Many companies want to be engaged content marketing, but they are really producing the same old “thought leadership” pieces where they tell stories about their own products. The 2017 Brilliant Minds Lord’s Showcase in London shows how to create truly strategic content marketing.
Location: The Long Room, Lord’s Cricket, Ground Central London
The 2017 Spring Showcase opens in this famous sports arena, as a fantastic array of speakers headed by Lord Sebastian Coe, present to an audience of hundreds of successful British executives.
From World Cup winning managers to sports stars to fighter pilots to digital experts, ex Rugby Pro Harvey Thorneycroft brings together world class personalities – each delivering ideas and strategies to motivate business leaders to elite levels of performance.
Today is no different. Rachel Burden of Radio 5 and BBC Breakfast is hosting and Hannah MacLeod, double Olympic medalist “opens the batting” as she details the mindset of elite sports performance and how it applies to business.
But executives won’t be limited to today’s event for inspiration.
Via Brilliant Minds TV they can enjoy the latest advice on the psychology and physiology of elite performance every week, where ever they may be on their smartphones.
Building a Content Marketing Ecosystem
Back in 2014 Harvey Thorneycroft sat down with yBC.tv’s Mark Sinclair to discuss a radical proposal.
That Harvey sensed the digital opportunity was an understatement. His events created fantastic content and the time was right to create a digital experience around the events.
But what should that look like?
The normal thing to do would be to create content talking about the value of the events.
Mark suggested a very different approach. A content marketing ecosystem, pulling together Harvey’s star contributors to create a star studded content channel which would be truly unique in the UK enterprise space. One that would energise audiences and build an outside profile for Harvey’s work.
The central idea was to use the outside experts for all the content and tell stories in a truly editorial style.
You see, surprisingly, Brilliant Minds TV has never featured anyone from Harvey Thorneycroft.
Instead, by involving thought leaders like Sir Clive Woodward to put together our content marketing ecosystem, we created a win/win.
Each expert gets more promotion and high quality content pieces where they can talk about their latest ideas.
Harvey, as the ecosystem organiser, benefits from a content marketing channel featuring all the experts combined.
By sharing this valuable content regularly with his business lists, he has created a powerful marketing tool which communicates all the key teachings of his business, without him ever having to resort to overt messaging.
And because it is a truly strategic content marketing offering, people actually want to receive Brilliant Minds.
They like watching it.
Indeed we have recently begun to syndicate Brilliant Minds, as partner companies want to bring this value to their own audiences.
Why does this work? Going beyond branded content
Now, three years later at Lords, we can see just how far the content marketing collaboration has come.
- The content is Experiential. Instead of overt messaging about inspiration, allow the audience to experience inspiration
- Nowhere does Harvey talk about the product. Instead he actively shows the value
- All experts are from outside of the business and are thus trusted voices
- Focus on real stories instead of messaging. Stories work best for video
- Use real characters and industry personalities to engage rather than bland spokespeople
- Deliver content ready for mobile – many users watch via iPhone “on the go”
- Study viewer analytics to learn what customers want
We are now excited to be producing the new 2017 season of Brilliant Minds.
