Bingeable leadership and performance series redefines expectations of corporate content
It is not often you see something genuinely unique in corporate content marketing.
We believe our seven year running, 130 episode Brilliant Minds Leadership & Performance series is precisely that.
With 1,300+ video clips from interviews with 132 celebrities, sports stars, politicians and industry experts, Brilliant Minds is a unique, multi-episode content series which has achieved spectacular engagement with a high end leadership audience in the United Kingdom since it’s inception in 2014.
In search of the elusive secrets of leadership
Seven years of probing interviews with leaders in sport, business, academia, military and politics.
Since 2014, together with our client Harvey Thorneycroft Ltd, yBC.tv has been building up a unique body of content about leadership and elite performance culture. Currently numbering more than 130 candid, in-depth interviews with high achieving leaders, we have filmed and transcribed their perspectives and their stories, and we’ve asked them to identify the drivers of their success.
These are not just average leaders doing a fairly good job. They are amongst the highest achievers in their respective fields. Olympians, World Cup winners, high-octane Formula 1 executives, surgeons, jet pilots, bestselling authors, acclaimed academics, celebrated politicians and many more. Undisputed performers with a track record.
Delivered via the Brilliant Minds digital series, we’ve been sharing their perspectives with an audience of thousands of executives throughout Europe for seven years. The series has achieved very high engagement levels and positive feedback.
We looked to the best in class – TV Politics, Sports and Netflix – to create ‘bingeable edutainment’
Sharing binge-worthy, long-form content
Like many high end businesses, our client sat in the middle of an ecosystem of great stories and clever people. The opportunity existed to organise that ecosystem through great content.
One of the main problems with corporate content marketing is it only includes one perspective – that of the PR department! Savvy executive level audiences are unlikely to be swayed by such one dimensional approaches. Indeed in our day to day lives, we are used to the “Amazon” level content experience, whether it’s sports, entertainment, or business.
That is why we approached Brilliant Minds on a best in class basis. Business content needs to be both educational, and also a great viewing experience. We call this “Edu-tainment“. It can’t be boring just because it’s business!
Our concept was to develop Brilliant Minds on an editorial basis, like a media company would do for business news. Think Bloomberg, Stuff or the BBC. We shot interviews with each expert as an independent, external voice. No scripts. No heavy handed messaging. No editorial interference from the interviewees or their PR teams. Interviews were then packaged into regular, thematic, releases under the Brilliant Minds banner.
We use our rapid content capture methodology to capture 10-20 hours footage at one time in focussed shooting days and publish the content via online streaming players.
The results speak for themselves.
The data is so great that the series has been running for 7 years! (Scroll down to learn more)
The payoff of long form, multi-episodic content
With Brilliant Minds we proved that sharing watchable, rare content is the key to loyal viewership.
By behaving more like a media company, and becoming a destination for bingeable content you build trust and relevance – two keys to sales performance.
In order to build brand affinity – and therefore create a well-loved, notable brand – businesses should create binge-worthy, long-form content that adds value to viewers’ lives and doesn’t just push them towards the next stage in the funnel.
In case you are wondering, we didn’t pay any of our stars. They collaborated on video content thanks to synergies we identified. Having a big star or two like David Coulthard or Sir Clive Woodward certainly helps, but within their industries, many businesses can pull together really impressive independent influencers if they put their minds to it.
Apart from building a loyal audience of 3,000+ UK business executives, the main benefit of the series to our client was the expanded profile from taking content from numerous real world events, to a bi-weekly format. This put them front of mind with their most valuable contacts and potential clients, and led to numerous new opportunities for them.
They became “the Brilliant Minds people”. Say no more. No one else has this X-Factor. And that really differentiates them in the market.
