While good content used to be defined as “accessible, accurate and relatable”, today’s content needs to exemplify the notion of ‘ambition’, according to Hayley Romer, vice-president and publisher at Atlantic Media.
Romer was part of a panel sesssion hosted by M&M Global editor Alex Brownsell, who was also joined by Jay Lauf, president and publisher of Quartz, Stacy Fuller, head of content at Havas Media North America and Marcus Stoll, head of marketing EMEA at NewsCred.
“Now what’s making content stand out from other content is ambition,” Romer explained. “I think you have to be really excited about the possibilities of what you can do with content and think about both the creative possibilities as well as the things that go into it in terms of accuracy and the storytelling.
“But there’s no reason at all why you should lack in ambition and compete with some of the greatest newsrooms or creative shops on the planet.”
Unsurprisingly the session was punctuated throughout by one of media and marketing’s buzzwords du jour – ‘authenticity’, with Stoll highlighting that any content which is inauthentic will be obviously-so to consumers.
Lauf was quick to point out another pitfall: “I think you have to be careful as you move to mobile how you insert your content into that experience, because a mobile device is so much more a personal device,” he said. “You’re paying close attention to what you’re doing in there, and if there’s suddenly an intrusion on what you went there to do, it’s a dangerous pitfall.”
Meanwhile, Romer argued that content creators should avoid compartmentalising content. “Whenever you’re going to produce something, you can no longer just think about producing a simple article series or just a video,” she said. “I mean if you have a story to tell, it can be told in so many different ways, and it should be.
“So if your audience is coming from different devices and they’re paying more attention to video, you should tell that story in the best possible way from a video perspective but not ignore the fact that people are still reading – you’ve got to tell it from an article or written perspective as well.”
