Scott Cullather, President & CEO of [INVNT GROUP], discusses the relationship between content and context with The Hype Magazine.
Back in 1996, an article titled, ‘Content is King’ changed the course of marketing. Published by Bill Gates on the official Microsoft website, the literary piece was a milestone in marketing history. The article laid the foundations of the future of marketing and helped the world realize the significance of content. The write-up shifted the focus of marketers on crafting engaging and powerful content. From podcasts to marketing guides, content became the center of it all, paving the way for the evolution of people’s mindsets.
Content, be it verbal or visual, holds power to attract, engage, and persuade an audience to take a specific action; it can sow the seeds of movements. Most importantly, it can help brands drive deep connections with consumers. While all this holds true, there are some conditions that the content needs to follow; else, it will serve no purpose.
It is true; content is king, but without context, it holds less value and does not impact an audience in the same way. Content is, indeed, the king, but it is the context that instills a soul into it. ‘Context is Queen’ is an ideology, and embracing it is crucial to a marketing strategy’s success. There is a need for the world to understand the technicalities involved in content creation when it comes to stirring change, invoking emotions, and helping an audience relate to it.
Scott Cullather is one of those individuals who has seen first-hand just how important it is to consider the context when producing and sharing content across any and every medium. He is the co-founder of INVNT, an experiential marketing company that has acquired an esteemed position in the market since it was established in 2008, and President & CEO of [INVNT GROUP], a global portfolio of complementary marketing disciplines which launched in June.
Channeling the Human’s Innate Characteristics the Right Way
Storytelling has been part of culture since the beginning. Starting with cave drawings, the concept of storytelling has since evolved into creatively and strategically driven marketing campaigns produced by brands to engage their target audiences. For centuries, people have been creating stories by stringing together ideas using a thread made of life’s reality and knowledge of the world.
An audience connects well with a brand if they know the story or history behind its establishment, and Scott has helped high-end brands such as General Motors, SC Johnson, PepsiCo, Facebook, Microsoft, Pfizer, Xero, and Merck, create compelling brand stories. The stories that Scott and his team create for brands revolve around their history, journey, unique selling proposition, objectives and challenges, future plans, and more. Creating a unique story is critical, especially when talking about businesses operating in a competitive market.
A one-of-a-kind, authentic story, with the right context, will help companies turn consumers or customers into brand loyalists and advocates or what Scott describes as “citizen journalists,” which he believes are a brand’s most valuable asset.
It is critical to have a vital context for the content. Without it, content becomes as lifeless as a stone. It has less of an impact on the audience and makes it impossible for a brand to connect with them, which is essential for creating. Scott Cullather stresses, especially in a year like 2020, these stories must be sensitive to current events and shared with respect to what’s going on in the wider world.
Scott Cullather, who also co-authored “Challenge Everything: The Battle Cry That Blew Sh*t And INVNTd Live Brand Storytelling,” helps businesses build content with context through which they can establish a network of loyal customers, the driving force of every company. While keeping a close check on the brand’s authenticity, Scott creates impressive stories and turns them into campaigns that align with a brand’s theme, philosophy, and current global events.
During the outbreak of COVID-19, [INVNT GROUP], under Scott’s leadership, has continued to create contextual stories for its clients, and the team has taken their storytelling craft into the virtual world. An advocate of the ‘context is queen’ marketing strategy, Scott Cullather is helping the world understand the reality behind the famous phrase. Content is, indeed, king, but it cannot work on its own; there needs to be a story or a context behind it to give it shape and a value. In many ways, the saying ‘content is king and context is queen’ has been turned on its head, with the context in which you share the content more important than ever.
Check out the original article here.
