How to...Create Content Like a Newsroom

In an age where advertisers are finding it more and more difficult to reach influencers and consumers through traditional means, creating shareable branded content has become the new perceived ‘silver bullet’. But without a strong narrative, branded content can often fall flat. So what’s the key to creating compelling content that receives high engagement and successful results?

Advertisers often approach branded content thinking about the execution first. They come to The New York Times’s T Brand Studio with a handful of multimedia formats that they would like to use based on what they’ve seen us do for other brands. They see their campaign like a menu of items: an infographic from one program, a photo spread or two from another and an immersive VR film they saw from their competitor. They want to stand out, but too often, they ask for a digital execution based on an award-winning campaign, but fail to ask the most important question of all: “What’s the story?”

Like a newsroom, our studio approaches branded content with a journalistic point of view. Our experienced team of content creators identifies stories for brands that are newsworthy, contemporary and reported in an original way. We help brands understand what makes a great story and what it is that readers want to see. Ultimately, we develop a piece that works in both a publisher’s advertising environment as well as on the brand’s own channels.

Using a combination of text and visuals (images, icons, charts or infographics) makes a story much more powerful and engaging. Many people remember Snowfall, one of the first interactive articles published by The New York Times in 2012, which was highly successful in telling the tragic story of skiers caught in an avalanche. Multimedia has advanced exponentially since then, but the core idea remains the same: a creative combination of text and multimedia can work to enhance any story—whether from a newsroom or from a marketer.

In fact, in its recently released 2020 strategy report, The New York Times newsroom identifies a need to reimagine “a long string of text, when a photograph, video or chart would be more eloquent.” The 2020 Report also calls out The New York Times article on the reconfiguration of the New York City subway system, which was widely read and received hundreds of comments but was also criticized by one reader, who wrote, “Shame on you [NYT] for not including a map in your report.” Perhaps unknowingly this reader identified exactly where the future of content is heading.

It’s this exact newsroom thinking that is applicable to native advertising. A recent travel guide published in The Atlantic for Icelandair does an admirable job demonstrating this by telling a service story in an approachable way. The piece provides a list of things to do in several cities the airline flies to and categorises them by the time of day you may arrive. Striking photography of restaurants, shops and museums makes the piece both practical and alluring to a wide range of readers.

Another effective piece of branded content was published in USA Today for Dell. In the piece, USA Today photojournalists allow readers a behind-the-scenes look at what went into creating some of their favorite images in recent history. Readers can explore the photographs and listen to several photographers narrate their most unique stories.

Both of these examples are moments when brands allowed the medium to be a vehicle for telling an interesting story that audiences would want to read.

When T Brand Studio developed a recent piece with Mediavest for UBS on the advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), we not only wanted to feature an article with original interviews conducted with scientists and researchers, but we also wanted to build a way for readers to experience AI on the page. Our solution was to incorporate Rose – a leading chatbot that has fooled several experts into thinking she’s human – to propel campaign performance. Readers spent extended periods of time engaging in conversation with Rose, and continued down the page to view a moody, emotional video and photography that captivated audiences.

To create this kind of multimedia, we sent a film crew to Tokyo to profile a leading scientist and followed him on his quest to develop human emotions inside robots. The video and photography provided a new way for the brand to talk about its initiatives and sparked interest among readers that may not have expected to associate that kind of technology with the UBS brand. In fact, it was this effective combination of content that generated advertising awards from the likes of The Drum and OMMA, and exceeded both readership and CPV expectations.

While execution is still a key element in branded content, it’s the successful pairing of quality content and creative multimedia that makes for powerful advertising in today’s highly competitive, attention-seeking digital world. In such a crowded online space, the only way to really stand out is to share a story that piques people’s curiosity in a complementary medium that is worth reading. This is the key to success.