The new age of content marketing: Turning data into digital decadence

Dig­i­tal con­sumers are becom­ing picky eaters, with an appetite dif­fi­cult to sat­is­fy. One way to win audi­ences over? Tempt them with chocolate.

Every day con­sumers are bom­bard­ed with con­tent. To man­age this, they’re sort­ing the wheat from the chaff and opt­ing for a high­er qual­i­ty of con­tent. While this infor­ma­tion may not be break­ing news, con­tent cre­ators and mar­keters still need to adapt to meet the demand. How can they sat­is­fy their hun­gry audience?

We asked 12,000 con­sumers in six coun­tries* around the world how they con­sume con­tent; what devices they use, what they find inter­est­ing and stim­u­lat­ing, and what they want to see from com­pa­nies deliv­er­ing content.

Achiev­ing Deli­cious­ness not only shares the sur­vey results but also offers sug­ges­tions on how to cre­ate mouth­wa­ter­ing con­tent. Paul van Keeken, who is respon­si­ble for the mar­ket­ing of Adobe’s Dig­i­tal Media Enter­prise solu­tions in EMEA, talks about the thought-process behind Achiev­ing Deli­cious­ness and his views on the new age of con­tent.****

“Con­tent is King” is some­thing every­one has been talk­ing about for a few years now. What has your research into the state of con­tent found?

Our research, which was inves­ti­gat­ing con­sumers’ con­tent expec­ta­tions, indi­cat­ed that their expec­ta­tions are sky­rock­et­ing. Mil­len­ni­als – those who have grown up in the dig­i­tal age – are a very attrac­tive audi­ence set, yet these are undoubt­ed­ly the most chal­leng­ing due to their high expec­ta­tions of the con­tent they con­sume. At the same time our research showed that these peo­ple are very eas­i­ly dis­tract­ed. They mul­ti­task at any giv­en oppor­tu­ni­ty, using two or more screens simul­ta­ne­ous­ly (on aver­age 2.23), switch­ing between tele­vi­sion, mobile, tablet and desk­top. Brands must adapt to meet these ris­ing expec­ta­tions, whether it be how their con­tent is designed, the rel­e­van­cy of it or how per­son­alised it is to the con­sumer. On the pos­i­tive side of things, this is very much an oppor­tu­ni­ty for brands to set them­selves apart from the competition.

What does this mean for com­pa­nies mar­ket­ing strate­gies going forward?

In order to live up to these expec­ta­tions (and exceed them), com­pa­nies must rethink and in many cas­es redesign their con­tent work­flows in order to pro­duce con­tent in a much smarter way. Using these updat­ed work­flows with mod­ern cre­ative plat­forms brands can find a more agile way of work­ing, while main­tain­ing brand con­sis­ten­cy and mak­ing their con­tent stand out from the crowd. If busi­ness­es took a look at how their exist­ing con­tent sup­ply chain is organ­ised in terms of con­nect­ing peo­ple in it and the dis­or­gan­ised work­flows, it’s very like­ly they will not be able to live up to their con­sumers’ needs and expec­ta­tions. Con­tent needs to be cre­at­ed and deployed as soon as pos­si­ble, espe­cial­ly when trend­ing top­ics rise and fall in the blink of an eye; com­mu­ni­ca­tions and con­tent needs to be at the fore­front of any mar­ket­ing strategy.

How are con­tent cre­ators adapt­ing to short­en­ing atten­tion spans?

The report states that brands need to be very care­ful about their con­tent strat­e­gy; while fresh con­tent cer­tain­ly needs to be designed to cap­ture con­sumers’ atten­tion and stand out from the crowd, longer-form con­tent must be approached in a cau­tious man­ner. It’s very impor­tant that com­pa­nies know exact­ly what they’re offer­ing and when, and that it real­ly meets and exceeds consumer’s expec­ta­tions. Data on how the con­tent per­forms needs to be brought as close as pos­si­ble to the design­ers, so that they can learn about the per­for­mance and opti­mise their work accordingly.

What trends are you see­ing in mul­ti-screen con­tent con­sump­tion and how can con­tent cre­ators fac­tor this into their work?

If you’re not pri­ori­tis­ing touch-screen mobile first, you need to re-think your strat­e­gy as a pri­or­i­ty. This is very like­ly to be the first brand touch­point for any con­sumer, so always make sure it’s com­pat­i­ble with all mobile devices as well as look­ing beau­ti­ful. After mobile, roll out the brand expe­ri­ence to oth­er screen-types, ensur­ing there’s a con­sis­tent and seam­less expe­ri­ence for the tar­get audi­ence. Keep­ing it sim­ple will stream­line every­thing, but if the user expe­ri­ence is lack­ing in any way you’ll imme­di­ate­ly lose the consumer.

What was the ini­tial thought-process behind the Achiev­ing Deli­cious­ness website?

We felt it was essen­tial to make the web­site visu­al­ly appeal­ing due to our own beliefs and of course the report’s find­ings. As was con­firmed in the report, we knew that we real­ly must pay atten­tion to the over­all design, as arche­typ­al­ly reports can be pre­sent­ed in a slight­ly lack­lus­ter way. You are what you eat, as they say!

In terms of objec­tives, what was the main pur­pose of the web­site and who is the intend­ed user?

The dis­cov­er­ies from the report were almost like a harsh wake­up call, as much of the infor­ma­tion aligns with exist­ing trends. Our inten­tions were not to sim­ply share the find­ings of the report, but to also give tools and tips on how to address some of the chal­lenges that arise from the sur­vey. Addi­tion­al­ly, we’ve includ­ed cus­tomer sto­ries on how they are rein­vent­ing work­flows to address these chal­lenges, which are always inspi­ra­tional to oth­ers. The main objec­tive was to present this rich data in a visu­al­ly appeal­ing way.

Where do you see con­tent evolv­ing to in the future?

The role of “con­tent” in com­mu­ni­ca­tions and mar­ket­ing will ever be increas­ing; I see a very bright future for any­one involved in con­tent cre­ation, whether it be as a design­er, a copy­writer or con­tent mar­keter. Brands will con­tin­ue to com­pete with each oth­er on deliv­er­ing the best cus­tomer expe­ri­ence, there­fore the bar is raised con­tin­u­ous­ly by brands who exceed expec­ta­tions. Con­tent is how brands con­nect with users and how users expe­ri­ence most brands, so its grow­ing impor­tance is para­mount. We all still have a long way to go, and there’s quite a lot of work to do… Con­tent will con­tin­ue to surge.

Why did you decide to pur­sue the choco­late theme?

Choco­late is often linked to seduc­tion, espe­cial­ly in adver­tis­ing. The report helps mar­keters bet­ter “seduce” their tar­get audi­ence. At the same time, the choco­late sat­is­fies the users con­tent appetite!

Final­ly, we couldn’t resist – what’s your favourite kind of chocolate?

I tend to pre­fer the dark­est of choco­late, as it’s per­ceived to be health­i­er than the lighter, milki­er types. It’s much pur­er and the real deal!

Dis­cov­er more about our con­tent learn­ings and see Achiev­ing Deli­cious­ness here

Read the full report here

*Aus­tralia, France, Ger­many, Japan, Unit­ed King­dom and the United