SMG unites with News Corp’s Storyful to give brands real-time access to ‘authentic’ social news content
Advertisers looking to bolster their newsroom approach to content marketing can now access authentic, journalist content in real-time via a global partnership between Starcom MediVest Group (SMG) and News Corp’s media agency Storyful.
The deal spans the media agency’s LiquidThread, Relevant 24, MRY and Big Fuel content shops, which will use Storyful to provide instant services such as brand intelligence, thematic insights and licensed user-generated content.
Each agency will dip into the News Corp company’s global newsroom, which discovers, verifies and acquires the most valuable content on the social web, to ensure their clients can exploit trending news stories with speed and accuracy.
Brands are being sold the proposition as an opportunity to “understand what the social web is sharing and talking about, as well as acquire the rights to content for both public and commercial use”. The aim is to get advertisers to buy into the agency’s “SmartContent” approach to developing meaningful content at scale through its patented combination of journalism and technology.
Olivier Gers, global president of Starcom’s LiquidThread added that “brands today need social content that is relevant, engaging and authentic and Storyful will help us to provide that to our clients”.
Comscore figures cited by the agency support the ethos, claiming that the right blend of professional content and user-generated posts can have a bigger impact than just focusing solely on one or the other. When people were exposed to both professional content and user-generated product videos, lift in share of choice for the featured product jumped to 35.3 points and 28 points for the brand’s total line, according to the data.
“Our clients are increasingly looking for high-quality local and global digital content, and with this partnership, we are going one step further on our vision of delivering SmartContent, as we will be able to provide that on an immediate and continuous basis, at scale,” said Gers.
The global deal is indicative of a paradigm shift caused in the wake of the content marketing explostion that is encouraging brands to think more like a newsroom. From Adidas to Pepsi, Heineken to Coca-Cola, companies are erecting newsrooms to help ease their transformation into publishers, enabling them to respond faster to industry trends and help gain mindshare and sales opportunities.