30.12.2021
11 min read

Will content still be king in 2022? An update on content marketing strategies

How to generate meaningful brand content and how to approach new trends? We asked Creative Dock’s Head of Content, Michal Schindler.

A men in the Prague's office

“Content is king.” Hasn’t that become a kind of magic formula?

It has. If you try to figure out where it came from, you’ll probably trace it to Bill Gates. He wasn’t talking about “content marketing”, by the way, but rather the future of the Internet as a medium for transmitting and storing easily accessible information. Only over time has it become this buzzphrase related to customer engagement, brand management, and what have you. Anyway, just as you can’t say a generic thing like “books are great and Instagram is stupid ”, you can’t describe content that way. And unlike with books or Instagram, you can’t even describe exactly what content is.

Why do we need to generate content anyway?

This is a crucial question. It also answers your previous one in a way. There’s so much content because everyone believes it is the king, one that will somehow magically save their brand or improve its reputation. That they can’t do without it. And that adds to the already incredible volume of all kinds of content that is being created. Speaking in human terms — there is definitely no need to generate content. There’s already so much communication around us that most of it immediately becomes waste because it has no recipients. Companies aren’t pouring money down the drain, they are pouring it into their blogs. But the result is the same. If I had to answer as a marketer, content can actually improve a brand’s image. It can even save the brand. But only quality, interesting, inspiring, sincere content. Not just any word salad poured indiscriminately onto a blog, social media or, say, YouTube.

The king of content is now VIDEO! After a covid era of everything virtual, from schools to job interviews to shopping, video is the main form of marketing media being created in 2021 and will probably still reign content marketing. In second place are blogs (used by more than half of marketers) and infographics. If you’re one of the 21% of marketers who budget for marketing people, consider candidates who are comfortable with multimedia, video editing, and the latest technologies. Source: Not Another State of Marketing Report 2021

What does the ideal content marketing look like?

It can vary a lot. Depending on the brand, its situation on the market, its focus, the target audience, the goals the company wants to achieve, and so on. Basically anything can become content. But the essential measure of top-level content, in my opinion, is its unique self-sufficiency. Meaning that it’s still connected to the brand that produces it, but it’s somehow original and can stand on its own when it comes to being interesting and inspiring. My favorite example is from a non-corporate environment. The BBC magazine, Top Gear, managed to attract people who weren’t really interested in cars. But its production value, its appeal, its storytelling were so well done that the products themselves no longer played a role. That’s top level.

Strategy isn’t important?

It is, of course. When I talk about Top Gear, you’ll probably think of one particular episode, packed with great car tests, witty conversations, lots of fun. But even Top Gear works so great because it has a long-term strategy. No good content is a matter of one quarter. After a year, maybe a couple of people will notice you’re doing something above standard. It’s a long haul. And an investment. Let’s say if you’re really good at it, some time after two or three years, you can expect some spontaneous interest from readers, visitors, or viewers that you didn’t have to buy through campaigns. To count on content to push through in a matter of months means to get bitterly disappointed.

A man and a woman on the picture
As Creative Dock’s Head of Content, is Michal Schindler responsible for delivering content strategy, creative ideas, and, naturally, great content to both internal and external clients. He founded Creative Dock’s Content Team, which has later become a full-sized creative and digital agency.
He was the Brand & Communications Manager at Vodafone CZ, where he made his name as the editor-in-chief of a hugely popular B2C magazine CILICHILI. Over the past 20+ years, he honed his leadership and writing skills in various companies and media outlets including Reflex magazine, JWT, Saatchi & Saatchi, and Publicis. Michal likes to call himself an experienced bookworm and metalhead.

How to cleverly connect content with a brand?

Thematically. Which may eventually mean product-wise or with some reference to your own services, but the primary interest of the editorial staff — which should be journalists, not copywriters or the PR department, — must be the quality of the message. How it benefits the reader. It’s generally worth outsourcing this sort of thing to a specialized agency, because people inside a company often find it hard to imagine that the basic premise of their work is: Noone is interested in our company. But, unless you’re a true lovebrand or at peace with the fact you’re only creating content for your hardcore fans, this is where you need to start — we’re a nobody.

Then how do you become somebody?

Imagine you’re reading something online. Say you like a cosmetics company and you come across their blog. And instead of articles about trends, the latest research on ingredients, refusing animal testing, etc., etc., you’ll find an interview with a marketing manager about how the latest campaign went. OMG! Who would want to read that? On the internet, you’re always just a few clicks away from the best articles in the world. Why would you read some corporate babble? Anyways, I stopped differentiating between corporate journalism and regular commercial journalism a long time ago. Your blog post is only one click away from my Top Gear bookmark. Can you hold my attention? Am I going to come back?

Chatbots are now much easier to use and add to websites, as are various artificial intelligence (machine learning) applications. They are getting smarter and helping to predict human behaviour and save work. AI, or ML, is fast becoming a major tool for conversion and optimization. There is a 190% increase in usage in marketing in two years. Source: Hubspot
Chatbots are now much easier to use and add to websites, as are various artificial intelligence (machine learning) applications. They are getting smarter and helping to predict human behaviour and save work. AI, or ML, is fast becoming a major tool for conversion and optimization. There is a 190% increase in usage in marketing in two years. Source: Hubspot

So how do we know if our content strategy is working?

It depends on what parameters you have set as your goals. The fabled KPIs. It could be traffic, time spent on page, building a database of leads, or direct conversions to the product part of the site. I usually keep this low key. While I understand and totally respect that a client mostly orders content and pays for it to support the brand and its sales in an original way, I don’t want to promise them any hard data. Let me repeat this: you’ll only see the benefits of your content over time. Plus, a big part of it is hardly measurable.

John Deere’s first ever company content magazine, Beard, has been published since 1895.
John Deere’s first ever company content magazine has been published since 1895.

So content’s primary purpose shouldn’t be to sell.

It’s not even very good at it, to be honest. For me, content is mainly a part of brand strategy. So purely from my point of view, and I’m not saying this is some official opinion, content is working when it makes customers like the brand more than if there were no content. When it makes them visit the site more often, when it helps the brand reach more people, become a part of their lives, that kind of thing. When people wake up and check out their favorite Facebook and Instagram profiles, or even their favorite websites, and yours is among them, then I think your content strategy is working.

Content is going up. Marketers invested more in content marketing in 2021 than ever before, with 82% saying they actively used content marketing, up from 70% the year before. But on the flip side: 44% of those who aren’t investing in content aren’t sure if they’ll start next year.
Content is going up. Marketers invested more in content marketing in 2021 than ever before, with 82% saying they actively used content marketing, up from 70% the year before. But on the flip side: 44% of those who aren’t investing in content aren’t sure if they’ll start next year.

Which of your own projects are you the most proud of?

They were never just projects of my own. One man shows are not my thing, I don’t think I’d even have the nerve for that. I’ve always been lucky when it comes to colleagues and collaborators. And with the best projects, even open-minded clients who could afford a relatively expensive content. Plus, they didn’t expect it to turn into another sales channel in a matter of weeks. Good content, at least in my case, is based on teamwork and a bunch of other conditions. A great movie isn’t just made by the director. An experienced director can obviously choose a good subject, good colleagues, and can convince them of their point of view. So I’ve been trying for some 25 years to be that director. One who has ideas, but also enough acceptance and self-awareness to see potential, push the team to better results, but not hinder the specialists in their respective fields. It’s more about psychology, sociology, and fighting your inner demons than trying to be the best editor-in-chief, journalist, reporter, photographer, and graphic designer in one.

Once again, videos aren’t just cat shots anymore, corporate customers are clamoring for them too. And in the new year it goes even further, if you haven’t started yet, it’s time to start a live stream. After experimenting last year, live streaming has become a full-fledged information and business channel, see the shocking increase in video streaming coming out of Asia. Livestream is simply not a substitute for live events. And whatever the evolution, you need to be in a comfortable position in
Once again, videos aren’t just cat shots anymore, corporate customers are clamoring for them too. And in the new year it goes even further, if you haven’t started yet, it’s time to start a live stream. After experimenting last year, live streaming has become a full-fledged information and business channel, see the shocking increase in video streaming coming out of Asia. Livestream is simply not a substitute for live events. And whatever the evolution, you need to be in a comfortable position in front of the camera and know how best to interact with your audience in a livestream. Build that experience while the bugs are still cutely positive. (Note on the chart: video depends on many factors, whether it’s embedded, its format, etc).

A lot of brands keep circling back to the obvious — like the same old blog posts about Easter, Christmas, how to relax properly. Is that a commendable approach?

Someone once wrote that after they read Anna Karenina, they suddenly found all the other books about love useless. Because Tolstoy, according to them, had said everything that could be said about love. But it doesn’t work like that. Nothing works like that. Of course you can write about Easter during Easter season. But will you copy-and-paste your article from Google, piecing it together from other sources, or will you try and find a fresh point of view, come up with inspiring tips, really get into it? Of course, it may still end up trivial, but I certainly wouldn’t dismiss any topic in advance. That way, noone could write about anything. Everything has been done before. But if you have a basket-making business or a chocolate company, you’re not going to skip Easter. What on Earth would you be writing about around that time? Colonoscopy? I mean, nothing against colonoscopy — if you’re blogging for a gastroenterology clinic.

I often find that blog and social media posts are becoming a reflection of the clients’ taste rather than the target audiences’. Can you persuade the client to let you do your thing?

Not me. I’m not the confrontational type. I don’t want to argue and haggle over our work on a daily basis. If I had to do that, my work wouldn’t bring me any joy anymore. I like to see even the stupidest of assignments as a challenge, not an obstacle. EVERYTHING can be done well.

Around 4 million blogs are published every day. The average blog post is 1,269 words, up 57% from 2014. Source: Worldometer and Orbit Media Studios
Around 4 million blogs are published every day. The average blog post is 1,269 words, up 57% from 2014. Source: Worldometer and Orbit Media Studios

And what if the blog turns into pure product?

You can still do it well and with gusto. Plus, if your work is high-quality and you can explain it well, you might convince the client about your truth over time. Although talking about “truth” in marketing is a bit of a stretch. Let’s say the client might understand that people like your way of doing things better. After all, if a brand expected something significantly different than we created, we’d never understand each other anyway. My experience is that even the most cautious clients will give you more freedom in time. And you can’t gain that trust through conflict. You can educate someone a bit, but you can’t completely transform them. Anyway, I don’t think its my raison d’être to persuade people or, heaven forbid, to school them. I didn’t train as a teacher but as a journalist for a reason. Mainly I just want to have fun with my work. And remember, noone is forced to cooperate with anyone at any cost.

How to stay original? If a social media manager or copywriter creates content for a brand over a long period of time, they might simply run out of ideas.

I don’t want to seem like I’m avoiding direct answers, but what does it even mean to be “original”? We were talking about Anna Karenina. And it doesn’t just apply to romance novels. Everything has been written about. There has been a song about it, a movie. Few creators are as unique as, say, Christopher Nolan, whose films will blow your mind. Whether it’s Memento, Inception, or Tenet. That’s not what I’m trying to do. Content is not a hunt for originality in the sense of constantly coming up with new and unexpected ideas. Maybe it’s better to call it uniqueness than originality. And you know what’s unique today? When someone is able to stick to one goddamn strategy, one positioning for at least a couple of years.

Blog and email marketing are the basics of everything. What do you build on?
Blog and email marketing are the basics of everything. What do you build on?

Why is that necessary?

It’s benefits the content much more than, say, deciding to have a blog illustrated by monkeys just because noone has done it yet. Sure, if you’re a zoo and you’re building your brand on the fact that humans are primates, just like those monkeys, then it makes sense. But it’s not because of that self-serving originality. It’s in the context. It’s in how any given idea fits into the communication and brand strategy as a whole. In short, I don’t give a damn about originality in the sense of always being the first. I care about the meaning of any given piece of content in relation to the brand and what it wants to say.

Where do you find inspiration for your work?

In everything that strikes my fancy — as a person, not as an HR resource, currently on the Head of Content position, who should perhaps automatically devour corporate content or brand-building how-tos. Frankly, I tend to avoid that. I’ve been reading as much as I can for forty years, listening to music for thirty years, and loving cars for 25 years. I like to just sit and stare or watch a river flow. Listen to the rustling of leaves. Or I’ll sit in a café, people-watching and listening to snippets of conversations. I’m really into Instagram memes now. I’m fascinated by their quick-witted irony, putting things in unexpected contexts, clever sarcasm… I think you can find the most inspiration in yourself. I soak things up like a sponge. I enjoy merging the seemingly incompatible, mixing together things that don’t normally belong together. That’s the only way something non-standard can emerge over time.

What advice would you give to aspiring copywriters or content creators?

Read a lot. The best stuff you can get your hands on. Seeking out the best is pretty good practice in itself. Track down awards, recommendations, proven writers. Understand why this or that is really good and worth reading or watching. Do not get swept up by trends, but focus on quality. Don’t waste your time with mediocrity. Follow the best media, the best creators, read quality literature and journalism. It’s only when you have some foundation and your own set of values that even watching what’s stupid, sterile, pandering, populist, or just plain moronic begins to be beneficial. Because it further refines your taste and ability to differentiate. And of course, there’s a lot of you own writing to be done. Self-criticism is important, too. Find fault with yourself and not with the assignment, the commissioner, bad conditions, unwilling clients… You know what, I’m not even sure I want to recommend all of these things to anyone. Having your sense of quality honed like that means you’re depressed all the time about what garbage most of the content around you is. And how little it takes to claim you’re a content marketer.

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It might be the great chemistry among the Creative Dock team developing the Muj Albert app that contributed to its success. How to achieve over a million downloads and the perfect balance of work and play?

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The story behind Hungary’s most successful eHealth project

“Our heatmap shows that people tend to choose doctors based on their pictures.” Interview with Zoltan Kaprinay, co-founder of the Dokio project.

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Creative Dock buys Swiss innovation company Spark Works

Where is Creative Dock headed and what does its latest acquisition mean for the clients? The companies’ respective CEOs, Martin Pejsa and Linda Armbruster answered our questions.

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Creative Talks: Stories of people who turned a pandemic into an opportunity

What do you do when your business is based on staffing restaurants and other gastro establishments? Would it still seem like a good idea to teach foreign tourists to seek out Prague’s best pubs and bars? And where can you find support if your therapist has barricaded himself at home and refuses to meet face to face for fear of contagion?

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Will content still be king in 2022? An update on content marketing strategies

How to generate meaningful brand content and how to approach new trends? We asked Creative Dock’s Head of Content, Michal Schindler.

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Forget leaps of faith. Strategic foresight is what you need to redirect your business

“Let’s emphasize that no one can predict the future. Our job is to anticipate alternative futures, enabling our clients to drive the desirable ones and build robust strategies against unfavorable ones,” says René Rohrbeck.

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The ultimate metaverse metastudy. What are the smartest people in the world thinking?

A look into the different concepts, criticism, hope, and despair. Will today’s dreams turn into reality? And are we talking sweet dreams or rather a huge nightmare?

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Creative Talks: Plato, Star Wars and Web 3.0. Is it too late for the metaverse?

“We are the gods of AI,” said economist Tomas Sedlacek in our talk show. But is the artificial intelligence going to make our lives truly divine in the near future? Watch the recording to find out what Swiss innovator Linda Armbruster, business foresight expert Tobias Heger, mathematician Karel Janecek, and AI expert Dita Maleckova think as well.

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Fairo won the IN2 SABRE Awards 2022 for the best use of gamification

Fairo helps you manage all your financial transactions in one place. Send and personalize invoices, track payments and run tax reports, all in one app. How does gamification of accounting work?

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We talked to executives in Davos about managing uncertainty. Here’s what we learned

Slammed with crisis after crisis, executives are tasked with building resilient organizations and sustainable business models. As part of the World Economic Forum 2022, we invited European digital disruption leaders to talk about uncertainty and share their key insights into managing the unmanageable.

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It’s not a matter of sustainability anymore, but of survival. We discussed energy independence with European experts

Is energy self-sufficiency a responsibility of states, private investors or simply each and every one of us? At the June edition of Creative Talks, four speakers discussed social responsibility, the potential of green energy production and storage in Europe, and whether a future without nuclear power is even possible.

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“I had never even googled Czechia.“ How a French marketing student landed an internship in Prague

Before Juliette Cordillot (19) came to Prague for her internship, she knew almost nothing about the city. However, her three-month internship has placed Prague, and Creative Dock in particular, firmly in her heart. Maybe it’s because no two workdays are the same, the office is directly in one of Prague’s beautiful parks — and, as a bonus, we have packs of dogs running around.

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Staking a claim in MENA: What acquiring FoundersLane means for Creative Dock

“Corporate venture building is on the rise and it’s the new gold in times of inflation and uncertainty,” says Felix Staeritz, co-founder & CEO of FoundersLane and Creative Dock Group’s new board member.

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“European economy has a certain DNA to reinvent itself.” Talking future strategies with serial innovator Heinrich Arnold

“As an individual, you can probably survive if you decide to avoid digitalization. But not as a society,” claims Heinrich Arnold drawing upon his experiences as a lifelong innovator. He significantly contributed to turning Berlin and Israel into high-tech hot spots, received an honorary professorship at TU Berlin, and helped build over 70 businesses either as director of research and innovation at Deutsche Telekom AG or as a supervisor and investor.

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With energy rationing imminent, photovoltaics can help Europe overcome energy shortages

Photovoltaics are on the rise — at Creative Dock, we know that firsthand. Learning to save energy and using alternative energy sources independent of the political situation are the main ways to reduce Europe’s dependence on fossil fuels. Are energy shortages a real threat? Experts certainly say so. “If gas imports from Russia are stopped, energy will be rationed,” Jiri Gavor, head of the ANDE (Czech Association of Independent Energy Suppliers), told the media.

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Albert Van Veen: I dream of a world without ID cards, keys, multiple different tickets and passes

It might not be surprising that a man who founded FastID, a service to manage your digital identity, would leave very little track online. Therefore, when doing research, you need to challenge your LinkedIn bubble and one of the suggestions you can get is something like “Don’t forget he has four children and he loves talking about them!” So, starting with a question about childhood and the internet seems just appropriate.

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Daniel Falque on venture building in Belgium, banking, corporate culture, and the importance of distribution

If you happened to come across Daniel’s resume with his name missing, you might think some parents had sketched a perfect career for their child. You can almost hear them advising: “Start from scratch, little boy, as an insurance salesman and credit analyst, and through tireless hard work, you’ll work your way up to board member and CEO of the strongest bank in the country.” Yet, Daniel’s resume isn’t a sketch; it’s a real career.

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Sustainability is an opportunity. Not just for humankind, but also for your business

This should be taken for granted: “Sustainability is no longer a choice — it’s survival.” And far from regarding sustainability as a drain on resources globally recognized companies such as Booking.com, Uber, and Starbucks, have all seen exponential growth through putting sustainability models at the core of their business. And in so doing altering the landscape of their particular industry.

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Innovation — it's more than just a buzzword

“If creativity is about inventing new things, then innovation is about making them real,” said the American economist, Theodore Levitt. Is that right and does Creative Dock's statement Creation by Doing correspond to reality? We sat down with Linda Armbruster, Director of Innovation at Creative Dock to get her perspective on innovation and impact.

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Corporate venture building is out to save the world. No, really

Combine the vast resources of a corporate and the speedy and disruptive spirit of a startup and what do you get? Powerful, innovative solutions at scale to solve our most pressing problems. It’s really that simple, and it’s what corporate venture builder Creative Dock has set out to do.

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Can trading your idea on the market show its future success? You bet.

“Only time will tell. We will see. Let’s hope.” Those are the words running through many a managers' head when deciding what innovations their company will invest in. But imagine having a tool that helps you choose which of your services are worth investing in, or which of your innovations are less likely to gain traction. Now imagine that such a thing exists. It’s called Ideapoly® and it is built and run by the European company IdeaSense, now part of Creative Dock Group.

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5 key elements that drive innovation and growth in a business

Since the pandemic, we have observed a steady recovery and steep rise in corporate venture building, especially innovative ideas that are constantly responding to changes in technology, and filling in the market gaps. However, as the reality of growing a business is not a bed of roses, not all companies are successful in executing their plans. In this 3 min read, we explore the core factors that could make or break a company.

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Name entity recognition in the insurance industry: a case study

Companies from a wide variety of domains like insurance, real estate, or medical institutions are concerned with the complexity of retrieving specific information from documents. This has become a major problem in recent years with the digitalization of documents and the enormous amount of data exchanged between businesses.

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Size does matter. A success story of growth. Kick-started through acquisitions

Organic growth is great. But it’s time-consuming. And if you want to expand, you can’t invest years just to establish your business in each new market. “We needed to accelerate our growth and impact, to increase our expertise and service portfolio. Rapidly. Such a thing is only possible by well-selected acquisitions,” says Martin Pejsa, Creative Dock’s CEO. And it was actually these successful acquisitions that turned his European corporate venture builder into the largest independent player in its category — rivaling the venture-building activities of the “Big Four”.

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Navigating the multi-crisis environment and where artificial intelligence fits in

“Societies and businesses around the globe are facing unprecedented challenges and the threat of prolonged difficulties — be they related to war, climate, energy, inflation, etc. But despite these gloomy perspectives, Davos turned into cautious optimism among executives leaders, as the global economic outlook for the year ahead looked better than feared. Large corporations can play a major role in overcoming these hurdles,” Martin Pejsa, founder and executive chairman of corporate venture builder Creative Dock, said at the event hosted by Creative Dock and Roland Berger at the margins of the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting 2023.

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Why is the MENA region a leader in digitalisation? Thanks to smartphones

When you say you’re building fintech in the Middle East, Westerners usually think of the strict Sharia banking rules and think it must be terribly complicated. But when you build ventures for banks in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), you’re in for exactly the opposite type of culture shock. E-Government there has made such progress during Covid-19 that we can be envious. Even financial applications under the tightest security are simpler, more user-friendly, and faster.

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