McDonald’s is arguably one of the world’s most high profile brands. So when it decided to pull the plug on its YouTube content channel, ‘Channel Us’, the marketing industry’s naysayers couldn’t wait to tell us it was an overdue sign that content isn’t always king and that agencies aren’t necessarily the right partner when it comes to creating and delivering content.
Other voices came to more mediated conclusions around agencies needing to be more editorially-focused and audience-led. But if you want to really win at the content game, it’s worth recognising there’s another factor at play too: the fundamental way agencies are engaged by brands often leaves them in a place of weakness when it comes to creating a steady stream of content.
McDonald’s cited the rationale for calling time on ‘Channel Us’ as not reaching enough customers. Obviously the quality of the content is a mitigating factor here. But this is one of those rare situations where quantity is as important as quality. Why? Because without a regular turnover of fresh and interesting content, consumers won’t come back for more.
For an initiative like ‘Channel Us’ to succeed it has to offer consistently new and engaging content. In short, it needs to be ‘always on’. But – and here’s the rub – how can agency-led branded content be ‘always on’, if the agencies that make the content aren’t ‘always there’?
For brands hungry to create content in the most responsive and speedy way possible, engaging an external agency all too often entails the enemy of efficiency: a time-consuming multi-layered approach and a cumbersome array of departments to deal with… not to mention the politics and expense.
In this quest to create a steady stream of 24/7 content, the traditional client/agency system – where the brand engages an external agency – is at best unhelpful; and at worst an antiquated obstruction. Perhaps this is why more and more brands are taking their advertising in-house?
“Content is king” has become a well-worn adage that draws yawns and rolled eyes. But that doesn’t mean it’s not true. With Facebook staking its future on video and YouTube telling us it generates nearly double searches per impression than TV, content is shifting from king-status to God-status. It’s becoming an even more crucial part of a marketer’s armoury than ever before.
For agencies to offer brands a valuable service in this climate of content, they need to shake off the expectation that they are the all-seeing creative force that justifies being cumbersomely contracted as a third party. Instead, we should turn to that much bandied about but rarely acted upon word, “collaboration”.
I don’t mean paying lip service to collaboration by getting the brand-side client around the agency’s swish wenge table at an early stage in the planning process. I mean genuinely collaborating by moving that swish wenge table into the brand’s office. This gives the agency a better chance of being geographically and culturally close to the brand, which in turn gives content a better chance of being ‘always on’. This is collaboration in its truest sense.
For a brand to build a successful content platform, its content needs to be a fast as McDonald’s food. Surely the most sensible way to make this happen is to help a client from the inside. In an era that’s defined by the death of the agency model and the unstoppable rise of content, could it be that the solution to our troubles lies in merging agencies with the in-house approach?
By Chris Gorell Barnes, CEO & founder of Adjust Your Set
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By Jonathan Davies, editor, Digital Marketing Magazine
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