Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Kevin Nichols
Global Practice Lead, Content Strategy, SapientNitro Boston Kevin is a leader and author specializing in content strategy and user experience.
Anne Casson
Director Content Strategy, SapientNitro Boston Anne has 18 years of experience designing and structuring digital content and processes to function effectively for businesses and consumers.
Martha has recipes. Madonna has music. (Not to mention a wardrobe.) And Arianna has manuscripts and curated content.
For more than 30 years, these three very public and powerful women have experienced successes and failures at inventing and reinventing complex, thoughtful content. Each started from nothing and amassed fortunes.
All three women recognize that content is nothing without the story that it tells, and that in an era dominated by media for the past 30 years, a successful and future-proofed brand story cannot be limited by a single channel or story. In unique ways, these women
have created their brand identities, harnessing the technologies and channels before them. In doing so, Martha Stewart, Madonna and Arianna Huffington have written the rulebook for effective storytelling in multi and omnichannel experiences.
MarthaStewart.com is one part of the Martha Stewart empire which includes web, TV, mobile apps, and magazine platforms. The website alone reaches 3.5M unique visitors each month.
Ever one for pushing boundaries and redening herself, Madonna has remained relevant over three decades. Her digital properties are extensive, and she remains popular, with 14.3M likes on Facebook by late 2013.
Arianna Hufngtons masterpiece, the Hufngton Post was a new model for journalism when it was launched in 2005. It was acquired for $315M in 2011. It receives a staggering 45M unique visitors per month.
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Source: nrkbeta
Marthas recipe for success: 1. Be passionate around the story you want to tell and make sure your leaders arent afraid to tell it. Martha has a cornerstone to her story: Traditions of homemaking, cooking, crafts, and interior design are artisanal in nature and worthy of respect. 2. Get your hands dirty. Martha is not confined solely to a corner office; she goes on TV and strips paint off a house, shells oysters in a New England bay and cooks pierogies with her mother. A companys leader(s) should demonstrate their passion, creativity and connection to the product and service that is offered. If you dont demonstrate passion as a brand leader, you cant expect your customers to connect passionately with your brand.
3. Challenge everyone in your company to be an ambassador of your brand, and encourage them to produce content around it. 4. Consider customer experience within each type of media; create synergized but unique content experiences within each that tell the story as a whole. Engage in exercises to encourage this creativity. 5. Create a narrative that naturally guides the customer to move from one channel to the next. Leverage social media and discussion throughout the experience. The more portable and shareable you make your media, the more control you provide the user over the content they consume and the more impact you have across channels.
Stewart, Martha. The Martha Rules: 10 Essentials for Achieving Success as You Start, Build, Or Manage a Business. (2005, Rodale).
Madonnas recipe for success: 1. Believe in your vision and story and stand by them. Take risks and be uncompromising. See it through. With very few exceptions, Madonna refuses to compromise on how she positions herself vis--vis how others will perceive or respond to her efforts. (She pulled her original American Life video during the Iraq War, which she later re-released.) She often uses a negative response to her advantage. 2. Create a story and juxtapose it to other narratives. Madonna starts with a concept such as art and its response to religion (Like A Prayer era) or country folk meets hard-edged electronic (Music album). 3. Look at the periphery for inspiration. Madonna examines what is on the edge of culture fashion, music, art, and film -- and adopts those aspects into her story idea. Voguing was an underground New York movement that she famously appropriated. Simultaneously, she references other eras, such as paying homage to the Metropolis film in her Express Yourself video.
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4. Use traditional and proven formula to storytelling. The approach to Madonnas storytelling is: a) An artistic idea representing the vision of what she wants to say b) A challenge to societal norms c) Referencing genius from other artists and paying homage to it d) Incorporating esoteric or unknown artists of her time e) Continually evolving and being reinvented 5. Leverage technology only as a means to an end. Madonna unifies her story through video, art, music, and performance, using each of these media to enhance the narrative. The music conveys a theme, videos tell a story, and her performances weave it all together, sometimes while borrowing from other cultural phenomenon, such as Cirque du Soleil.
Chait, Jonathan. How Time and I Misunderestimated Madonna. (16 December 2009, New Republic). As appeared on Newrepublic.com: http://www.newrepublic.com/ blog/the-plank/how-time-and-i-misunderestimated-madonna (accessed August 20, 2013). Madonnas Controversial MDNA Tour Most Successful of 2012. (04 September 2013, Telegraph). As appeared on the Telegraph.com: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cul ture/music/music-news/9752374/Madonnas-controversial-MDNA-tour-most-successful-of-2012.html (accessed August 27, 2013). List of Super Bowl Halftime Shows (Wikipedia, 28 August 2013). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Super_Bowl_halftime_shows (Last accessed August 28, 2013). Pomerantz, Dorothy. Madonna Tops Forbes 2013 List Of The Top-Earning Celebrities. 26 August 2013). As appeared on Forbes.com: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ dorothypomerantz/2013/08/26/madonna-tops-2013-list-of-top-earning-celebrities/ (accessed August 29, 2013).
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5. Curation is not a silver bullet for free content. Although Arianna curates content to complete a holistic site experience, she employs an entire staff to make it happen; it takes lots of moderation and creative direction. 6. Quality content rules. Arianna goes to great lengths to ensure that her content is authentic and original.
Bercovici, Jeff. The Huffington Post Wins Its First Pulitzer Prize. 16 April 2012. As appeared on Forbes.com: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2012/04/16/thehuffington-post-wins-its-first-pulitzer-prize/ (accessed September 22, 2013). Peters, Jeremy W. Betting on News, AOL is Buying the Huffington Post. 11 February 2011. As appeared on nytimes.com: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/07/busi ness/media/07aol.html (accessed September 22, 2013).
Conclusion
All three of these women had a dream and vision to create messages. They continue to weave their dreams and visions into own personal brands. They deliver their stories in timely, even serendipitous ways. Madonnas dream and vision was (mostly) rooted in music. Martha delivered the perfect idea for decorating your holiday table with perfectly cooked turkey, likely accompanied by a recommendation for a great roasting pan. Ariannas story started with a political ideology. All three women not only built their empires on content, but a solid strategy to deliver their empires through the many channels to communicate their stories and visions. They are content moguls who have not only set a standard for storytelling in an omnichannel experience, but continue to evolve and future-proof their brands through original and authentic voices. These voices will be heard with any emerging technologies through good content, passion, compelling stories and a respect, not fear, of technology.