The power of organic content — and what big CPG brands are missing.
One of the biggest lessons I learned by going to a start-up after a successful career in big CPG was the approach to building a strong community and tribe following…and leveraging content as a means to nurture that relationship.
Let’s face it: when it comes to content, there are a lot of opinions out there on strategies, tactics, and best practices. I’ve spent much of my career overseeing the development and deployment of content across multiple brands on multiple campaigns, in partnership of course with amazing team members and agency partners. Over the last few years, I’ve realized that as brand leaders, especially in big CPG, we have been conditioned to look at content strategy and amplification in a singular vacuum — which can have consequences as we ultimately look to manage and build a brand’s long-term equity. It’s time we get ourselves out of the tunnel and look around.
When it comes to the role of organic content in a marketing plan, Brand leaders today typically tend to sit in one of two camps: either they believe in organic content and the power it has to build brand loyalty or…frankly, they don’t see the value in it. When you “grow up” in a large CPG company, one with plentiful resources to devote to the creation of highly curated content, paid media, and marketing mix analytics, you learn quickly that if you want to be most efficient with your budget, focusing on a paid media strategy with as minimal content as possible is the best approach to achieve your ROI objectives. After all, why push out 6 social posts when you can do the job in 4 and not hit wear out? Also, why spend the time managing your social media page and posting content organically on your page — who even goes there? A paid strategy draws many more eyes on a single piece of creative than you will ever get by posting it organically on your page (unless…maybe you’re Kim Kardashian West). It’s simply inefficient to invest in an organic content strategy. ←These points are valid…don’t get me wrong. There is a lot of truth to the data that has led to these conclusions, and logically, yes, it completely makes sense. However, why is it then, that the smaller start-up-esque brands that are eating the big brands for lunch (and have been for the last few years, let’s face it) are more often than not leveraging a highly integrated framework of organic content deployment? (the answer is not: because they don’t have the money). Think about it: these are the same start-up/small brands that larger CPG companies then acquire for rocket high valuations due to the mere fact that these brands have incredible cachet with their consumers and community — far more powerful than many larger brands on the market.
The big CPG brand world has gotten so caught up in what can be proved via numeric data and dashboards, that the fundamentals of creating meaningful connection with consumers has taken a back seat.
When looking at the roles that paid vs. organic content play in a marketing plan, each serves a powerful purpose. But in order to know what you want to deploy and where you want to focus your efforts, like most things, it comes down to really nailing: what is your objective? The use of paid media lends itself well when the objective of the brand is to build large-scale awareness. In other words: “Let’s get as many people to know about us as fast as possible!” The use of organic content (whether on social, through a website, email marketing campaign, influencers, etc…) lends itself well when the objective of the brand is to build brand strength — loyalty, repeat, community, a movement…all that contribute to a brand’s cachet. One is short-term focused; the other is long-term focused.
Too often we discuss paid content and organic content as an “either/or” approach — especially when finalizing media and marketing plans. But I urge brand builders to understand there is power in leveraging BOTH (if you can afford it) at the same time. And honestly, if I had to pick only one, personally I would place much more emphasis on an integrated organic content strategy and here’s why:
I’ve been a part of several product and even brand “launches” in my career at larger CPG companies. As I’ve created, revised, and ultimately shaped marketing and campaign plans for alignment, it’s become painfully obvious to me how larger companies ultimately view the role that content plays: a means to deliver a message to the consumer. Teams harp on creating a few “perfect” assets to deliver a message to the audience. A lot of time is then spent perfecting, simplifying, tweaking that message (or series of messages) and visual (or series of visuals) because the role of said content is to tell the consumer what they should know about the brand and how they should feel about it (and why they should buy it) — essentially…the role is to advertise. And then when the campaign is launched, sure the brand responds to a few comments or questions on social, but that’s not where a majority of the effort is placed — it’s placed on monitoring the main KPIs (awareness or message recall or purchase intent or consideration). These KPIs are quantifiable, trackable, and proof that the job is being done. But here’s the issue — we condition ourselves to believe that with our ability to capture majority share of voice due to large budgets, etc.. we will win over consumers! And yes…they do buy our brands when we approach our plans in this way. We see our brand awareness and household penetration numbers increase. We celebrate — “we got it right!” But …for how long? Because when another brand comes to market…usually under the radar…our consumers tend to switch. Why? Because we were so focused on executing against a PUSH strategy to the masses without spending the time to build a strong foundational equity with our core consumers. We didn’t invest in a one-to-one relationship that would last.
Small start-up-esque organizations tend to have fewer resources. And one can argue that is why they rely more on an organic content strategy. But while that may factor into the equation, largely, I would beg to differ. Having worked at a start-up, and managed a few start-up brands with founders, the benefit to pursuing this strategy is not in the capital savings — it’s in the dividends that are returned long after the capital is gone. The purpose of an integrated organic content strategy is not to push out a message to get a ton of eyes on it. Its role is to pull consumers in. I like to think of organic content as conversation starters. If we take social media as an example here, the reason why many young independent brands post several times a week organically on their page (while brands at big CPG companies typically post much less frequently) is because they fundamentally view the role of organic content NOT as a means to advertise, but a means to engage in conversation. Each new post is something for the consumer to react to, and when the consumer does react, the brand is ready and waiting to engage with them. It’s why community management and customer response play such a critical role at these organizations, because they understand that it’s the connection, the 1:1 dialogue, the development of a personal relationship with these consumers that ultimately creates the brand loyalty and a strong tribe. The content deployed is plentiful and serves multiple purposes: to educate, to inspire, to get input from consumers, to ask questions and gain insights, to foster discussion or even to share what happens behind the scenes. This takes a lot of effort, and usually requires a team of folks behind the scenes to manage several content streams, response times with consumers, collection of data and insights, revisions to brand plans or innovation plans as a result of these conversations. Yes, the fact stands that the number reached are few — but the impact to those few is 100 fold. And that impact pays back over the long run. Brand building is relationship building, and the relationships that last are all about the quality of those relationships. The few consumers that these brands take hold of and capture then become authentic advocates– far more impactful than advertisements spewed in the forever crowded digisphere.
This isn’t new information. So, it begs the question why do some brand leaders not believe in an organic content strategy, after seeing how effectively it has worked for other brands in their industry? One of the reasons is because organic strategies are very hard to quantify/track/measure, and when you live in a world that is data-first it becomes increasingly difficult to prove the worth and return on investment of these tactics. Organic social, email campaigns, field marketing, influencer marketing — even PR…many of these tactics are hard to quantify to an executive team that is looking strictly at media mix analytics and ROIs. How can I prove that word of mouth has occurred? How can I prove that a conversation had with a consumer on social has now led to his/her/their friend trying us out? While there are some data points that we are able to point to, much of the “impact” these data points have requires an underlying trust and belief that these tactics are critical regardless of the MMM ROI results. It also requires patience. The fruits of these efforts are not ripened until much later in the development of the brand — you have to trust the process over the long haul (like…years!).
In 2020, one thing I took away was the importance of quality in my life: quality relationships, quality time, and the quality of the work I wanted to do and put out into the world. There’s a consistent level of investment that this requires…and an unwavering focus. As we look at building quality brands worth the time and mind-space for our consumers, we must take a hard look at how we define and deploy quality content, and also how we connect and create relationships with our consumers. Brands that look at short term returns will take a back seat when it comes to the consumer and the choices they inevitably make for what stays in their lives …or goes.
