Importance of Brand Journalism
- Storytelling: a technique used to tell the story of an organisation in a compelling way, to inspire customers.
- Content marketing: a marketing discipline that puts relevant and compelling content at the centre of all marketing activities.
- Brand journalism: a PR philosophy that stimulates the sharing of corporate stories in a journalistic way, to engage with customers and stakeholders.
Admittedly, they all have one key thing in common: compelling content. However, the component that sets brand journalism apart from storytelling and content marketing is the emphasis on journalisticcontent.
Brand journalism means that companies act like publishers. So it’s not about shooting a video about how the company was founded (that’s storytelling), or developing white papers and blog posts (content marketing). Brand journalism incorporates the journalistic mind-set. That means informing your audience about relevant trends and developments in your market – even if they don’t affect your company in any way.
The term was coined by McDonald’s Chief Marketing Officer, Larry Light, in 2004. He believed that mass marketing no longer worked, because ‘no single ad tells the whole story’. Instead, he wanted to tell ‘what happens to a brand in the world’ by creating a magazine in the same way an editor would.
Since 2004, many successful brand journalism initiatives have come to the fore. Coca-Cola completely redesigned its corporate website in 2012; with the brand hiring four full-time editors and forty freelancers to develop articles, videos, blogs and interviews on a daily basis. Cisco did the same by hiring thirty ex-journalists to write for The Network, a news channel completely owned by Cisco. Red Bull is probably the ultimate example – owning its very own Media House, printing one of the biggest magazines in the world, and regularly producing documentaries, movies and music.
One question remains, though; can brand journalism truly be labelled ‘journalism’? This has been the subject of on-going debate between journalists and PR professionals. Arguably, brand journalism will never reflect the same values as traditional journalism – it is, after all, initiated by companies that have a commercial interest. If a journalist is hired to create content which advocates that corporation in some way, whether directly or indirectly, then you might argue that the content is not objective.
However, the reason that so many use the term ‘brand journalism’ is because it emphasises the need for companies to think differently and provide insights to their customers. If the content is puffery or bias, then it will not serve the company or audience’s needs, and will ultimately fail. Brands must act like publishers if they want to uncover the untold stories about themselves and their industry alike. And in this competitive attention economy, brand journalism could be the very currency they need to reach their audience.
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