"Fewer slogans, more hard facts".
Corporate publishing becomes "advertising king" because it offers more benefits than gimmicks and emotions
Corporate publishing is becoming the "king of advertising" because it offers more benefits than gimmicks and emotionsBy Roger BoulleMany brand owners and brand makers in Germany are increasingly seeing the future of advertising and communication in the communication of content. Corporate publishing (CP) is intended to help customers solve their big and small problems. In Switzerland, this trend is still being observed with reservations.
"To stand out from the competition today, you need really good content," Volker Lindemann is convinced. The marketing director of the consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers in Germany has studied the market long enough to discover: "There is an abundance of irrelevant information, and on the surface everyone is working with the same buzzwords."
Lindemann's credo is that concrete content can therefore achieve significantly better results in communication than conventional campaigns: "Slogans are not enough, customers want to know exactly what the benefits are for them."
Lindemann and the management consultancy sector in Germany are no longer alone in calling for more useful content in advertising and communication. Content that is as intelligent as possible and the networking of content across all media should be the new concepts in the battle for customers' money and loyalty.
That sounds familiar. Is that really the case this time? After years of emotional communication as the trump card of every advertisement, is the pendulum swinging back in the other direction towards more sober information?
"This is definitely the big trend in advertising in the coming years," says Peter Mentner, Partner at the communications agency Ahrens & Behrent, Mentner in Hamburg. Customers can no longer be gripped by emotions, which is why "relevant content will be the decisive factor in future communication". Consumers in the Internet society are demanding "more and more information and less and less trash".
Emotion and content can also complement each other
CP specialists in Switzerland are not quite so convinced that emotional advertising will soon be on the wane when it comes to this trend in Germany. "Corporate communications, which strategically aims at integrated corporate communication, uses classic advertising as an instrument in a coordinated, harmonized overall communication mix," differentiates Maja Amrein, Head of Corporate Communications at Migros-Genossenschafts-Bund.
Viviane Egli from Frontpage AG comments: "Emotion versus content: I don't quite agree." She sees "content and focus statements" as opposing terms "and complementary measures". It is a fact that in the legendary and real information overload, we all thirst for an overview, for guides, for clarifying explanations and for dialogical exchange, regardless of which target group we belong to. "This is where corporate publishing helps, whether in a sober or more emotional form," says Viviane Egli. Corporate publishing will therefore "become even more important".
But which content can retain customers? "It can't be the countless republication of old print content if consumers are to be won over," analyzes Manfred Hasenbeck, head of the content company Yukom in Munich and President of the industry association Forum Corporate Publishing (FCP). He calls for target group-specific content, prepared in a media-specific way and, whenever possible, with individually accessible additional information: "We are building a buffet that the target group can help themselves to with relish."
The trend towards more information requires a massive rethink from companies in almost all sectors. "The additional challenge," explains Dieter Schweer, spokesman for Rheinisch-Westfälische Elektrizitätswerke AG in Essen, "is that companies have to serve a whole universe of target groups: Customers, employees, suppliers, but also shareholders and investors."
Content replaces advertising for customer loyalty
Two well-known buzzwords are therefore sailing in the slipstream of IT-based customer loyalty: One-to-one marketing and integrated communication.
In the new world of customer orientation, an integrated concept can actually bring the best results: The customer is won over through content. A continuous stream of information from many sources binds the customer. Cross-references take them from the store to the magazine, from print to the Internet and from there to the order form. The end result is the concept of lifelong cooperation between the salesperson and "his" customers - and on all channels.
The trend is therefore: the implementation of integrated communication could soon become a bare necessity in the competition between brands in markets flooded with goods and pumped full of advertising. The easy way - 50 million marks advertising investment, one campaign and you have a ten percent market share - has long been controversial. In the future, it will lead to the sidelines.
"In a service-oriented economy," confirms business administration professor Horst Wildemann from the Technical University of Munich, "the winners will communicate directly with their customers. They will offer them the best content and the most attractive solutions for their individual problems."
The decisive factor will be convincing the customer with clear information and maintaining it in the long term. "The customer relationship should become a lifelong relationship," says Wildemann, "for the provider it becomes an investment project in which high expenditure on content is amortized over time through a correspondingly high level of customer loyalty."
Corporate publishing will play an important role in such a concept of integrated customer care. Viviane Egli says: "Corporate publishing is predestined to function as the strategic nerve center of an integrated communication concept." Depending on the situation or target group characteristics, however, another communication discipline such as classic public relations could also take center stage. "Communication specialists need to have a broad horizon and an open attitude in this regard."
Only the first can count on great success
In the future, companies will be able to rely less and less on the traction of their advertising agencies' creations. In fact, multichannel communication of information is already highly valued among advertisers, management consultants and brand makers.
This focus on customer orientation and service will lead to a race for the best content. Companies must occupy subject areas in which the consumer trusts them to be competent. By constantly updating their content, companies will gain new credibility.
This is demonstrated in practice by the example of Mercedes. The luxury brand is already competing with tourism companies for the favor of Mercedes drivers during vacation shopping via a customer magazine. The coffee roaster Tchibo delights its customers with a TV program booklet that is bound into the customer magazine free of charge. VW wants to oust the ADAC from the "yellow angels" business with its mobile emergency call pillar, which is installed in every car via cell phone. Useful content is the bait for customers everywhere.
Resourceful entrepreneurs have long recognized the strategic importance of additional content for their business. They know that in any field, only the first can be the most successful. This is because content cannot be used by any number of providers at the same time to increase their own credibility.
Companies need to rethink. They need content that fits their image and is valuable to the customer. Only good content attracts customers.
Properly communicated information is not mass advertising on TV
Industries such as management consultants, insurers and car manufacturers have long since entered the competition for the best content. In contrast, emotional mass advertising for detergents and chocolate bars will still be around in a hundred years' time. But that doesn't change the fact that the service trend now has powerful allies:
- The Internet will establish itself as an information medium for precisely defined content. It is changing people's information and communication behavior more in the direction of information and less in the direction of emotional appeal.
- The public's interest in companies and their activities is growing. Whether due to the BSE crisis, genetic research or genetic manipulation, consumers want clarity about processes that no one was previously interested in.
- Private pension provision, which is forcing a mass audience to look for suitable investment objects on the stock market, is rapidly increasing interest in companies.
All three trends reinforce the demand for better content. The company encounters a demand on the market for information which, if communicated correctly, can promote its own image and business. Certainly better than mass advertising on TV.
It can be concluded from this that the Internet is shaping a different information behavior. Consumers are learning to orient themselves towards content and information through the new medium. "Old-school emotional advertising can no longer achieve much in the online world," say the German CP specialists. Viviane Egli adds: "Which medium will be the most important for corporate publishing in the future - the printed magazine, the Internet or the audiovisual form - is a question of the mix, target group needs, target group habits and budgets." In any case, the main thing is that this content is told using journalistic means.
Such informative communication also plays a major role in how companies present themselves. Consumers want information from companies about their production methods, about the value of the company in the future and increasingly also about the fairness of the company as a breadwinner, because: The image of the company will help shape the acceptance of products and brands in the future.
Pure image campaigns do not attract enough attention
Recently, marketing has also been shaken up by the share fever among more and more investors. What does the stock market interest of broad sections of the population mean for the value of the brand and the corporate image? How can stock market communication be integrated into marketing? Does the image of shares have an impact on the acceptance of products? Suddenly, questions upon questions have arisen that can only be answered with intensive communication.
Advertising manager Johannes C. Röhr wants to put marketing on a new footing. "Companies should make the shift from traditional corporate communication to stock market communication," demands the Managing Director of Customer Consulting at KNSK Slagman Werbeagentur GmbH in Hamburg. For him, this "simply replaces traditional image advertising".
For Röhr, it is obvious that the interest of the general public in financial information is now overwhelming other topics. Pure image campaigns and their rather non-binding content, such as the environment or jobs, can no longer attract much attention. "Share and stock market information arouses the stronger emotions in consumers today," Röhr believes.
Following the Telekom, Infineon and Aktie Gelb campaigns and the dramatic development of technology indices, financial issues have become real topics for the public. In Germany, this change in consumer values has been reinforced by the pension reform. In future, politicians want consumers to build up their own retirement provision as an additional pension. Participation in productive assets via shares is currently considered the best recommendation.
Companies must participate in the public discourse
The new topic was probably spurred on most by the popularization of the quick riches that could be made with shares in high-tech companies from Siemens to Yahoo. The stock market became a regular topic. New print magazines and TV formats are reinforcing the trend. In the meantime, stock market information has also infected the most important news programs. ZDF and ARD broadcast "popular stock market reports" every evening. In Switzerland, in addition to the "Tagesschau", we will soon even have our own stock market channel, Money 24, with such price-relevant "image advertisements".
The makers of relevant special titles also recognize that customers are lured by the communication surrounding the investment. "More and more stock corporations know this: If they want to be really successful, they not only have to fight for Kunde König, but also for Kaiser Aktionär," explains Hans Linder, publisher of Börse Online. "Many a customer then becomes a shareholder, and shareholders become customers at the same time."
For such customers
The delivery of valuable information is a core element of the "service to success" concept, in which the provider focuses more on the customer's wishes than on its own core competencies: "The customer must not be bombarded with information, but must be provided with the right information.
We need an interesting mix of entertainment and information that consumers can access at any time," says Horst Wildemann from
of the Technical University of Munich.
Whether this is done via a print object, a TV program or a site on the Internet is unimportant. The only decisive factor is the interesting presentation of relevant material.
Communications consultant Peter Mentner recommends that companies focus on the major public issues. "The social environment provides the topics, companies have to make them their own."
Ideally, the corporate image then outshines that of the individual products: The company presents itself as a partner to the customer. When supplying products, investing in shares and looking for a job - and always with a place in its own ranks. Editing: Andreas Panzeri
"To stand out from the competition today, you need really good content," Volker Lindemann is convinced. The marketing director of the consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers in Germany has studied the market long enough to discover: "There is an abundance of irrelevant information, and on the surface everyone is working with the same buzzwords."
Lindemann's credo is that concrete content can therefore achieve significantly better results in communication than conventional campaigns: "Slogans are not enough, customers want to know exactly what the benefits are for them."
Lindemann and the management consultancy sector in Germany are no longer alone in calling for more useful content in advertising and communication. Content that is as intelligent as possible and the networking of content across all media should be the new concepts in the battle for customers' money and loyalty.
That sounds familiar. Is that really the case this time? After years of emotional communication as the trump card of every advertisement, is the pendulum swinging back in the other direction towards more sober information?
"This is definitely the big trend in advertising in the coming years," says Peter Mentner, Partner at the communications agency Ahrens & Behrent, Mentner in Hamburg. Customers can no longer be gripped by emotions, which is why "relevant content will be the decisive factor in future communication". Consumers in the Internet society are demanding "more and more information and less and less trash".
Emotion and content can also complement each other
CP specialists in Switzerland are not quite so convinced that emotional advertising will soon be on the wane when it comes to this trend in Germany. "Corporate communications, which strategically aims at integrated corporate communication, uses classic advertising as an instrument in a coordinated, harmonized overall communication mix," differentiates Maja Amrein, Head of Corporate Communications at Migros-Genossenschafts-Bund.
Viviane Egli from Frontpage AG comments: "Emotion versus content: I don't quite agree." She sees "content and focus statements" as opposing terms "and complementary measures". It is a fact that in the legendary and real information overload, we all thirst for an overview, for guides, for clarifying explanations and for dialogical exchange, regardless of which target group we belong to. "This is where corporate publishing helps, whether in a sober or more emotional form," says Viviane Egli. Corporate publishing will therefore "become even more important".
But which content can retain customers? "It can't be the countless republication of old print content if consumers are to be won over," analyzes Manfred Hasenbeck, head of the content company Yukom in Munich and President of the industry association Forum Corporate Publishing (FCP). He calls for target group-specific content, prepared in a media-specific way and, whenever possible, with individually accessible additional information: "We are building a buffet that the target group can help themselves to with relish."
The trend towards more information requires a massive rethink from companies in almost all sectors. "The additional challenge," explains Dieter Schweer, spokesman for Rheinisch-Westfälische Elektrizitätswerke AG in Essen, "is that companies have to serve a whole universe of target groups: Customers, employees, suppliers, but also shareholders and investors."
Content replaces advertising for customer loyalty
Two well-known buzzwords are therefore sailing in the slipstream of IT-based customer loyalty: One-to-one marketing and integrated communication.
In the new world of customer orientation, an integrated concept can actually bring the best results: The customer is won over through content. A continuous stream of information from many sources binds the customer. Cross-references take them from the store to the magazine, from print to the Internet and from there to the order form. The end result is the concept of lifelong cooperation between the salesperson and "his" customers - and on all channels.
The trend is therefore: the implementation of integrated communication could soon become a bare necessity in the competition between brands in markets flooded with goods and pumped full of advertising. The easy way - 50 million marks advertising investment, one campaign and you have a ten percent market share - has long been controversial. In the future, it will lead to the sidelines.
"In a service-oriented economy," confirms business administration professor Horst Wildemann from the Technical University of Munich, "the winners will communicate directly with their customers. They will offer them the best content and the most attractive solutions for their individual problems."
The decisive factor will be convincing the customer with clear information and maintaining it in the long term. "The customer relationship should become a lifelong relationship," says Wildemann, "for the provider it becomes an investment project in which high expenditure on content is amortized over time through a correspondingly high level of customer loyalty."
Corporate publishing will play an important role in such a concept of integrated customer care. Viviane Egli says: "Corporate publishing is predestined to function as the strategic nerve center of an integrated communication concept." Depending on the situation or target group characteristics, however, another communication discipline such as classic public relations could also take center stage. "Communication specialists need to have a broad horizon and an open attitude in this regard."
Only the first can count on great success
In the future, companies will be able to rely less and less on the traction of their advertising agencies' creations. In fact, multichannel communication of information is already highly valued among advertisers, management consultants and brand makers.
This focus on customer orientation and service will lead to a race for the best content. Companies must occupy subject areas in which the consumer trusts them to be competent. By constantly updating their content, companies will gain new credibility.
This is demonstrated in practice by the example of Mercedes. The luxury brand is already competing with tourism companies for the favor of Mercedes drivers during vacation shopping via a customer magazine. The coffee roaster Tchibo delights its customers with a TV program booklet that is bound into the customer magazine free of charge. VW wants to oust the ADAC from the "yellow angels" business with its mobile emergency call pillar, which is installed in every car via cell phone. Useful content is the bait for customers everywhere.
Resourceful entrepreneurs have long recognized the strategic importance of additional content for their business. They know that in any field, only the first can be the most successful. This is because content cannot be used by any number of providers at the same time to increase their own credibility.
Companies need to rethink. They need content that fits their image and is valuable to the customer. Only good content attracts customers.
Properly communicated information is not mass advertising on TV
Industries such as management consultants, insurers and car manufacturers have long since entered the competition for the best content. In contrast, emotional mass advertising for detergents and chocolate bars will still be around in a hundred years' time. But that doesn't change the fact that the service trend now has powerful allies:
- The Internet will establish itself as an information medium for precisely defined content. It is changing people's information and communication behavior more in the direction of information and less in the direction of emotional appeal.
- The public's interest in companies and their activities is growing. Whether due to the BSE crisis, genetic research or genetic manipulation, consumers want clarity about processes that no one was previously interested in.
- Private pension provision, which is forcing a mass audience to look for suitable investment objects on the stock market, is rapidly increasing interest in companies.
All three trends reinforce the demand for better content. The company encounters a demand on the market for information which, if communicated correctly, can promote its own image and business. Certainly better than mass advertising on TV.
It can be concluded from this that the Internet is shaping a different information behavior. Consumers are learning to orient themselves towards content and information through the new medium. "Old-school emotional advertising can no longer achieve much in the online world," say the German CP specialists. Viviane Egli adds: "Which medium will be the most important for corporate publishing in the future - the printed magazine, the Internet or the audiovisual form - is a question of the mix, target group needs, target group habits and budgets." In any case, the main thing is that this content is told using journalistic means.
Such informative communication also plays a major role in how companies present themselves. Consumers want information from companies about their production methods, about the value of the company in the future and increasingly also about the fairness of the company as a breadwinner, because: The image of the company will help shape the acceptance of products and brands in the future.
Pure image campaigns do not attract enough attention
Recently, marketing has also been shaken up by the share fever among more and more investors. What does the stock market interest of broad sections of the population mean for the value of the brand and the corporate image? How can stock market communication be integrated into marketing? Does the image of shares have an impact on the acceptance of products? Suddenly, questions upon questions have arisen that can only be answered with intensive communication.
Advertising manager Johannes C. Röhr wants to put marketing on a new footing. "Companies should make the shift from traditional corporate communication to stock market communication," demands the Managing Director of Customer Consulting at KNSK Slagman Werbeagentur GmbH in Hamburg. For him, this "simply replaces traditional image advertising".
For Röhr, it is obvious that the interest of the general public in financial information is now overwhelming other topics. Pure image campaigns and their rather non-binding content, such as the environment or jobs, can no longer attract much attention. "Share and stock market information arouses the stronger emotions in consumers today," Röhr believes.
Following the Telekom, Infineon and Aktie Gelb campaigns and the dramatic development of technology indices, financial issues have become real topics for the public. In Germany, this change in consumer values has been reinforced by the pension reform. In future, politicians want consumers to build up their own retirement provision as an additional pension. Participation in productive assets via shares is currently considered the best recommendation.
Companies must participate in the public discourse
The new topic was probably spurred on most by the popularization of the quick riches that could be made with shares in high-tech companies from Siemens to Yahoo. The stock market became a regular topic. New print magazines and TV formats are reinforcing the trend. In the meantime, stock market information has also infected the most important news programs. ZDF and ARD broadcast "popular stock market reports" every evening. In Switzerland, in addition to the "Tagesschau", we will soon even have our own stock market channel, Money 24, with such price-relevant "image advertisements".
The makers of relevant special titles also recognize that customers are lured by the communication surrounding the investment. "More and more stock corporations know this: If they want to be really successful, they not only have to fight for Kunde König, but also for Kaiser Aktionär," explains Hans Linder, publisher of Börse Online. "Many a customer then becomes a shareholder, and shareholders become customers at the same time."
For such customers
The delivery of valuable information is a core element of the "service to success" concept, in which the provider focuses more on the customer's wishes than on its own core competencies: "The customer must not be bombarded with information, but must be provided with the right information.
We need an interesting mix of entertainment and information that consumers can access at any time," says Horst Wildemann from
of the Technical University of Munich.
Whether this is done via a print object, a TV program or a site on the Internet is unimportant. The only decisive factor is the interesting presentation of relevant material.
Communications consultant Peter Mentner recommends that companies focus on the major public issues. "The social environment provides the topics, companies have to make them their own."
Ideally, the corporate image then outshines that of the individual products: The company presents itself as a partner to the customer. When supplying products, investing in shares and looking for a job - and always with a place in its own ranks. Editing: Andreas Panzeri
