For many years, a centralized creative team has been the go-to model for companies producing digital content. But in our latest research report, The 2021 State of Digital Content, we found that companies are shifting to alternative models in order to meet the increasing demands of producing personalized content at scale.

There were pretty good reasons to consolidate content production with a single, central creative team. This internal agency model allowed for better governance, more consistent quality and a quicker production time for digital content. Additionally, as businesses became more digital, they moved on from creating mostly brand-centric content for awareness to more mid-funnel content such as thought leadership or buying guides. These factors were instrumental in companies shifting content production away from external agencies.

Our research shows (FIG 1) that the central model is currently still the most popular way for companies to organize for content production, with 50 percent of survey respondents choosing the model. On the other hand, only 4 percent of respondents use an external agency to produce their content, underscoring the magnitude of this shift.

However, when we asked respondents how they planned to meet the increasing demand for personalized content (FIG 2), we found the majority (32%) were setting up additional content producing centers beyond the central team to serve the unique content demands of different business units or geographies. An additional 18 percent of respondents were also leveraging AI-powered software to automate content creation to further lighten the load on the central team.

These findings show us that using a central creative team to produce all the company’s content is only sustainable to a point. As the number of content “stakeholders” within a business grows, it becomes increasingly difficult to produce content for all of them. Imagine a company with many different brands, product lines or business units, not to mention different geographical markets. With so many different target audiences, coupled with endless variations of the same content for personalization purposes, a central team simply doesn’t have the tools to cope.

“Using a central creative team to produce all the company’s content is only sustainable to a point.”

Rather than embracing the risk of decentralization, where each stakeholder produces content independently, companies are embracing a hybrid model, similar to the “center of excellence” model we’ve seen for digital innovation. 

Businesses can retain the central creative team to set much of the overall content strategy, create and enforce editorial guidelines for quality, and own the visual and verbal identity for consistency. They can also own the technology and provide training for processes such as data-based content creation and measuring content success. However, the actual production of content can be outsourced to the different business units or geos, so long as they follow all the guidance set by the central team. In this way, production doesn’t have to be a bottleneck, and the business can still ensure that all the content produced is aligned with the central strategy.

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The biggest challenge for today’s content producers is to consistently produce personalized content at a large scale, and credibly have an impact on revenue. Put simply, businesses need to find a way to produce the right content, for the right person, at the right time, on the right channel. The way most companies are set up today makes this a particularly difficult task, one that can’t be tackled by simply adding more employees or investing more money. Our research shows that the teams who are successful in this endeavor have invested in an innovative set of practices that make up an “Agile Content System”. Here are the five most important ones.

Using data to inform content creation

While most content teams have been using some form of analog data to create content (e.g. surveys, demographic studies), accessing the right kind of digital data is what sets the innovative teams apart from the rest. Modern content teams should be able to readily see which content is performing best on each digital channel and adjust creative elements accordingly. Additionally, these teams should also be able to access multi-source customer data to help create content that is tailored specifically to unique audience segments. 

“Accessing the right kind of digital data is what sets the innovative teams apart from the rest.”

This kind of repeatable access to data and analytics means investing in platforms that integrate with each other, educating the creative team on how to use data, and most crucially, organizing groups to collaborate in a more efficient way. Additionally, the most sophisticated teams are using the power of AI to generate both insights, as well as create or suggest content variations based on those insights.

Producing content in modules for approval and recombination

There’s a lot of value in breaking up your content into smaller chunks or modules when you’re creating it. For one, it makes it easier to send and receive compliance or legal approval on smaller chunks of content. It also facilitates more personalization, since you can take all those different content modules and recombine them in a variety of ways for different audience segments. Modern AI-powered content systems are now creating a huge number of variations on the same video ad, or blog post or article by automatically recombining different content modules for new end versions. 

Centralizing and automating content storage

Digital Asset Management platforms or DAMs have become the best place to store creative content. With cloud storage and easy processes for sharing content drafts for collaboration and approval, DAMs make it a lot easier to produce more quality content and have it serve a variety of functions across the organization. The key to successfully using a DAM is to have it be the central repository for storing and managing content for all content stakeholders, which may include product, sales, marketing and service teams. It also follows that there needs to be a standardized tagging and naming scheme that allows multiple teams to upload and download content efficiently. Again, this is another process that can be greatly enhanced with the use of AI that can automatically scan content, determine its themes and automatically tag/store it in the right location for future use.

Uploading a standard design system

Scaling content means allowing content to be produced in multiple centers, rather than a single group at the center. With so many content-producing groups, it can be difficult to maintain standards in quality, as well as consistency in brand and messaging. Investing in a design system helps solve that problem, and also ensures that any new team members or content producers can start to create and match previously produced content quality much faster than they normally would. While most companies have some set of guidelines and rules for brand consistency and visual elements, the most sophisticated ones have uploaded these as a “design system” that is embedded in all the content platforms. This enables creators to access the rules and criteria in real-time, and in some cases, have the approved visual elements and copy supplied in real-time.

Measuring content effectiveness beyond awareness and engagement

While almost every company tries to measure the success of its content in terms of views and clicks (awareness and engagements), the really innovative ones have found a way to attribute even more value to the content, by tracking how much revenue it generates, how many customers it moves along the funnel, or how much money it saves by replacing service inquiries. This elevates content to a strategic tool used by all teams and functions, rather than a promotional asset to be used only by the marketers.

In our upcoming research report, The 2021 State of Digital Content, we’ll be publishing maturity benchmarks for each of these practices, along with the most pressing challenges, investments and priorities for digital content producing teams. Sign up for our subscriber list below to receive the report as soon as it publishes, along with other insights from the Altimeter team.

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While the U.S. has long lagged the rest of the world in accepting electric vehicles (E.V.), Prophet’s new research shows that this may finally be changing. It also demonstrates that Asian brands already have clear advantages in the automotive category. But to keep winning, another trend is equally apparent: To be considered indispensable to American consumers, auto companies need to reposition themselves more as tech brands.

“Auto companies need to reposition themselves more as tech brands.”

Findings in the 2021 Prophet Brand Relevance Index® (BRI) underscore just how pivotal a moment we are at. It has taken years, but external changes, including government mandates on carbon emission, manufacturers’ promises to move towards all-electric fleets and the increasing acceptance of strong players such as Tesla, Canoo and NIO, have led the auto industry to an inflection point. US consumers are finally changing their expectations towards automobiles. And here is why.

Reliability Wins the Race

For the first time in the BRI’s six-year history, Honda has leaped into the Top 10. Consumers give it ultra-high scores for dependability and “Lives up to its promises.” Toyota, which is beloved for popularizing hybrid cars, also ranks No. 14, because it excels in these attributes too.

Switching Gear to High Tech

However, the BRI delves beyond practical product factors and gauges how innovative, inspirational and engaging brands are perceived to be by consumers. While heritage brands like Honda and Toyota are highly relevant today, they fall short of other technology brands on these dimensions.

This offers more profound lessons for auto companies. Auto companies have long been injecting more tech into their vehicles and their marketing, but they still act like car companies.

Tech companies have a different way of showing up in the world.

With rapid innovation and deep connections to consumers, they have become pillars of relentless relevance. They earn admiration and respect in ways no other brands today.

Apple is again the No. 1 brand in Prophet’s ranking, as it has been in every single BRI study conducted in the U.S. People love how it makes daily life easier and say it is a top brand they can’t imagine living without. Spotify (No. 12) is another company that has made itself indispensable, artfully weaving itself into people’s routines. The same goes for Netflix (No. 18), recognized for pushing the status quo and helping many through the pandemic. All these technology leaders are building powerful emotional connections with their customers.

And as these tech brands race into the automotive category, traditional automakers are highly vulnerable. Chinese tech giant Baidu saw its stock climb after it announced it was working with automaker Geely (who acquired Volvo) to launch a new E.V. venture. And while less is known about Apple’s plans, it reportedly intends to launch its E.V. in 2024.

Beyond Apple, there are other disruptors emerging in the U.S. include Rivian, a joint venture between Amazon and Ford Motor Co., that has just gone through a massive public offering. And investors are already trading shares of Canoo, an intriguing model that pairs its new E.V.s with a subscription model.

If traditional auto brands want to hold their own against these emerging tech-auto brands, they’ll need to step up their offerings around innovation and intelligent technology to build stronger emotional ties.

Some are. For instance, Hyundai (No. 28) scores an impressive 90% on both “connects with me emotionally” and “engages with me in new and creative ways.” Despite scoring higher overall, both Honda and Toyota are weaker in those dimensions.

Hyundai is gaining that relevance edge by finding high-impact ways to connect to young car buyers. Its recent launch of the IONIQ brand (E.V./ hybrid model) collaborated with BTS, its global ambassador, to release a new song, gaining 26 million views on Youtube to date. Before that, Hyundai’s beautiful Earth Day campaign video featuring BTS was watched over 105 million times. Such moves undoubtedly build an unparalleled emotional connection with Gen Z consumers.

Next Steps to Build Relevance

E.V.s and AI technology are inevitable, igniting consumer curiosity and consideration in the lucrative U.S. market. Asian auto brands, already well known for dependability and trustworthiness, can’t afford to let this opportunity pass.

Honda is said to have developed industry-leading “level 3” autonomous driving technology that is set to be launched in March. This will be an excellent opportunity for the renowned automaker to evolve its brand positioning to be more aspiring and technology-driven.

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Prophet turned to consumers to find out which brands matter most in their lives today. We surveyed more than 13,000 consumers in the United States to determine which 228 unique brands they simply cannot live without.

View Index. 

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