Nissan's mantra for content marketing success

The strongest brands today have shown brand consistency as a common success factor. A well thought out content marketing strategy is one key way brands are looking at raising brand awareness. One example of this is Nissan, which has made content marketing a major priority.

In 2011, the brand took what was then a unique step of forming a Global Media Centre to handle its content marketing initiatives. Since then, the brand has produced great content – some of its YouTube videos have had more than 100,000 views. Here are some examples of its videos which have gone beyond the 100,000 mark (see here and here for examples).

We spoke to Dan Sloan, editor-in-chief of the Media Centre, to find out what value his department brings to Nissan’s marketing and how Nissan has made content a differentiator for the Nissan brand.

[More from Sloan and other content marketing experts at Content 360. Join us on 8-9 April for two days packed with presentations, case studies and sharing on the future and challenges in Content Marketing today]

Marketing: Brands need to be different to stand out and succeed. Does content marketing as a brand differentiation technique really work?

Sloan: At the time of the Global Media Centre’s launch in 2011, the concept was rather unique, both for automobile manufacturers and corporates in general. The aim wasn’t just to be different, though, but to have a functioning arm for communications and marketing – creating behind-the-scenes multimedia content that could find an audience that press releases or agency campaigns had not.

Nissan was not the first to try “do-it-yourself” content creation, but our iteration – occasionally copied over the last four years, but still a different animal – has enjoyed tangible expansion in audience and engagement.

Our brief is to elevate the overall opinion of the brands and their share of voice – the goals of marketing and communication. This means constantly assessing how to improve storytelling – both visually and editorially, as well as how we reach a potential audience. Content now is more global than when we began, but it’s also more localised in terms of multiple languages and delivery methods.

Marketing: How does the Nissan Media Centre help this process?

Sloan: The Nissan Media Centre often uses partners or individual storytellers, instead of our initial “voice of God” or news narratives in highlighting stories about products, technologies, geographies or markets. That is one of a number of transitions that underscore that the Media Centre remains a work in progress with no rules set in stone.

Will people see the Nissan Global Media Centre as a way to differentiate the brand? Possibly, but rather than just a gambit of being different, we hope viewers will consider the content reflective of our brand’s “innovative” and “exciting” mantra, and prove it by coming back or sharing.

Marketing: Is it better to take this function entirely in-house or look for partners to help? If in-house, what sort of investments in terms of resources are you looking at?

Sloan: Since the Media Centre’s inception, which also saw a centralisation of our global digital marketing strategy under another team, we have increasingly worked across marketing and communications, as well as with our brand and creative agencies, to distil a broader basket of content and assets for a variety of platforms and audiences.

Sometimes content projects, such as for global motor shows, are underway simultaneously, and assets are shared among teams to ensure more compelling content for each version.

Separately, when marketing commissions creative campaigns, such as for the Super Bowl, we work to support and promote it as well; it’s collaborative, occasionally competitive in a constructive way, but best-practice is usually shared. If a project has elements that are beyond the tools the Media Centre possesses – an upcoming story has computer-generated content as part of the narrative – then we solicit ideas on who’s best to complete the job within budgets and deadlines.

In terms of the Media Centre resources, we need the best kit and infrastructure to capture and create stories, better digital asset management and distribution systems to ensure easier access internally and externally, as well as the right people and skill sets to keep up with the media and technology.

If you have the talent and systems in-house, then the outlays are more reasonable and geared towards putting greater resources towards the story. It’s amazing how old things become in four years – and we need to ensure it doesn’t appear that way.

In a certain way, paying for external content creation may offer greater peace of mind, or at least the ability to be demonstrably unhappy with the storyboard or finished product. Still, we see the DIY pluses of having better access to content in previously closed areas, sharing project ownership across teams, and landing some content projects that an agency or traditional media could not.

Marketing: How does Nissan’s content marketing differ from competitors?

Sloan: The Media Centre team, consisting mainly of ex-journalists, came to DIY content creation when it was less a buzzword and more our own process of discovery.

Manufacturers are known in Japan for “monozukuri” (making things), and we saw similarities in traditional factory production and our content “kojo” (factory). One of our executives coined the term “koto-zukuri” (the stories behind making things).

If you consider the processes, the traditional production and sales funnel starts with market analysis, product planning, research and development, design, manufacturing, distribution, sales and marketing, and more analysis as you retool the product or introduce it elsewhere.

While it was more trial and error when the Media Centre began, we operate to a good degree in this production vein now, trying to learn from utilisation metrics on how to make the next round of content creation even more successful.

Relative to some of our peers, we may do more stem-to-stern organic content, as well as look for a return-on-investment based on costs to achieve the same results externally. However, the Media Centre concept isn’t for every corporate; some Japanese firms have visited and they’re usually stunned by the degree of autonomy and wonder about the fail-safes.

Marketing: Is finding a strong editorial viewpoint the key to mastering content marketing?

Sloan: It depends on who’s doing it. For us, the best practices of traditional media in terms of a “so what” bar for editorial content, high production values, and a focus on real-time delivery are quite important; there’s also the acceptance that a story is not one chapter long.

For others, spending more time on a single piece of content with more bells and whistles is preferable to a broader, more volume-oriented approach. We have a raft of stories to tell, and some inherently aren’t going to garner a sizable audience, but are important to knowing the brand. If you’re an agency, you want to show a bang for the client’s buck, but this likely isn’t going to happen with a CSR story, and thus it’s less likely to be told.

In the old days of music albums the industry used to call such content, or songs, “loss-leaders”, or with 45s “B-sides”. I’d like to think of the Media Centre as “Master of the B-Side”, as well as having the occasional No.1 single. Sometimes, these are the tales that resonate the most, particularly with your own staff in terms of pride in whom they work for.

Marketing: Does a brand need to see itself as a publisher in order to master content marketing?

Sloan: I don’t think so, but then having an agency with a distribution strategy as part of the overall plan would be essential. To be frank, making it is often easy, but shepherding it to an audience, the right audience, is more of a challenge.

Our team of journalists was aware of the imperative to make engaging content, but not necessarily the nuanced strategies of how, when and where to publish or distribute. We have developed such skill sets, but there remains much to learn as the volume of competing content rises daily. The Media Centre built the plane as we were learning to fly, and if our content can find an even larger audience through new ideas, we’re all ears.

Marketing Magazine’s second annual Content 360 will be held on 8-9 April at the InterContinental Singapore. Hear from Sloan and other senior marketers at the event. More details here.

To book your seats for the conference contact Joven Barcenas at jovenb@marketing-interactive.com or +65 6423 0329, +65 9820 5195.