales messages.

Robinson’s insights indicate that marketers need to apply a stricter definition of content marketing, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a broad canvas of possibilities available to content marketers. Some of the examples below help to illustrate the wide array of content-marketing programming. These illustrations will include:

•     A financial services firm that created a research report to help organizations benchmark their readiness for growth
•     A telecommunications company that created an interactive quiz to help businesses determine how to capitalize on 5G
•     A seed company that produced a podcast to help agricultural sales reps gain a better understanding of seed genetics
•     A computer hardware company that designed a game for mobile phones to entertain IT professionals.

These aren’t the only interesting approaches being taken by content marketers; the onset of COVID-19 necessitated a host of other adaptations. When COVID-19 put a hold on in-person events, Spartan Races, which holds endurance and obstacle races, shifted gears to provide its audience with original content rather than live events.

To wit, the company launched Unbreakable, a streaming platform with access to guided workouts, health tips, and exercises (compatible with social distancing).

With many school-age children stuck at home due to the pandemic, Crayola designed a web-platform featuring interactive arts and crafts classes, sing-alongs, and DIY projects streaming on Facebook Live and the company’s online Crayola studio.

Like classrooms, amusement parks have been off limits, as well. To fill the void for schoolkids, Six Flags teamed up with Atari to create a free game that simulated the thrill of a rollercoaster ride from the comfort of one’s couch.

Likely owing in part to these myriad possibilities, brands have a pretty good outlook on the future of content marketing, according to a new report released by the ANA and the Content Council titled “Growth and Opportunities in Content Marketing.”

That report, which was released last summer, found that 52 percent of respondents said they currently have a “strong commitment” to content marketing, double from two years prior (26 percent). The report also found that respondents reported an average increase in their total annual content marketing budget, up 73 percent from two years ago, with an expected 42 percent increase by 2023.

Trending

Homegrown Content Marketing

Given the trends toward increased use of both content marketing and in-house agencies, it’s no wonder that many in-house agencies are being tasked with responsibility for content marketing.

Paul Robinson, director of content and commerce marketing at the ANA, and Paul Tsigrikes, head of marketing and The Wall Street Journal’s The Trust, the division behind Dow Jones’ branded content and brand marketing, offered some recommendations for how to benefit from an in-house agency, which can provide greater success and brand growth with content marketing.

Since the pandemic hit, a shift to content marketing has become more important than ever, as other forms of marketing have become more challenging, such as shopper marketing and in-store activations.

And yet, when the ANA surveyed marketers for its “Growth and Opportunities in Content Marketing” study, only 35 percent of respondents reported having a clearly documented content strategy.

The most successful companies define roles and responsibilities clearly, which enables organization and cadence across teams.

There are three in-house content agency models:

1.     Publisher/Media Model (The Wall Street Journal and CNN)
2.     Content by Committee (NASCAR)
3.     Full Studio (Pepsi, Marriott, Chobani, Bank of America, Mastercard)

Publisher and Media Model

The WSJ’s The Trust uses first-party audience insights and expertise, data-led insights, and production-led ideas informed by media investment and overall commitment. The brand knowledge afforded by this approach helps guide strategy, in which consumers determine content.

NASCAR’S Content Committee

The committee was formed to increase collaboration and ensure all content is strategic, has internal support, and meets business goals effectively and efficiently. Each business unit still creates content for its platforms after the committee provides a direction based on its internal mapping, which includes content architecture, brand positioning, talent selection, company alignment, and quality control. All of these components reinforce brand goals and carry emotional resonance with consumers.

Marriott M Live Content Studio

In a COVID-affected world, the consumption of content has changed dramatically. Since consumers are used to being inundated with content, brands need to differentiate themselves with valuable content that uses storytelling techniques to tug at consumers’ emotions.

In addition, brands need to listen to what’s being discussed on social platforms, adapt to change, and put consumers’ wants and needs first — especially against the backdrop of the havoc wrought by COVID-19.

Best Practices

Tips and Tricks for Content Marketers

Whether working through an in-house agency or an external partner, the practice of content marketing benefits from the observance of certain best practices. Several best practices were enumerated by the “Growth and Opportunities in Content Marketing” study, which provided six recommendations:

•     Consolidate the responsibility for content marketing.
•     Be authentic.
•     Think like storytellers, then elevate that mindset to think like “storydoers.”
•     Develop measurement rigor.
•     Take the content marketing maturity assessment.
•     Have a clearly documented content strategy.

Here’s a closer look at each of the recommendations:

Consolidate the Responsibility for Content Marketing. Many companies have opted for a person or consolidated team to lead their content marketing and drive consistency, standards, and best practices across the organization. This may involve a “chief content officer” — in title or function — or a cross-functional team or content board.

These groups should meet regularly to establish the company’s content strategy and appropriate guardrails for the various stakeholders in content marketing (corporate communications, PR, brand marketing, etc.).

Be Authentic. Great content marketing is editorial in nature — not a sales pitch — and is authentic and consistent with the brand’s values and beliefs. It starts with the “why.” Why is this topic important to the company’s mission, employees, and the brand? However, it’s important to put the audience first in the equation and make sure the content is relevant to their community and channels of distribution.

Think Like Storytellers, Then Elevate That to Think Like Storydoers. Great content marketers think like storytellers. They understand that driving stories with characters, conflict, and resolution has been a longtime recipe for grabbing people.

Ultimately, consumers’ buy-in not based on “ad campaigns” and brand promotions, but emotion, shared values, and brand purpose. This is where content marketing can help to connect with people without resorting to a sales pitch.

“Storydoing” is more than a marketing communications function; it creates experiences and sparks people to take action. Storydoing is about helping the brand’s stakeholders and being of service — rather than selling products and services.

Develop New Measurement Tools. As content marketing programs command larger investments and a bigger share of overall marketing budgets, the need for measurement rigor is greater than ever. Specific goals must be established up front — before a content program is developed — to successfully measure the effectiveness of the program and its impact on the business.

Measuring content marketing requires the ability to knit together multiple data sets to gauge the impact at every stage of the buyer’s journey. That can be complicated because it requires agencies to have access to data that clients are sometimes reluctant or unable to share.

As it becomes more important to prove ROI, brands need to let their agency partners into the measurement fold.

There is also an opportunity for agency partners to develop ways to more accurately and simply track and present ROI data. Agencies need to help brands interpret the data so that it can guide future content decisions.

In a 2020 ANA Content Marketing Committee meeting, Ranjit Raju, VP, head of West Coast at Knotch, discussed the best way to combine data and creativity to fuel an effective content marketing strategy. He identified three areas designed to improve content marketing programming:

•     Quantitative Data: Is the content engaging? This question can be answered by evaluating overall and unique views, referral source, time spent, scroll depth, click-throughs, device and browser details, and social engagement.
•     Demographic Data: Who is the audience? This question can be answered by analyzing age, gender, location, company, industry, job function, and seniority.
•     Content Impact: Did the content do its job? Measuring perception, awareness, purchase, intent, impact, relevance, and conversion will determine what kind of impact content marketing is having.

“There’s no secret sauce to creating great content,” Raju said. “It’s about understanding your audience, looking at the data, and creating a feedback loop allowing you to iterate until you perfect your messaging.”

Take the Content Marketing Maturity Assessment. As with all areas of marketing, companies may find themselves at various points in their content marketing commitment and growth model. ANA members should benchmark where they are compared to other companies by using the ANA Content Marketing Maturity Model.

The model is designed to help organizations improve their content marketing capabilities by providing a defined roadmap. It evaluates eight components of content marketing: orientation, leadership, budget and staff, tools and platforms, lead generation, email marketing, cross-channel marketing, and metrics.

Have a Clearly Documented Content Strategy. Just as marketers would not create a traditional advertising campaign without a creative strategy, they shouldn’t spend on content without a strategy in place either. It’s unreasonable to expect content creators to optimize campaign performance without a clearly defined content strategy.

These approaches are not intended to describe a step-by-step process, but can be very helpful in creating a dedicated content marketing strategy.

Nine Tips for Content Marketers

Reports issued directly from the ANA aren’t the only sources to tap into for content marketing guidance; the brands that present at ANA events also offer a wealth of advice. At a recent meeting of the ANA Content Marketing Committee, Meredith Corp., a media company whose products include Better Homes & Gardens, People, and Shape magazines, offered nine recommendations.

Adapt to a World in Flux While Remaining True to Your Brand

Timing Is Everything: Getting content to market quickly is crucial. Don’t be afraid to adjust traditional approval processes or production approaches to get the job done.

Commit to Authenticity: Be a resource in an area in which the brand is expert. Don’t sacrifice the right story for the fast story. The company’s commitment to speed must be balanced with a commitment to organic storytelling.

Collaborate Constantly: In the current marketing climate, it’s necessary to adopt a more communicative and responsive operational approach, with a tighter cadence, to keep all stakeholders coordinated.

Reflect the Realities of the World Your Audience Lives In

Address the Needs of the Consumer: For instance, a clothing manufacturer can use marketing efforts to show its audience how to stay comfortable in work-from-home wear during the pandemic.

Make Desired Action Easy and Accessible: For a beauty brand, it may no longer make sense in an economic downturn to expect consumers to shell out for an expensive makeup kit. Instead, it makes more sense to promote a free sample of the makeup, thereby enabling cash-strapped consumers to gain exposure to the company’s products.

Produce Content in Familiar Formats: Formats and production styles that represent the brand’s everyday experiences will win the day. Consider shooting on iPhones and using footage from video conferences to build the company’s content.

Remember, Less Can Be More

Consolidate Efforts and Leverage Expertise: Consider lower frequency, higher impact value. Instead of using multiple touchpoints, rely on a select few highly engaging formats. And as the company creates content, it must do so in a way that reflects the brand’s unique authority.

Produce Confidently in New Ways: Marketers may long to return to on-location experiences with video villages and 20-person production crews, but they can’t stop telling stories. With trusted partners, pursue user-generated content initiatives that use drop kits, ring lights, and apps like Open Reel. Marketers also need to:

•     Know their production partners inside and out.
•     Know how to direct talent remotely.
•     Know the best practices for safety and sanitation.

Vet Influencers Thoroughly:
This isn’t to say marketers should search for apolitical celebrities with no opinions at all. Rather, it means that they should double and triple check to ensure that the influencers they work with represent what the brand stands for — that the influencers reflect the brand’s ethos, voice, and values.
Case Study

FIS Develops Thought Leadership Tools

Although learning best practices is an integral part of mastering the discipline of content marketing, concrete examples of successful campaigns also offer substantial insights, making case studies extremely valuable.

Consider the FIS Readiness Report, a vehicle that FIS uses annually to share FIS’s knowledge and expertise and build its reputation and credibility within the financial services arena.

FIS’s plan in 2019 was to conduct the study, develop thought leadership that provided provocative insights, and create an information hub through which its target audience could gain further insights and knowledge.

Using the hub, the marketing organization sought to understand areas of interest and push the reader into more relevant streams of content for lead nurturing.

The campaign had two core objectives.

•     Reputation: Help establish FIS as a client-focused thought leader with credible insights and expertise to help shape the financial services landscape. This would be achieved by providing actionable thought leadership and point-of-view content that could be used across earned, owned, and paid media in FIS’s key markets.
•     Lead Generation Support: The media plan for the Readiness Report sought to seed the market with market-leading insights and help establish both FIS’s brand and reputation. The report itself sought to warm up the industry for prospecting as FIS’s content and insights drove the campaign’s message.

Insights and Strategy

FIS examined the previous two years of The Readiness Report and recognized the need to take a fresh approach as new technologies and market disruptors had emerged. The organization worked closely with its thought leaders and research partner to outline key areas of investigation.

FIS’s solution marketing team collaborated with the organization’s content marketing and creative teams to determine the best mix of tactics and strategies to push the campaign forward.

Concept/Big Idea

A critical component FIS’s research is the FIS Readiness Index, which measures how well positioned industry participants are for growth and assesses their capabilities in key operational areas.

FIS was able to identify a group of firms achieving operational excellence — the Readiness Leaders — and compare them to the rest of the industry.

It discovered that not only are they further ahead in key areas, they are also growing significantly faster — on average twice as fast — showing the connection between specific investments and growth.

This insight helped The Readiness Report garner media coverage with Bloomberg TV, Yahoo! Finance, and the South China Morning Post, among others. The 2019 survey represented the views of more than 2,000 senior financial services executives with responsibility for leading technology and operational strategy.

Execution

FIS used a mix of inbound marketing (campaign microsite and corporate website) and outbound marketing (email, organic social, paid social, public relations, analyst relations, ABM marketing, and sales emails).

Results

With a total investment of less than $300,000, FIS added more than $28 million to the sales pipeline — from 235 opportunities (including 187 from paid media) — and influenced an additional seven opportunities. This represented a 355 percent increase year-over-year.

Verizon Helps Brand Gear Up for 5G

While research reports are an effective method of conducting content marketing, in some cases a more novel approach to educating a specific audience is the way to go.

Verizon identified such a situations in its outreach to businesses and, in response, developed a quiz-like digital tool to educate them on how to prepare for and capitalize on 5G.

After seven months, 1,061 businesses completed the assessment and 407 businesses generated personalized plans and corresponding sales leads — all without paid media promotion.

Business Challenge and Objective

Verizon faced the challenge of trying to sell 5G before businesses really knew what 5G could accomplish. So the communications giant set out to educate businesses on the true potential of 5G and how to prepare for it. The company wanted to create a quiz-like digital experience that could position Verizon as an expert on 5G by building a custom 5G Readiness Assessment Tool.

Using custom research from 1,600 IT decision makers, Verizon’s tool analyzed a business’ current technology for 5G capability, compared the technology against industry benchmarks, and generated a custom improvement plan for how to ready the tech for 5G integration.

Insights and Strategy

Most brands want 5G, but no one knows how to use it, and most are clueless about how to properly prepare for it. In fact, most executives (72 percent) say they need help imagining the future possibilities and use cases of 5G, according to a 2019 Accenture study.

Verizon sought to build on this datum and surveyed 1,600 businesses to:

•     Discover the strength of their current technology portfolios.
•     Identify ways that 5G could make a difference for them.

Concept/Big Idea

As businesses explore new technologies like 5G, AR/VR, AI, edge computing, and the Internet of Things, they need to be sure their technology portfolios can support them. But knowing which innovations will work with a company’s existing technologies can be difficult.

Businesses need the right technology partners to analyze their current portfolio and create a turnkey plan for 5G innovation based on their unique situation and needs.

Execution

To deliver personalized 5G insights, Verizon needed to create a powerful digital tool. The 5G Readiness Assessment Tool was designed to be a quiz-like experience that would help businesses compare their technology adoption to the best practices of their industry peers. It provided valuable 5G and technology insights in four main categories:

•     Technology infrastructure
•     Business productivity
•     Customer experience
•     Data and visualization

A critical part of the tool was data visualization. In real time, as users responded to questions, the tool created a graph that offered an at-a-glance comparison of their company and the industry in each category.

To increase the value of the experience, Verizon created a custom report generator that delivered personalized content and action plans to prepare businesses for 5G innovation. Verizon sales representatives could access these reports to share the insights with their customers.

Results

Initially the company’s goals were to:

•     Prompt 100 completed assessments.
•     Generate 100 personalized reports.
•     Garner 100 marketing qualified leads (MQLs).

The assessment tool’s performance far exceeded expectations. From May 15 to December 2019, it achieved the following results:

•     1,061 completed assessments.
•     407 personalized reports generated.
•     407 MQLs delivered (especially significant, as each MQL could result in $1 million to $5 million in ongoing revenue).

Notably, no paid media was used to promote this tool. Instead, Verizon relied on sales representative sharing, organic website traffic, and email.

Pioneer Uses Poscast to Educate Sales Reps

Listen up: The telecommunications industry isn’t the only one that has an audience that can benefit from information that explains innovative technology; the agricultural industry does, as well, as seed company Pioneer demonstrated when it imagined a new way to explain complex seed genetics through a podcast.

Business Challenge and Objective

Pioneer has a long, rich legacy in the agriculture industry. Unfortunately, all that history can create an image problem for the brand. Despite industry-leading research and development, most farmers consider Pioneer as “Grandpa’s seed company.”

To change farmers’ perception of Pioneer, the brand needed to first educate and energize its more than 3,000 independent sales reps who spend their workdays on the road, visiting farms and local seed mills.

Because the sales reps are indepen- dent, each of them choose what to say based on what they believe will help them sell most effectively. This makes Pioneer’s challenge to provide the reps with powerful, unifying, opinion-shaping messaging even more critical.

The brand realized that if it could get its sales reps excited about Pioneer’s decade of hard science investments, the company could also change prevailing opinions. That was the brand’s ultimate KPI.

Insights and Strategy

Pioneer’s sales reps spend their workdays on long, lonely stretches of highway as they drive between meetings with farmers.

While most salesforce education programs have evolved to web-based training and email, those tools don’t work traveling the roads of rural America. Against that backdrop, Pioneer imagined a new way to explain complex seed genetics to its sales reps and at the same time leverage all that time driving.

Concept/Big Idea

Pioneer created a podcast called Corn Revolution solely for its sales reps. The content delved into all aspects of Pioneer’s seed technology, explained by the scientists who developed it.

To appeal to the customer point of view, the brand hired a farmer named Matt Brechwald — who has his own podcast — to host Pioneer’s podcast. Brechwald’s firsthand perspective offered both credibility and a natural way of discussing complex, technical seed genetic concepts in terms that listeners could easily understand.

Corn Revolution connected Matt to a variety of highly specialized Pioneer scientists across the country who explained a decade’s worth of seed innovations. By presenting the information in farmer-to-scientist conversations, the material was more accessible for sales reps to remember. As they drove and listened, the sales team absorbed several new market anecdotes and data to share with their farm customers.

Execution

The brand then had to get its reps to tune in to the podcast. As popular as podcasts are in some markets, they don’t hold a candle to email with agricultural sales reps. To drive adop- tion of the podcast series, Pioneer sent a direct mail piece to the sales reps. Each customized package contained a Google Nest Mini, along with voice instructions for how to access the podcasts. By making even the delivery of the podcasts feel technologically
advanced, Pioneer underscored the innovative force behind the modern seed company.

Results

To date, the podcast has garnered 8,000 listeners. In addition, the members of the sales team have said the podcast offers a new understanding and appreciation for the company’s products and services. The podcast series broke through more effectively than traditional sales materials, while a target audience survey showed that perceptions of Pioneer’s research have changed significantly and for the better.

As a sales training tool, Corn Revolution generated a good deal of discussion. By engaging and educating sales reps with concrete, easy-to-understand information, Pioneer activated its frontline to challenge and evolve the brand’s image with farmers throughout the country. The podcast proved to be such an effective tool for the sales team that Pioneer received multiple requests from the field to continue and expand the use of podcasting as a way to communicate with customers.

Eaton Taps into Gaming to Win Customers

Education is one common goal of content marketing, but the discipline can be equally at home entertaining its audiences. Computer hardware company Eaton demonstrated as much when it created an online mystery game, “Ticket of Terror,” a comedic take on common IT problems.

Business Challenges and Campaign Objectives

Power management is a commoditized and undifferentiated category due to passive products such as backup batteries and commercial-grade surge protectors that perform straightforward functions. Even customers familiar with Eaton purchase its products once every three to five years, meaning sales opportunities are severely limited. Eaton needed an engagement that would appeal to time-strapped IT profes- sionals, demonstrate superior understanding of its audience, and persuade skeptical consumers.

The brand partnered with lead-gen agency Jack Morton to achieve the following goals:

Generate quality leads: Build long-term relationships with the Eaton audience to capture accurate contact information. Exceed Eaton’s historic campaign averages of 5,298 marketing qualified leads, 3,203 net new leads, and 2.7 million in sales potential.

Raise brand familiarity and image: Deliver a fun experience that would prove Eaton understands IT workers’ problems and has solutions to help. Exceed or match the promotion’s five-year averages of 48 percent (net new contacts only) and 1:24 engagement time per user.

Insights and Strategy

On the basis of Eaton’s previous campaigns, brainstorming sessions with IT staffers, and interviews with product experts, Eaton and Jack Morton developed a sense of what issues are top of mind among IT professionals. The IT department is usually the first and only line of defense against all technical issues, ranging from daily troubleshooting (printer jams, forgotten passwords) to long-term initiatives (cybersecurity, disaster preparation).

IT workers must find the answer to every question that comes their way, but often feel their efforts go unnoticed and underappreciated because people working at the company are typically not as proficient in technology. Eaton views itself as an unsung hero, akin to its target audience. Therefore, the brand needed to give IT professionals credit for their problem-solving skills, celebrate their “geekiness,” and ease their anxiety.

Concept/Big Idea

“Ticket of Terror” is a mobile-first, “choose your own adventure”-style mystery. IT workers sleuth their way around a virtual server room, collecting clues to power down the “possessed” computer, catch the mischievous desk toy responsible for the turmoil, and leave work on time. The bite-sized experience was delivered as two capers, providing an accessible diversion for IT workers:

•     Case 1: Moderate difficulty with streamlined twists, turns, and Eaton clues
•     Case 2: More advanced difficulty with trickier clues and a more elusive culprit

Key Tactics

To engage and educate IT professionals about how Eaton’s power management products could bring a little sanity to their day, Eaton and Jack Morton built a brand experience disguised and advertised as a game.

From a media perspective, Eaton promoted the game through long-form, high-impact placements, reaching gamers with conversion-driven direct response executions. Providing two mysteries resulted in two opportunities to announce and promote the game. To drive urgency, Eaton and Jack Morton used a 12-week prize period top get the word out.

A variety of paid and owned media tactics helped attract targeted audiences, both new and current:

•     Rented lists/emails: New and legacy email partners drove familiarity.
•     Native programmatic and direct to publisher: Video, animated, and static placements in highly targeted programmatic and direct-to-publisher placements offered efficient cost-per-click (CPC).
•     Paid social media: Facebook, LinkedIn, and Reddit reached untapped audiences and retargeted users.
•     Organic social media: Social content engaged current Eaton followers.
•     Campaign site: Marquees on Eaton’s content hub drove traffic.
•     House emails: Emails sent to owned lists announced each mystery.

Results

“Ticket of Terror” drove a record high 105 percent ROI for Eaton. The promotion generated the highest number of qualified leads and the highest percentage of net new leads in the power management division since 2014. IT workers completed the game experience an average of 2.9 times.

The campaign generated 8,356 qualified leads and 6,660 new leads, leading to $4.3 million sales potential, all of which were far above previous benchmarks. A 22:43 engagement time and 48 percent familiarity lift exceeded earlier numbers of comparable metrics.
Source Information

“The Role of In-House Agencies within Content Marketing.” Paul Robinson, Director of Content and Commerce Marketing at ANA; Paul Tsigrikes, Head of Marketing and The Trust at The Wall Street Journal and Barron’s Group. ANA 2020 In-House Agency Conference: A Virtual Experience, 8/13/20.

“Growth and Opportunities in Content Marketing.” ANA and The Content Council, 7/13/20.

“Tips for Content Marketers from Meredith.” Will Roth, VP of Content and Strategy at The Foundry at Meredith Corp; Dan Rubin, VP of Strategy and Marketing at The Foundry at Meredith Corp. ANA Content Marketing Committee Meeting, 2/5/21.

“2019 FIS Readiness Report.” 2020 B2 Awards Bronze Winner, Content Marketing: Omni-Channel Content Program. Brand: FIS. Lead Agency: N/A.

“5G Readiness Assessment Tool.” 2020 B2 Awards Gold Winner, Sales-Enablement. Brand: Verizon. Lead Agency: MRM.

“Corn Revolution Podcast.” 2020 B2 Awards Gold Winner, Content Marketing: Podcast. Brand: Pioneer. Lead Agency: Bader Rutter.

“Ticket of Terror.” 2020 REGGIE Awards Gold Winner, Business-to-Business Marketing; Gold Winner, Content Marketing; Bronze Winner, Digital, Social, or Mobile Marketing. Brand: Eaton. Lead Agency: Jack Morton.
Source

“Content Marketing Moves to the Core.” Insight Brief compiled by Morgan Strawn, Senior Manager, Marketing Knowledge Center, ANA. Designer: Amy Zeng, Manager, Marketing and Communications, ANA. Editor: Matthew Schwartz, Senior Manager, Marketing and Communications, ANA. © Copyright 2021 by the Association of National Advertisers, Inc. All rights reserved.