Vancouver’s Content Marketing Show: The Keynote Speaker

Content Marketing—the only marketing left!

In today’s marketing reality, where we curate our social feeds to hear only from the people and brands we choose to, interruption as a marketing strategy is dead.
 
Story Worldwide—the planet’s first global content marketing agency, with operations in North America, Europe and Asia—has, for the past decade, built a stable of international blue-chip clients by understanding that, in an age when anyone can ignore anything, advertising must be as valuable to people as a good book, movie or breaking news story.
  
Simon Kelly,
 co-CEO and Chief Enthusiasm Officer at Story Worldwide, brings these profound-yet-obvious insights to Vancouver’s Van City Theatre on Oct. 22 as the event’s keynote speaker. We got his “story” prior to the exciting event.

Your talk is titled “Content Marketing—The Only Marketing Left!” Pretty bold statement. What does it mean?
OK, I’ll admit I borrowed the phrase from Seth Godin. Who am I to disagree? He’s right, of course. By that I mean any attempt to engage consumers without rich, authentic and shareable content is going to fall on deaf ears. Let’s be clear: content that only serves the interests of the brand and not the consumer in equal measure will get two seconds of the consumer’s attention. This especially applies to the millennial generation, but they’re not alone. 

You’ve said in the past that we’re in “the post-advertising age,” where the only messages anyone will see and hear are the messages they choose to see and hear. Is a lot of traditional ad money being wasted, then?
In a word, yes. In one more word, not entirely! What I mean is that not so long ago a paid media spend could reach pretty much everyone you wanted to, across a small number of channels. Now there is no amount of spend that can do that and do it sustainably. Global traditional media still attracts over $600 billion ad dollars every year, so it’s not dead yet, and you can still reach sizeable audiences (albeit growing smaller every month) but the question you have to ask yourself is what happens next: How do I continue this conversation, once paid media has kick-started it?

You often advise marketers that their advertising should attract and hold its own audiences by offering valuable content experiences that compel and reward attention. What are some good examples of brands doing just that?
Great question. You know, most people think that content marketing is a new invention. Wrong. Think of the Michelin Guide. For over 100 years a tire company has been producing the most compelling and valuable content—so much so that chefs have even committed suicide over the content Michelin has produced. I’m not advocating suicide as a metric, but powerful content can move audiences to do extraordinary things. More recent examples would include Red Bull. Last year’s Felix Baumgartner balloon jump attracted an audience that no amount of paid media could attract. Most recently the ALS ice bucket challenge did exactly the same. 

Don’t miss your chance to see the future of content marketing in Vancouver.
Get your tickets now.