Creative content marketing is much more than blog posts and website content, encompassing everything from social media content, to photos and custom images like infographics, and even audio and video. That means endless possibilities for creative, innovative uses of content marketing for brands of all sizes.
Because content marketing spans a multitude of formats and marketing channels, brands often need to juggle hundreds to thousands of assets, sometimes just for a single campaign. Think about it: you need approved logos suitable for each medium, images sized and optimized appropriately for each social media site, like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, video clips, sound bytes, and other brand assets. In addition to content marketing and brand assets, brands need a way to organize all the supporting documentation, like brand guides and creative briefs, ensuring that in-house team members, subcontractors, and agency clients all have access to the assets they need, when they need them.
To organize and manage every content marketing asset, brands turn to robust digital asset management solutions like MerlinOne to keep their teams on-schedule and in sync. MerlinOne makes it possible to organize and manage all your digital assets in one central hub, while providing innovative tools and features such as automated workflows and built-in distribution tools to boost productivity.
Wondering what makes an innovative, creative, and impactful content marketing campaign? Let’s take a look at six examples of creative content marketing from brands that do it right.
Coca-Cola Journey™
Coca-Cola is a worldwide brand with plenty of resources at its disposal, and it puts them to good use with Coca-Cola Journey™, a website that’s separate from the main corporate site featuring so much content (and in a variety of formats) that you might think it’s Coca-Cola’s own media company. In a way, it is: Coca-Cola Journey explores every facet of the company’s history, innovations, promotions, and more, through engaging videos, articles, and the fantastic graphics that Coca-Cola has become known for.
If you want to spend a day (or five) exploring the history and glimpsing the future of one of the world’s most recognizable brands, Coca-Cola Journey won’t disappoint. Don’t forget to check out The Opener, “an exclusive, invite-only contributor network that will bring the best food, travel, career, lifestyle, culture and innovation writing to the pages of Coca-Cola Journey.”
Celebrate with Hershey’s
Hershey’s takes the concept of a microsite to a whole new level with Celebrate with Hershey’s. It’s jam-packed with tons of recipes, craft ideas, fun new spins on the classic summertime treat, s’mores, intriguing ideas for turning your favorite Hershey’s treats into games, and more.
It’s not just limited to summertime fun; visit the Ideas and Inspirations page to plan some good Hershey’s fun for any occasion, all year long. You can browse by occasion such as birthdays, weddings, holiday, Halloween, and more, or browse by brand for inspired ideas to have more fun with your favorite Hershey’s sweets.
Spotify Discover Weekly Playlist
Spotify is one of the most popular music streaming apps, thanks at least in part to the company’s ability to create interactive, personalized experiences for users. Spotify users can create public playlists that other users can subscribe to, and the platform also offers built-in sharing functionality so you can easily let your friends know what you’re listening to via Facebook or Twitter.
But that’s not all: Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist is a custom-built unique playlist created for users based on their personal listening history data. It’s a great way for users to discover new music they love, but it’s also a great way for Spotify to hook their users for long-term loyalty. In the meantime, users who share what they’re listening to via social provide a continuous stream of new potential users for the app. Genius.
Nike #JustDoIt
Nike’s “Just Do It” tagline seems like it’s been around since the beginning of time, and it’s become synonymous with the company’s brand. Just because a brand has used the same tagline for years doesn’t mean it can’t be turned into content marketing gold. In fact, it’s the widespread recognition of the “Just Do It” tagline that’s allowed Nike to leverage it with so much success across social media.
With a focus on inspirational storytelling and inclusivity, Nike takes the gold for visual content marketing. Nike tells powerful stories of inspirational athletes and everyday heroes while leveraging influencers to expand its reach. The company’s Instagram bio aptly states, “If you have a body, you are an athlete.” With impactful visual storytelling campaigns, Nike has accumulated more than 90 million followers on Instagram and 33 million followers on Facebook.
Visit Seattle TV
VisitSeattle.org makes its mark with top-notch video content marketing. We’re not talking about the occasional YouTube video here; we’re talking about full-fledged films and ongoing series that highlight the Seattle lifestyle. In addition to documentary-style videos that showcase the city’s culture and diversity, Visit Seattle TV partnered with CBS for “The Emerald Race,” a show styled after the popular “The Amazing Race” but taking place in – where else? – the beautiful city of Seattle.
In a partnership with Sundance TV, Visit Seattle produced “Project 5 by 5,” a series of five short films, each produced by a different filmmaker and each focusing on life in Seattle inspired by one of the five senses. Coming soon to Visit Seattle TV is “SODO Motive,” a “visually inspiring film that follows a group of artists as they reunite in Seattle to create a collaborative mural inspired by the city.” As of October 2017, Visit Seattle TV’s world-class video content had garnered more than 22 million YouTube views and more than 46 million minutes of watch time (and growing!).
Hootsuite’s Game of Social Thrones
Everyone’s heard of Game of Thrones, HBO’s most popular show of all time. The series, which came to an end in 2019, has millions of die-hard fans, and Hootsuite, being Game of Thrones fans themselves, created a fun parody based on the show’s opener. Showcasing each social network as one of the seven kingdoms, the video went viral, accumulating nearly 1.3 million views on YouTube.
It’s a great example of spinning popular culture into something relevant that resonates with your audience. Hootsuite didn’t stop there with the Game of Thrones enthusiasm, though: this blog post is an intriguing roundup of how 20 different brands tied the popular series into their own marketing. Just in case you didn’t get enough Game of Thrones, your favorite brands won’t let you down!
These six creative content marketing examples are nothing short of impressive, but don’t let the amount of work that it takes to produce something this impactful scare you away. In fact, you might already have many of the assets you need at your disposal to create something amazing. Download our Content Inventory Template to perform a content audit and keep your inventory organized.
Leveraging a robust digital asset management solution like MerlinOne provides the tools you need to transform your marketing and creative operations. Schedule a demo today to learn how you can leverage MerlinOne to support your most inspired, ambitious content marketing campaigns.