Eat, Sleep and Think Content
Yesterday, in the Chelsea area of New York City, hundreds gathered at the Metropolitan Pavilion for NewsCred’s #ThinkContent Summit. With executives from leading companies like Buzzfeed, Vice and Spotify, the momentum filled the house from start to end.
Stacy Minero, Head of Content Planning at Twitter, said it best, “The best part of this conference is you have all different parts of the industry, but we’re all united in this belief that content marketing is king.” Brand marketers, public relations practitioners, journalists and advertising execs gathered for a full day to get nuggets on creating worthy content and establishing a human brand that consumers can connect with.
Content Strategy that Wins

Left to right: Alicianne Rand, VP of Marketing, NewsCred; David Lang, Chief Content Officer, Mindshare; Vin Farrell, Global Chief Content Officer, Havas Worldwide; and John McCarus, SVP, Practice Lead, Social.Content, DigitasLBi
“Every brand has a story to tell and that story is not about the brand. It’s about the consumer and you have to really focus on consumer-centric ideas.” – David Lang
The New Media Model
Jonah Peretti, CEO of Buzzfeed took the stage and enlightened us about the new media model and just like the first time I met him, he ran his presentation on the very thing marketers are maximizing in storytelling: charisma and humor.
Jonah touched on crucial armors of Buzzfeed: communication and content sharing. People are using content to spark communication and connect with each other. You all remember how much convos, and laughs, were shared by knowing what city you are destined to live in or what pop star you embody.
News Does Matter to Millennials
When you think of millennials and news, you think of Vice! Vice’s platform was created on the foundation of telling stories that matter most to young people. Eddy Moretti, Chief Creative Officer at Vice, stated that years ago there grew an acute crisis in media and it was because millennials were losing trust in media outlets. So in 1994, founders Suroosh Alvi and Shane Smith, wanted to create a platform that would cater to and actively engage millennials.
Eddy mentioned the pushback and how people believed Vice couldn’t happen. So how did they do it? They directly asked millennials what they care about and millennials told them that, “part of being an adult, is engaging with our world.” The creators of Vice moved forward and waited for what would happen next. “To immerse ourselves in this, we have to press record and watch it while it happens,” said Eddy Moretti.
Again, NewsCred outdid themselves with this year’s #ThinkContent summit. For more recaps and photos, check the #ThinkContent feed on Twitter and NewsCred’s blog.