The latest trends and expert insights in content marketing – interview with SPH Media Content Lab.
Content is king. But with the emergence of artificial intelligence and other content management tools, can we still rely on the authenticity and message of today’s content? How should APAC marketers develop and implement a content marketing strategy?
Phin Wong, Head of Content Marketing & Lifestyle Media, SPH Media, shared his expert insights on this topic with MartechAsia.
He currently leads SPH Media’s award-winning Content Lab, collaborating with brands to conceptualise and create campaigns across digital, social, broadcast, lifestyle, and print platforms.
Here are his answers to our questions:
What is content marketing, and why is it important?
Wong: At its core, content marketing is about building an audience for a brand via content creation and curation. And that’s where it begins to splinter off into a multiverse of approaches, themes, formats, platforms, etc.
Unlike advertising, which traditionally lives in the peripherals – as interstitials within a YouTube video, banners between paragraphs, commercial breaks on television and radio, before a movie begins in theatres, or even as product placement in the corner of the screen on the wrist of a spy who needs to tell time between punching bad guys – content is the thing itself that audiences consume. It’s the main course. It’s the reason audiences are on the platform in the first place.
Content marketing has gone beyond “important” to “essential” because you can’t be a successful brand without being on the platforms your audience lives on, and you can’t be on those platforms without having something to say that’s relevant to your audience – and you can’t communicate that without content.
In today’s context, content marketing is marketing. And that’s evident in the year-on-year growth we’ve seen at SPH Media’s Content Lab.
How should marketers create an effective content marketing strategy?
Wong: I think it starts from understanding that while there’s no one magic formula, there is a correct place to start: Identifying and understanding your audience.
When my team at Content Lab begins solutioning a brief, it always begins with taking a good look at the target audience identified, and mapping out how our clients’ messages can intersect with what the audience is concerned about, wants to know, or can relate to. This content strategy then informs the concept, which in turn informs our distribution strategy.
This way, we know that every piece of content, regardless of format or platform, addresses the brief in a way that is meaningful to the audience. Because content created for content’s sake is almost always a waste of time and money.
From experience, many marketers tend to jump ahead and focus on what content they want – formats, platforms and trend-jacking – without paying enough attention to the reason they should be creating content in the first place. And then they blame the content for not performing well. What does the audience want? It’s not the pizza’s fault that it isn’t selling out at the gym.
What are the emerging trends in content marketing?
Wong: I’m a little wary of focusing on industry “trends”. If we look at the big picture of our culture today, everything happens everywhere all at once. Trends in fashion have largely been replaced by personal style and what one can pull off. The Top 3 movies of 2023 worldwide could not be more different from one another: Barbie, The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Oppenheimer. Short videos are popular, but so are longer videos – and that’s just on TikTok. Maybe we’ve entered our ‘No-Trend’ Trend Era. But we do live in an “anything goes” culture today – and how we create content in the industry should reflect that broader culture.
Everything can work if done well, and everything can fail if done terribly. That’s the reality. So, forget trends and pay attention to what your audience wants from you.
That said, I’m keeping an eye on two shifts to the landscape.
The first, unsurprisingly, is AI. It might seem like AI has taken over the world – but we’re right at the very start of this new world order. My hope is that the industry embraces these tools to do what we do better and more efficiently. Not to fixate on the fantasy of saving money by eliminating expensive humans from the content process.
We use the word “content” very loosely today. An all-encompassing word that covers a bunch of “stuff” we create and push to the audience. But this “stuff” is really information, expression, humour, art, commentary, emotion, imagination, expertise, inspiration… Do we really want to hand this responsibility over to machines built to simulate us? How do we think the audience will appreciate us thinking so little of them?
The other shift is related to audience behaviour during bad times – and there’s the possibility of a bunch of bad news on the 2024/2025 horizon.
Historically, when things aren’t going great, audiences tend to seek out ways to escape. For example, rom-coms and horror flicks have traditionally performed extremely well at the movies during downturns. It’s less a trend and more a cycle. Add to that the news fatigue audiences feel today, being plugged in all the time, and all signs point to the need for content that’s a little lighter in its approach. Content that allows the audience to focus on something other than a dumpster fire.
And that’s what we’re helping clients understand at Content Lab: Your message might be important, but that doesn’t mean the delivery of that message can’t be entertaining. We’ve got to lighten up or the audience might scroll right by.
What are some examples of use cases of the best content marketing strategies you’ve implemented?
Wong: I might need a PowerPoint deck of case studies, a pitcher of sangria and about an hour of your time to do that effectively! Let me give you one of the recent campaign examples from Content Lab. Our client Singtel, Singapore’s leading communication technology group, wanted mass audience talkability around broadband, the significance of strong connectivity in the lives of Singaporeans, and the importance of a reliable provider.
To show just how much we all depend on strong connectivity and still manage to take it for granted, we cheekily framed it against something else we can all relate to both loving and taking for granted: Our better halves.
Unsuspecting Singaporeans were put on the spot to answer this question. “If you had to choose, which would you pick: Wi-Fi or Wifey? / Broadband or Your Man?” Their responses were content gold.
The hilarious conversations started on one of SPH Media’s radio stations, Kiss92, with listeners calling in over two days to weigh in and playfully rib their significant others. Light-hearted Instagram polls were launched. Articles covering the madness were run on our lifestyle digital platforms – Her World for the ladies and HardwareZone for the guys – stirring up more lighthearted “drama”. The DJs then took the “Wi-Fi or Wifey” / “Broadband or Your Man” choice to the streets – which we used to create videos that ran across TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, outof-home, television and our client’s platforms. The message at every single point of the campaign was clear: Choose the people you love, leave the Internet to Singtel.
The campaign has been a huge hit. We kicked off with two videos from the street interviews, and they have racked up over 1 million views in a few weeks on SPH Media’s socials alone, and earned some of the best engagement we’ve seen – and we have more explainer content lined up for our audience. It’s a good example of how brands can entertain even if the message itself isn’t necessarily “fun”.
And that all starts with identifying the intersection of audience interest and client messaging, then to a great concept, and ensuring there’s a strong through-line across content formats and platforms.
What is your final piece of advice to APAC marketers to achieve content marketing success?
Wong: Don’t get lost in the weeds of what’s trending, what’s sexy, and what’s the shiny new toy. Yes, it’s important to keep up to speed with industry developments. But no new tech or – and I hate the term – viral trend is going to result in success if you don’t get the basics of content right. Instead, focus on people.
Focus on actual humans that make up not just your audience, but also your team. Work with talent who not only understand the nuances of creating content responsibly, but also understand the psychology behind content. At Content Lab, our entire editorial team comes from an editorial background, and they’re supported by a larger group with experience across media, marketing and production.
Remember that “marketing” might be what you do, but it is the “content” part of the equation that the audience consumes.
