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Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
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Brand journalism was never meant to replace independent news reporting

During one of the breaks during my daylong workshop in New Zealand, I sat down with Tom Pullar-Strecker, IT editor at the Dominion Post. We chatted about one of the workshop themes, the idea that companies have to think like publishers. Part of the discussion turned to brand journalism.

That wound up as the focus of Pullar-Strecker’s article, which is mostly accurate in reflecting my views. But I was mostly struck by the comments from Massey University journalism lecturer Alan Samson, who “was cynical about how much independence such writers would have, if push came to shove. Their work was a form of marketing, even if some of it might be of high quality, he said.”

“It is just an extension to public relations in a sense, and the whole mantra of PR these days is ‘tell the truth’. What can be faulted is underlying all this is the need to put their own employer in a good light. Sure they may be doing good research and telling the truth, but they wouldn’t last five seconds if they tore into their own company.”

Even if firms did employ writers who were experts in their fields and aspired to some form of independence, the fact they were working for a commercial entity would limit their access to sources of information, such as their employers’ rivals, he said.

Because this kind of reaction is common, it’s important to understand a couple underlying concepts of brand journalism:

It’s not PR

Public relations is the management of the relationships of an organization with its important stakeholder audiences. If you read the great examples of brand journalism—from organizations like Intel, Cisco Systems, Best Buy and Dell—you see that many of the articles have little if anything to do with the organization itself, or its products/services.

I’m looking at an article by Marc Gunther on Cisco’s Network as an example. The August 30 post by the Fortune magazine contributing editor (that is, a professional journalist rather than a professional communicator or PR counselor) addresses smart grids. Cisco is never referenced in the story, but Florida Power & Light’s vice president for customer service and grid solutions is.

So why would Cisco pay for content that doesn’t mention the company or any of its products? The article deals with a network, which is at the heart of Cisco’s business. You don’t need to promote your own organization in order to be the supplier of content that your audience finds interesting. The idea isn’t to promote anything, but to become a trusted source of interesting, compelling, entertaining, informative, useful, usable content.

It’s also worth noting the disclosure that appears at the end of the article: “The contents or opinions in this feature are independent and do not necessarily represent the views of Cisco. They are offered in an effort to encourage continuing conversations on a broad range of innovative, technology subjects. We welcome your comments and engagement.”

It’s feature journalism, not news reporting

Anybody who thinks that brand journalism should include news coverage of a company’s foibles isn’t paying attention to the whole idea. There are plenty of channels for a company to announce its news and address its issues. Brand journalism is always feature content designed (as Cisco makes clear) to encourage continuing conversations.

I confess to some bemusement that journalism lecturer Samson seems to think that any kind of journalism has to include all kinds of journalism. If that were the case, we should expect celebrity news in The Economist, city hall politics in the Financial Times and coverage of federal politics in People. Independent news reporting is still an important part of the mix.

But organizations that aren’t visible in the content mix don’t exist. The production of trustworthy content is that people will share and talk about is increasingly a vital part of any organization’s efforts

Disclosure is critical

At the very end of all Cisco Network articles, after the disclaimer, comes the request that any re-use, republication or distribution of Network content be credited with the following tagline: “Used with the permission of http://thenetwork.cisco.com/.” There should never be any doubt about the source of brand journalism.

This is a point reinforced by one of the comments to the article from a former CNN journalist now engaged in some brand journalism work. David Bernkopf noted, “One recent video we worked on examined a controversial issue for a non-profit. It was clearly identified as work done for the non-profit and made the points the non profit wished to make. But it included critics positions and not one word of any interview was scripted or prompted. We used journalistic story telling skills to make a point. As long as we are clear on who paid for the effort and where it came from, I don’t see the problem.”

Professional journalists are behind a lot of brand journalism

One troubling aspect of Samson’s dismissal of brand journalism is that this field represents a viable income opportunity for journalists who increasingly are looking for work as their employers downsize or close up shop altogether. I remember when I was in journalism school, the focus was narrowed to newspapers, news magazines, TV news and radio news. There were no classes—or even curricula within other classes—that introduced us to other discliplines in which we could ply our skills.

Samson does his students a disservice by not recognizing brand journalism as an employment possibility.

Comments
  • 1.I think you're conflating "brand journalism" with "branded journalism," when you say things like "many of the articles have little if anything to do with the organization itself, or its products/services."

    The way we define it at JWT, this is *branded journalism*...more akin to branded content and branded entertainment. Normal ol' journalism, brought to you by Brand X.

    *Brand journalism,* as we practice it and define it, is absolutely about the brand. The first two brand journalism campaigns that defined themselves as such were McDonalds and Ford, and both were very brand-centric. The Fold Bold Moves campaign told the story of major corporate upheaval and turnaround. The campaign incorporated elements of documentary filmmaking and journalism--and there was a plenty of negativity inherent in the story, as factories closed and people demanded answers from Ford.

    Our Brand Journalism work with Microsoft was similar in philosophy, though the brand narrative was much more positive.

    I think there's a very critical distinction between the two types of content, both in ease and in efficacy. IMO, brand journalism is much harder to do, with the potential to be much more effective when done well.

    It's the difference between the NY Jets sponsoring a movie about football, and the NY Jets allowing documentary filmmakers to shoot a TV series of the team for HBO. One is branded content, the other is brand content.

    Kyle M. | September 2011 | New York, NY

  • 2.It is a fine line. Ultimately, all marketing effort must support the brand's business objectives whether the benefit in the short run or the long run is a judgement call based on strategy, but more importantly, budget.

    Sure, it's not advertorial, but it does serve to enhance brand preference...not a bad thing.

    For a company like Cisco, the long-tail strategy makes sense. For companies not so well-heeled may not make sense.

    At Century 21 Real Estate we have elected to mix more branded content along with brand journalism. Visit us @C21-Home Matters and let me know what you think.

    Hope to meet you at Blogworld.

    Matt Gentile, Dir. PR and Social
    Century 21 Real Estate

    Matt Gentile | September 2011 | Parsippany, NJ

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