Content Marketing Summit 2014 Asia: Relevance is the key

When it comes to content, the ones mostly talked about or shared are those that provide utility to the consumer.

The difference between advertising and content is of USP and Utility. Most brands talk about their USP in their advertising but when it comes to content, the ones mostly talked about or shared are those that provide utility to the consumer. At Content Marketing Summit 2014 Asia, stakeholders discussed ideas to crack the code of perfect content and maintaining constant dialogue with the consumer.

Vaasu S Gavarasana, co-founder, ACMA/APAC head, marketing, Yahoo!, shared his experiences about brands' behaviour regarding content. "The marketers are always wondering if they have integrated their content well with their brand philosophy, why people are not coming to their FB pages, and why they are not liking it," he noted.

Gavarasana said that a brand can never judge whether its consumer is a loyalist or a switcher merely from its social media page. "To ensure that the consumer remains a loyalist, a marketer has to integrate his content really well in accordance with his brand philosophy so that the consumer talks about it." Although he conceded that no brand can have a media budget that allows being present always, everywhere, he warned that if a brand is not engaging online, another one will do it. "Content marketing is the only way," he emphasised.

Content should be relevant and valuable to the user, else he/she will not subscribe to it. It should be attractive, acquiring and engaging. In his presentation, Sharat Dhall, president, Yatra.com said blogs, press releases and other similar content broadens the perspective of the user. "Today, we need to manage the user generated content, analyse it and differentiate it. We have tools that can give us the profile of our consumer, his likes, tastes and interests and we need to capitalise on it and then deliver the content according to it. It is a daily challenge and is integrated both online and offline. We are allowing people to share their preferences with other consumers by letting them share their content."

Today social means mobile. In his presentation, Tushar Vyas, managing partner, GroupM, said, "Today's data consumption is driven by mobile, where huge amount of consumption happens. The way people are consuming content is also changing and hence the concept of paid media also has to change. This is a combination of social, mobile, content, data and digital everywhere. Content is the heart but the discovery and distribution is the key. Advertising is becoming content but it needs to have good content. Brands have become publishers and marketing is like curation. It needs to be more social friendly."

Srikant Sastri, founder, Crayon Data threw light on another aspect of the issue. When a consumer has too many choices as a result of too much content, he is not able to make a choice, he noted. "Too much of content is causing a lot of chaos for the consumer. It becomes like a paradox of choice. There needs to be simplified content that provides the answer that the consumer is looking for. Content marketing needs to have a different mindset. We need to have something called a guided choice, where the consumer can simplify his choice."

Content Marketing Summit (CMS) Asia is a premier event that sees some of the greatest minds, savvy brands, renowned publishers, innovative technology enablers and leading practitioners from across the world coming together to explore the exciting world of content marketing. Backed by ACMA (Asia Content Marketing Association), CMS Asia endeavours to bring leading practitioners from across the world together to explore the world of content marketing. The event is a property of Kontent Café, which is a part of the Sirez Group.

This was the first edition of the Content Marketing Summit Asia 2014, which was a joint initiative between Kontent Cafe and afaqs!.

The other partners for the event were Outbrain, Zirca, Taboola, Yahoo!, Pure Media Imagination and NDTV Profit.