1. THE RISE OF
THE BRAND
NEWSROOM
#brandnewsroom

2. 4. Find your tone of voice
This is especially important when looking for content
that will work across multiple digital channels, including
social networks.
B
rands have to work really hard to get
audiences to engage on Facebook
and they don’t do it by pumping out
glossy information about themselves, nice
images of their execs and of their products,”
says Stephen Waddington. “They do it by
tapping into some of the emotional insight
that’s going to generate a response from
their audience.”
He advises a more relaxed style of
communication, something that is “more
informal and direct”. It means telling stories
that work at a human level.
“There is an art to getting it right,” says
Neville Hobson, independent consultant and
co-presenter of the For Immediate
Release podcast.
...at the Super Bowl on 3 February 2013, a metaphorical
light bulb went on above the head of one of the editorial
marketers working for Nabisco, makers of the Oreo
cookie. And in that moment, real-time content marketing
went mainstream.
I
n perhaps the smartest example of “news
jacking” to date, the cookie company
combined quality creative with a killer line
of copy: “You can still dunk in the dark.”
[1] The process was agile, delivered at
speed and proved highly effective –
it resulted in thousands of Twitter retweets
and Facebook shares while, in a perfect
confluence of owned and earned, the story
was picked up by dozens of media outlets in
the days that followed.
Two things are often forgotten in the retelling
of the Oreo story. First, the company had
also paid for a conventional, multi-million
dollar advertising slot to run during American
sport’s richest event [2], hinting at a future
where guerrilla marketing and conventional
advertising will coexist.
Second, the company’s rapid response was
only made possible by months of planning.
The Super Bowl exemplar was part of a
100-day project [3], a product of production
and meticulous preparation, of governance
already in place, sign-off processes agreed
and editorial practices honed in advance.
This is the untold story of successful content
marketing and brand journalism.
We'll look at best practice examples, hear
from practitioners and examine the
circumstances when it will work for
your brand.
But we’ll start with...
WHEN THE LIGHTS
WENT OUT...

3. 3 #brandnewsroom
“If that’s the opportunity,
the challenge is to make
it happen.”
A brief history of content marketing
The story of content marketing – or brand storytelling as
some prefer – stretches back well over a century, from
John Deere’s The Furrow in 1890s, a magazine which
taught farmers how to use new agricultural tools; to the
Michelin Guides of the early 20th century; from the pre-
and post-war radio and television soap operas; to the
customer magazine boom of the 1980s and beyond.
I
n the digital age, content marketing in its
many guises (see glossary on page 30)
has been shaped by an unforeseen
collision of events. First, digital has provided
a platform which is disintermediated in most
respects while, post Web 2.0, it has become
a social channel through which messages
can be shared, stories amplified and
conversations joined.
At the same time, says Tony Hallett, former
publishing director at CBS Interactive and
now managing director of Collective
Content, we’ve witnessed a challenging
media landscape where conventional
banner and classified advertising rates have
declined sharply. Not only has this led to
publishing houses seeking alternative
advertising models, notably native
advertising, it has also resulted in a
contraction of the journalism market – fewer
publications and fewer journalists on staff in
those publications that have survived.
The result? “You now have a lot of those
professional content people working on
the type of content that proves effective
with an audience. But instead of pure
journalistic work, they are doing it as a
marketing project for a client, or as a
campaign on the pages of Forbes or the
Huffington Post,” says Hallett.
A plentiful supply of skilled communicators,
a digital platform that allows brands to
connect directly to their audience, a means
of social distribution and a challenged
advertising market have combined to move
brand newsrooms and other content
marketing forms up the marketing and
public relations agenda.
But don’t mistake this for a proactive push
by large brands, says Stephen Waddington,
European digital and social media director
of Ketchum. “It’s the market that’s
pushing organisations to do things
much better,” he says. “The whole thing
is being driven by the consumerisation
of media. It’s very much the audience
that’s in the driving seat and it’s the
market that’s responding to the
audience demand.”

4. HOW TO
BUILD A
NEWSROOM
Define your audience
Establish an editorial proposition (aka “News you can use”)
Don’t fall for the myth of virality
Find your tone of voice
Build a team
Use the diary
…but be ready to react to news
Define a workable sign-off process
Establish no-go areas
Give them what they want
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
01

5. BRANDS AS NEWSROOMS
1. Define your audience
If you don’t have a clear idea who you are
writing for, your brand newsroom
experiment will fail.
5
T
hat target audience might
consist of a single cohort
(journalists, for example)
or multiple overlapping
audiences (journalists,
investors, customers, potential
customers, employees, future
employees). If it is the latter,
establish an understanding of
what unites them. In both
scenarios, establish areas of
common interests. One
effective way to do this is to
create a persona of your ideal
reader: give him or her a name,
ascribe attributes and personal
preferences and define needs.
Then every time you consider
producing a piece of content,
test it against your persona.
Would he or she want to
read/watch this? What angle
best serves his or her needs?
And so on.
#brandnewsroom

6. 6 #brandnewsroom
2. Establish an editorial proposition
Ketchum's Stephen Waddington says “Brands typically
want to talk about themselves. The challenge is to
align yourselves with the issues that really matter to
your audience.”
A
nd herein lies the paradox of
successful content marketing – the
more a brand talks about itself the
more likely it is to turn a potential
audience off.
Apply what Will Sturgeon, executive director
of strategy at GolinHarris, calls the
“nobody cares test”. He says: “Once you
get into a world where brands become
their own editors, there’s a sense that
now is the opportunity to fill the space
with all the stuff that those journalists
wouldn’t write because nobody was
interested.” Resist the temptation.

7. 7 #brandnewsroom
In other words, news you can use...
I
nstead write around your subject, provide
news and information that is useful and
valuable for your target audience
Broadcast media has long talked about
“news you can use”, stories that have a
practical, rather than a shock, value.
Personal finance stories are a good
example of this genre and it is these stories
that underpin the proposition behind
Moneysupermarket’s content marketing
success (see case study on page 26)
“It’s very much a soft sell,” explains
editor-in-chief Clare Francis. “As a
journalist I don’t see myself as
producing content just to sell to people.
I’d much rather be producing the content
that they need, that they find useful.” For
Francis the editorial proposition is clear:
“helping households save money”.
Another example of a brand publisher
providing news you can use is American
Express with its Open Forum [5] site (tag
line: Exchange Advice. Make Smart
Decisions”).
“They have a community of thousands
of small businesses reading thousands
of pieces of useful content, very few, if
any, are about which charge card should
we get for the company,” explains
Collective Content’s Tony Hallett.
Moreover, consider, as American Express
has, curating the best of other people’s
content. This can be professional and non-
professional journalism or a combination of
both. Equally, it can be hosted on your
online newsroom or linked to from social
channels. Either way, the material will not
only provide a valuable resource to your
customers but will allow you to cover much
more ground than if you were producing it
all in-house. Other exponents of curation
include Intel (IQ by Intel) [6] and Pepsi
(Pepsi Pulse) [7].
“Align yourselves with
the issues that really
matter to your audience.”
Stephen Waddington,
European Digital & Social Media Director,
Ketchum

8. 8
3. Don’t fall for the myth of virality
If your content goes viral and gets read or watched by
hundreds of thousands of people, that’s great but often
entirely unnecessary.
A
s Tony Hallett points out: “If you’re
Buzzfeed you have it baked into
your DNA … but for brands it’s not
always about virality. It’s about reaching
the right people.”
Take Red Bull and Cisco as two examples.
Both, says Will Sturgeon, understand how
to use content marketing channels properly
and for Cisco, providing technology news
and information at The Network [8], that
means appreciating that the audience sizes
will be very different.
Indeed, as Ramya Chandrasekaran, Chief
Communications Officer of QNET - one of
Asia's leading direct selling companies,
states "The key is to live and breathe
quality content. Make it the heart of your
online presence and a reliable
mouthpiece for your brand."
#brandnewsroom

9. 4. Find your tone of voice
This is especially important when looking for content
that will work across multiple digital channels, including
social networks.
9
"There is an art to getting
it right. Many marketers
that I encounter in big
organisations speak like
the brochures that they
produce and that makes
its way into the writing.
It's easy to laugh at them
but with a bit of help
some of them can tell
great stories."
Neville Hobson,
Consultant and co-presenter of the
For Immediate Release podcast.
Brands have to work really hard to
get audiences to engage on
Facebook and they don’t do it by
pumping out glossy information about
themselves, nice images of their execs
and of their products,” says Stephen
Waddington. “They do it by tapping into
some of the emotional insight that’s
going to generate a response from
their audience.”
He advises a more relaxed style of
communication, something that is “more
informal and direct”. It means telling
stories that work at a human level.
“
#brandnewsroom

10. 10
5. Build a team
Once you’ve established an editorial proposition for a
defined audience, it’s time to build a team.
T
he size of the team will depend on the
stated output which in turn will be
driven by your goals (see below) but
it’s likely you will need specialist writers,
web producers, designers, video producers,
sub-editors and a pool of freelance
journalists to draw on.
The editor who will oversee the team will
most likely report into the chief marketing
officer or similar and be granted sufficient
autonomy to take content ideas from
inception to publication, knowing when to
refer up or when to refer to a lawyer. A
company lawyer, therefore, should always
be on hand to adjudicate on potentially
contentious matters.
If you work for a small or medium business
it is unlikely you will have a huge marketing
budget to spend on hiring video producers
and freelance journalists but you can still
adopt a newsroom approach. As you build
up your marketing team make sure to hire
people with versatile skill sets who can
adopt various roles.
#brandnewsroom

11. 11 #brandnewsroom
6. Use the diary
The deployment of an editorial calendar to pinpoint
“diaried” stories that connect with an audience will be a
concept relatively familiar to marketing professionals
used to managing campaigns.
I
t is an essential but, as we’ll see, not an
exclusive part of the newsroom
storytelling process.
So for Clare Francis at Moneysupermarket
it means providing stories about ISAs ahead
of the new tax year or tips on buying a
new car as new registration plates
become available.
Equally, a pet’s charity might produce
diaried stories in the run up to Fireworks
Night (dealing with loud noises) or in the run
up to Christmas (“a pet’s for life not just
for Christmas”).
And for a technology provider, it might be
the introduction of a new operating system
or the launch of a new breed of hardware.

12. 12 #brandnewsroom
7. …but be ready to react to news
Sometimes the campaign mindset won’t do.
I
f you want to take advantage of an
ongoing conversation, manage a crisis in
real time, react or add perspective to an
ongoing news story or, as Oreo did, hijack a
breaking story then a different mentality
is required.
As Rita Suttarno, Social Media Manager of
QNET, stresses "you can't plan too much
ahead. Things will change and you'll
have to respond to it. Especially if
customers are involved, you need to
engage fast.”
The story of how Oslo Airport’s
communications department dealt with a fuel
crisis in September 2012 amply
demonstrates how a newsroom can be
deployed “live” (see case study on page 28).
Asked if he was concerned about the risks
of this approach, the airport’s media advisor
Joachim Westher Andersen replied: “No
risk, only possibilities.”
Moreover, a study by Edelman found that
real-time branded content generated four to
six times the level of engagement of a
typical post. [9]
"Being ready to publish
and distribute content on
the fly - whether in
reaction to an opportunity
or a crisis - requires skill,
confidence, authority and
effective technology.
Having a digital
newsroom platform like
Mynewsdesk makes it
easier to deliver real-time,
multichannel and
multimedia
communications to the
audiences you want to
reach and influence."
Adam Cranfield,
Head of Marketing, Mynewsdesk

13. 13 #brandnewsroom
8. Define a workable sign-off process
A
nd because you will want to publish
in a timely fashion, you need to
ensure you’ve established a sign-off
process that everyone understands,
everyone buys into and that can be
deployed even on the busiest of days.
Culturally this may prove difficult but it is
essential in order to benefit from the real-
time opportunities of digital publishing.
“There’s no such thing as a deadline
anymore,” says Stephen Waddington. “A
topic trends on Twitter or Facebook for a
period of time and if you want to be part
of that conversation you can’t wait 24
hours to get some content signed off.”
Will Sturgeon pinpoints the root of the
problem: “Because this isn’t heart
surgery, every CEO, CFO and CMO
thinks they know what makes
good editorial.
They’ll tell you that it needs to read more
like Harvard Business Review because
they read Harvard Business Review on a
plane once and thought that it was kind
of cool.
Everyone brings their subjective
opinions to bear which is fine so long as
you get that all out of the way in the
planning process. But you can’t have
every piece pulled apart by committee –
it slows things down, gets messy and
gets expensive.”
"You can't have every
piece pulled apart by
committee - it slows
things down, gets messy
and gets expensive."
Will Sturgeon,
Executive Director of Strategy, GolinHarris

14. 14
9. Establish no-go areas
In addition to a sign-off process, define upfront the
subject areas you are willing to write about and those
you should avoid.
S
tephen Waddington says: “You have to have areas of no-go – topics you can
talk about, topics you can never talk about and topics you can only talk about
with legal sign-off.”
#brandnewsroom

15. 15 #brandnewsroom
10. Give them what they want
“[Brand journalism] needs to be as interesting as
anything else someone might be reading in their lunch
hour irrespective of who they are,” says Will Sturgeon
of GolinHarris.
M
eanwhile, listen to the words
of Ashley Brown, global group
director, digital communications
and social media at The Coca-Cola
Company. “If there is one thing I want to
do, it’s kill off the press release,” Brown
says. “For the first time ever our PR
teams are challenged to think beyond
the press release … They have to think,
‘What is a two minute, really high-quality
video that someone would actually want
to share? How do I package up that
announcement as a story that someone
who doesn’t work at Coke and who
doesn’t care would want to read it and
share it with their friends?’
We developed a 10-point framework
that’s a guide for when you are thinking
about storytelling. Does it spark an
emotion? Is it something new or
noteworthy? Very basic things that a
journalist would go through.” [10]
“A CEO of an
organisation shouldn’t
accept that 60 per cent of
the media he or she
endures is boring. It
doesn’t work like that –
CEOs are just as likely to
enjoy 25 cats on
Buzzfeed as the rest of
us. So you have to police
yourself to make this
stuff interesting.”
Will Sturgeon,
Executive Director of GolinHarris

16. 8 STEPS TO
NEWSROOM
SUCCESS
Secure buy-in
Establish success measures first
Define workable timelines
Integrate
Read
Listen
Don’t forget mobile
Invest
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

17. 17 #brandnewsroom
1. Secure buy-in
Siloed thinking and siloed action is the quickest path to
failure with a project like this, says Neville Hobson.
I
nstead you need to do everything in your
power to lobby for support within the
organisation, explaining goals and
objectives and gaining approval.
“That requires diplomacy and a lot of
courage,” Hobson says. “This is
marketing 101. You need to understand
your organisation … people, behaviours,
attitude, and support.”

18. 18 #brandnewsroom
2. Establish success measures first
What does success look like? If you don’t know before
you start you won’t know when you’ve finished.
S
o embark on a cost benefit analysis,
decide how much you are prepared
to invest and define a suitable return
on investment (ROI).
In reality, measurement is not always
straightforward. For example, your objective
might be to warm up an audience as part of
the sales process but the gap between
content consumption and the sale is likely to
be a long one.
This is the case with Moneysupermarket
which knows that the prospective sale might
be weeks or months away. “From a content
perspective it doesn’t matter if people
are using us to research, what matters is
that they then come back when they are
ready to buy,” says Clare Francis.
Moneysupermarket spends much of its time
improving calls to actions and improving
conversions to sales to ensure this happens.
At a more basic level, your measure of
success might mean increasing the traffic
that passes through your site. As media firm
Trensic demonstrated there is direct
correlation between the volume of high
quality content you produce and publish and
the amount of traffic your site will receive; a
1,000 per cent increase in traffic in one
eight-week experiment which involved the
production of 50 blog posts. [11]
So where possible, define success. As Will
Sturgeon points out: “For Red Bull it was
really simple – did 300 million people
watch Felix Baumgartner [12] jump out of
a balloon at the edge of space? Yes. Was
the name Red Bull plastered around it?
Job done.
They are playing a game that is
analogous to advertising. It’s about
eyeballs and association. With
something more niche, then you need to
look at engagement. How are you getting
the material in front of the right people?”
If you are struggling to apply a metric for
success, consider the counter factual –
what would happen if you didn’t act? To
quote Joe Churnov, VP marketing at
Kinvey: “How many shipwrecks do
lighthouses prevent?” [13]

19. 19
3. Define workable timelines
Agree the timescale for a proof of concept, a pilot or a
full blown launch across which you will assess the
merits or otherwise of the project.
B
ear in mind that these timelines may
be longer than is traditional within
sales and marketing.
“A lot of people’s frame of reference
here is advertising and advertising is
quite a quick win,” says Will Sturgeon.
“You announce a special offer and
people are either queuing up outside the
shop tomorrow or they’re not.”
An editorial effort will take longer, not least
to build up a loyal following. Allow for this in
your plans.
#brandnewsroom

20. 20 #brandnewsroom
4. Integrate
Use each communications channel within the
organisation to amplify the message, increase your
social media footprint and search engine authority.
M
oneysupermarket’s Clare Francis
says: “We work with the PR team,
the SEO team, the social team,
the brand team and with the CRM team to
ensure that from a content perspective
we’re integrated. And that we have a plan
for campaigns throughout the year.”
The big social networks such as Facebook,
Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ should play a
key part in disseminating content and
amplifying your message.
However, don’t forget smaller – and often
more powerful – consumer forums that
operate around your subject area.
Appreciating the reach of the likes of
Mumsnet (parenting) [14],
Moneysavingexpert (personal finance) [15]
and PistonHeads (automotive) [16] in the
UK and similar forums elsewhere matters
whether you are in storytelling or crisis
management mode.

21. 21 #brandnewsroom
5. Read
Consume as much digital journalism as you can to see
what is working.
P
ore over the editorial and execution
of brands such as Coca-Cola (Coca-
Cola Journey) [17], Cisco (The
Network), American Express (Open Forum)
and Intel (iQ by Intel).
Examine the most compelling native
advertising on Forbes.com [18] and the
Atlantic spin-off Quartz.com [19], among
others. And look at the best of the pure
editorial plays online from Daily Mail to
Buzzfeed, via Politico and the Guardian.
Learn, adapt and execute.

22. 22 #brandnewsroom
6. Listen
Monitor what others are saying about your brand on
social networks, blogs, forums and other social media.
E
stablish how often your brand is
talked about, the sentiment
expressed, the nature of the praise
and the nature of the criticism.
Understand the language of social media so
when you are ready to tell your own stories
through brand newsrooms or other content
marketing vehicles you will have developed
a tone of voice that reflects your brand and
talks to your audience(s).
Kings of content: 6 brands who stand out
Red Bull aims to appeal to extreme sports lovers and create extreme PR stunts
and media frenzies, such as the Stratos space jump, to reflect this. They also
have their own TV channel and magazine full of extreme sports articles.
Coca-Cola has been leading the way with their newsroom and Content 2020
plan. Their 'liquid storytelling' strategy aims to link business objectives and the
brand with consumer interests to provoke conversation and secure the brand's
place as part of popular culture.
Colgate - their online Oral and Dental Health Resource Centre is a dedicated
section of their website which is full of videos, interactive guides, hundreds of
articles and value added content.
DollarShaveClub shows just how valuable a sense of humour can be. Their
$4,500 video spoke jokingly of the hassle and expense their service alleviates
gaining the startup not only 23,000 followers on Twitter and 76,000 Facebook
fans but also 12,000 new customers within 2 days.
Lauren Luke - a former taxi cab dispatcher dreamed of having her own make-up
business, so she cashed in her savings and began producing a series of how to
videos on YouTube, she now has more viewers than Estée Lauder and her
products are stocked by Sephora in the US.
Of a Kind - with a former senior editor of a magazine as a co-founder it's little
wonder this startup has mastered the newsroom approach. They select one
designer at a time and share a series of stories about them including what
inspires them, their personal life, taste, training and so on. They have also
managed to gather over 2,000 pins on Pinterest.

23. 23
#brandnewsroom
7. Don’t forget mobile
The growing adoption of smart devices – smartphones
and tablet computers – is fundamentally changing
digital consumption habits.
C
lare Francis of Moneysupermarket
says, for example, that over 50 per
cent of visits to her site come from
mobile devices, predominantly users starting
their journey from an email newsletter.
This is a trend that is reflected across the
consumer web from online newspaper sites
to takeaway pizza websites via YouTube
where 40 per cent of traffic now comes from
mobile devices. [20]
It’s a trend that should inform any approach
to content marketing.
First, it should change the way marketers
design their websites. Any site that doesn’t
work in multiple form factors – 10 and 7 inch
tablets, Samsung S3, iPhone 5 and so on –
is going to turn off prospective visitors.
Lower clicks per visit will result.
Responsive design is one answer to this
challenge.
Second, smart devices means more traffic
at weekends and evenings than ever
before. If the intended audience of brand
newsroom journalism is in consumption-
mode at these times, the newsroom should
probably be open for business at those
times too.

24. 8. Invest
“Stick some money behind it,” says Will Sturgeon.
Why? Because the newsroom is representing
your brand.
C
ontent marketing can ultimately be a
cost effective way of reaching the
right audience, he says, but some
people get carried away with what should
be achieved yet put almost zero money into
it. You get out of it what you put in.
Make it premium.
24 #brandnewsroom

25. CASE
STUDIES
Moneysupermarket.com
Oslo Airport
S Shazam
1
2
3

26. 26 #brandnewsroom
Moneysupermarket.com
“
We’ve got three editors, four writers,
six publishers and two video
producers. We’re a team of 16 in-
house and then we use freelance
journalists each week.” Clare Francis runs
an editorial team that would be the envy of
most magazine editors and section editors.
The reason for all this effort? Three reasons
in fact – to increase engagement, to
improve search engine rankings and to
build brand trust.
First, engagement. “We’re not a company
you need to purchase from every week.
We’re not a Sainsbury’s or a Tesco. What
we want is that when people are in the
market to buy – whether it’s their car
insurance, a new credit card or whatever
– they think of coming to us. So, if
they’ve got a relationship with us
through content … then when they are in
purchase mode they think of coming to
us rather than to somebody else.”
Internal metrics tell her that customers that
engage with the content are “worth
considerably more” than those that do not.
The second reason for producing so much
content is to ensure high rankings on
search engines, most notably Google.
Recent changes to Google’s algorithms that
dictate those rankings – the Panda and
Penguin updates – mean "You need to do
more than just have keywords on your
websites. Google now requires that
content on your website is relevant to
your audience."
Finally, it is about building trust which in turn
informs the nature of the content.
“I see it very much as journalism,” says
Francis. “Yes we work for a commercial
organisation but the content is not
influenced by the commercial
relationship – it’s independent
and impartial.
The purpose of it is to say, ‘We’re here to
help you and you can trust the
information we are giving you.’ Hopefully
that will build brand trust and loyalty.”
"Google now requires that
content on your website is
relevant to your audience."

27. 27 #brandnewsroom
“We have a catch-up every morning to
look at what’s in the news today that we
can produce content on because that’s
not only important for the site being up-
to-date but that’s also important from a
social perspective: content that
reflects what other people are talking
about today.”
Twitter and Facebook are important, if
markedly different, channels, she says.
Facebook is more about “digestible ‘5 top
tips’-type material” while the Twitter
audience tends to consist of more industry
insiders: other journalists, rival companies
and analysts among them. That demands a
different tone of voice.
Notably, however, social media is not the
main means of disseminating content for
Moneysupermarket. Every week, 3.2 million
More Money email newsletters are sent out
and this drives a significant volume of traffic
to content.
The ongoing newsroom strategy is
designed to drive more traffic from social
and, crucially, from organic search results.
Among the advice she offers others thinking
about the newsroom approach is to know
who you are producing content for. “Who
do you want to talk to? It’s all about
relevancy. If you get the content right,
the rest should follow. It’s good stories,
it’s good videos, it’s things people want
to consume.”
"If you get the content right, the rest should follow."

28. 28
Oslo Airport
W
hen Oslo Airport suffered a major
fuel shortage in September 2012
the whole operation went into
crisis management mode.
For Joachim Westher Andersen, the
airport’s media adviser, and the team it was
about getting the latest news and updates
out in the most effective fashion.
For Andersen there was an added
complication: he was on holiday at the time.
But by liaising over the phone with head of
media Vegar Gystad, the two men were
able to construct a communications strategy
that kept the print, online and broadcast
media – and, by definition, would-be
passengers, family and friends – updated
on delays and cancellations.
Armed with an iPad, Gystad made his way
to the departure lounge to conduct a series
of TV interviews. In between times he
posted the latest updates to the airport’s
online newsroom, provided by
Mynewsdesk.
“The effect was enormous,” says
Andersen. “Only minutes after he
published an update, we could see it
coming through all the major online
newspapers … also, [Vegar] could
choose to publish a link to our Facebook
and Twitter pages.”
Was there a risk in communicating in this
real-time way? “No risk, only
possibilities,” Andersen says.
“We managed to create a sense of
understanding because we were honest
about the situation. We did not try and
cover up anything and we kept people
updated as soon as we had news to
tell them.”
"No risk, only possibilities."
#brandnewsroom

29. 29 #brandnewsroom
Shazam
I
f rule number one of content marketing is
knowing who your audience is then
Shazam, the media engagement
company that most people know for its
music identification service, can happily
move on to rule number two.
For PR and communications manager Rica
Squires, who manages a Mynewsdesk
newsroom integrated into the main Shazam
website, her primary audience is the media.
“If consumers stumble upon it then great
but the media is my foremost concern.
I’m not sure many consumers are going
to want to trawl around a series of
announcements.”
What Squires wanted from her newsroom
was a service that allowed her to publish
more than just the words on a screen.
“Every announcement we do has some
kind of visual with it,” she says. “It’s
about linking visuals with press
releases. If we are talking about adding a
new feature [to the Shazam app] we want
to show what it looks like in situ. We
also produce videos and other assets
that help illustrate the app or provide
information about the company, so
making it easy for journalists to access
and download them is paramount.”
Because of this primary audience – and
Shazam’s profile – search engine
optimisation is low down Rica’s list of
priorities. She knows her audience of
journalists will find her content. She adds:
“We have a Twitter feed just for the
media.” Twitter is, she says, the best
social network for reaching the media.
“It’s a press ‘circle’,” she says.
“Facebook is much softer and
friendlier. It’s much more targeted to
the consumer.”
"Making it easy for
journalists to access and
download videos and
other assets is
paramount."

30. 30 #brandnewsroom
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
Brand journalism
Where journalism meets brand marketing. Brand journalism tells the story of a company
and / or brand in a timely and transparent way. The storytelling will be ongoing and the
conversation two-way.
Brand newsroom
Akin to a traditional newspaper or broadcast newsroom, a brand newsroom is where a
team (sometimes of ex-journalists) commission, research, create, publish and disseminate
brand journalism. Many of the disciplines of traditional journalism – high quality content
written in a timely manner – apply here. This can be done by any brand regardless of
its size.
Content marketing
The creation and dissemination of useful, valuable and relevant content. The end goal
might be acquiring new customers and/or making sales. The focus is often, but not
exclusively, on owning rather than renting the media.
Native advertising
Contextual material that appears alongside editorial content within a publication or
platform, usually online. The content may be text, video, a slide show, infographic or other
media. In this respect its antecedent is the advertorial. LinkedIn’s sponsored updates,
promoted Tweets and Facebook posts are other examples of native advertising as are
contextual Google Ads that relate to specific search queries and appear alongside organic
search results.
Newsjacking
Capitalising on a high profile news story to the benefit of the brand. The ability to
piggyback on stories in the news requires agile marketing teams and quick sign-off.
Sponsored content
A form of native advertising (see above), labelled as such or similarly, within publications
or platforms.

31. 31 #brandnewsroom
With thanks to our contributors:
Joachim Westher Andersen, Oslo Airport
@JoachimWesther
Clare Francis, Moneysupermarket
@clareefrancis
Tony Hallett, Collective Content
@tphallett
Neville Hobson, Consultant
@jangles
Will Sturgeon, GolinHarris
@willsturgeon
About us
Mynewsdesk is the world's leading all-in-one brand newsroom and multimedia PR
platform. Over 5,000 brands as diverse as Costa Coffee, Allianz, Volkswagen, Canon,
Nectar, UNICEF, Sitecore, QNET and Virgin Trains use their Mynewsdesk newsrooms to
publish and distribute their content, achieve greater visibility across search and social
media, connect with key influencers, and tell their stories.
If you'd like to see how our newsrooms can enhance yet simplify your comms strategy
then get in touch by tweeting us @mynewsdesk_uk, email us at uk@mynewsdesk.com or
call us on 020 7029 5785. Or pop into our office for a coffee and a chat. We're located at
25 Farringdon Street, London, EC4A 4AB.
Jon Bernstein was deputy editor, then digital director, at the New
Statesman working across a portfolio of titles including Press Gazette and
Blueprint; multimedia editor at Channel 4 News; ran the Channel 4
FactCheck website during the 2005 general election; editor-in-chief of
Directgov, working in the Cabinet Office’s eGovernment Unit; and editor-
in-chief of dot com start up and technology website silicon.com.
Rica Squires, Shazam
@ShazamNews
Stephen Waddington, Ketchum
@wadds
Ramya Chandrasekaran, QNET
@ramyac
Rita Suttarno, QNET
@mochachocolata
Adam Cranfield, Mynewsdesk
@adamcranfield
He was named Consumer Website Editor of the Year 2011 by the British Society of
Magazine Editors for NewStatesman.com and was shortlisted for the same award in 2010.
He was also shortlisted for Web Editor of the Year at the 2012 Online Media Awards.
About the author

32. 32 #brandnewsroom
Sources
[1] http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/4/3949882/oreo-super-bowl-blackout-ad-is-a-winner
[2] http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/3/3942234/watch-all-super-bowl-2013-ads-here
[3] http://adage.com/article/digital/oreo-s-daily-twist-campaign-puts-cookie-
conversation/237104/
[4] http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/what-is-content-marketing/
[5] https://www.openforum.com
[6] http://iq.intel.com/
[7] http://www.pepsi.com/en-gb/d/
[8] http://newsroom.cisco.com/
[9] http://www.edelmandigital.com/2013/04/30/creative-newsroom-brand-storytelling-at-
the-speed-of-social
[10] http://tresnicmedia.com/the-blogging-magic-number-increasing-website-traffic-1000-
in-8-weeks-case-study/
[11] http://www.redbullstratos.com/
[12] http://medialab.butlertill.com/post/60956120716/how-many-shipwrecks-have-
lighthouses-prevented
[13] http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk
[14] http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/
[15] http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/
[16] http://www.coca-colacompany.com/
[17] http://www.forbes.com/find-more/brandvoice/
[18] http://qz.com/
[19] http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/17/youtube-goes-mobile/
Interviews
20 September 2013: telephone interview with Tony Hallett
20 September 2013: telephone interview with Stephen Waddington
23 September 2013: telephone interview with Clare Francis
1 October 2013: telephone interview with Will Sturgeon
8 October 2013: telephone interview with Rica Squires
14 October 2013: email interview with Joachim Westher Andersen
22 October 2013: telephone interview with Neville Hobson