Why Your Company Needs Brand Journalism

For many the term may be new. However, once defined, you’ll likely see that you are surrounded by top-quality brands that use brand journalism to influence consumers. What is brand journalism? It offers a multi-faceted journalistic approach to create compelling, quality content for multimedia distribution to educate and/or inform in order to attract and/or retain customers.

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That’s a fancy way of saying creators of this style of branding use the skill set of a journalist to create print, audio, and video content that’s got a newsworthy hook. So, as you can imagine, a journalist can do this best. Why? Because journalists are trained to seek out the news story. They’re looking for the story angle that’s interesting and informative rather than the catchy slogan that is often simply an advertising jingle. That’s not to say that tag lines and jingles are worthless. They have value just as a journalistic approach to telling a story has value.

Larry Light, the person credited with coining the phrase “brand journalism”, is also credited with pulling McDonald’s out of a major slump via the infamous documentary “Super Size Me.” Light changed the marketing message by focussing marketing on different groups of audiences and using compelling video storytelling to reach these groups. He did this because he believed the old school of marketing–simply hammering a brand’s slogan into consumers’ heads–was rapidly dying. He was right.

“Identifying one brand position, communicating it in a repetitive manner is old-fashioned, out of date, out of touch. Simplistic marketing is marketing suicide.” ~ Larry Light, McDonald’s Chief Global Marketing Officer 2002 – 2005 (company’s crucial marketing turnaround years).

Notice how the story isn’t directly selling you anything; rather it’s meant to invoke, inform, stir emotion, create appeal, and influence. That’s brand journalism. Couple brand journalism which aims to generate awareness with social media which aims to create a trusted network and you have a powerful strategic new-age marketing campaign. That’s what Live Fit Films does for CEOs and businesses.

We create and manage a 12-month Brand Journalism Campaign using the following Live Fit Films strategies to keep your brand Entrepreneurally Fit:

Video News Stories (see our Portfolio)
News articles
Blog posts
Newsletters
Events/Webinars
Photo journalism
Ebooks & White papers
Video News Release distribution
Social media broadcasting and interaction
Developing and building online News websites for companies

A brand that has lean and strong storytelling is a “Fit” brand. However, all too often, the brand messaging from the company or public relations firm is flabby and weak and filled with ‘junk-food’ jargon. Buzz words that aim to please leave the consumer with little true understanding of the company and its brand. It’s often akin to eating junk food…there’s something to chew on with a bit of taste but, in the end, it leaves the consumer with empty calories and an unsatisfied feeling. Your brand messaging must tell a complete, compelling, and meaningful story that consumers can digest and then want to come back for seconds.

Using our Video News Story subscription services, clients bypass the media and tell their own stories each month with the powerful and accessible Internet to deliver their newsworthy content. They don’t have to chase down a reporter and beg to have their story on the evening news. The Video News Stories Live Fit Films creates often attract “traditional” media attention as well as consumers. In an age, when cutbacks in mainstream media are causing reporters to have less time, resources, and energy to thoroughly cover stories, companies that harness the power of the Internet and create compelling, journalistic Video News Stories for their online news website, increase the chances that their stories will be told by other media outlets. Often the Broll (video) from the Video News Stories is shared with traditional media in common instances when the TV media does not have the time or resources to properly shoot the story.

Brand journalism connects with consumers, informs them and provides information in a non-sales method. Live Fit Films uses veteran journalists to find the news angle, create the hook, tell the story…that’s the value of a Video News Story.

Here’s a look at a Video News Story by Live Fit Films the hospitality showing increased signs of a thriving economy.