Copyright Aaron Durand (@everydaydude) for Twitter, Inc.
Last week, Twitter unveiled a new program called #Fuel to offer advertisers end-to-end creative advice. #Fuel is an expansion of Twitter's branding team, which is already helping brands create content. It might sound confusing. it disturbed me. Why would Twitter need another branded content team, not to mention one that is hosted in its existing branded content team?
It turns out that #Fuel aims to serve the types of brands that Twitter's global branding strategy team does not work – ones that "have not grown big on Twitter," according to the Twitter brand director Stacy Minero. Winning on these brands is crucial for the social network as it hopes to reverse the recent slowdown in its advertising business.
In an interview this week, Minero explained why Twitter felt the need to spawn another team of branded content and explained how this team was working with brands like Bank of America to quickly create campaigns.
The following transcript has been slightly modified for length and clarity.
Marketing Land: Twitter has its branding team working with marketers to find content for tweets and brand ads on Twitter. Now he has #Fuel, who is part of the branding team and seems to play a similar role. How does #Fuel's work differ from the work that the rest of Twitter's branding team is already doing?
Minero: We launched #Fuel earlier this year because of a need we were seeing in the market. And it's an opportunity to actually support more customers, more brands that are great marketers but have not done much on Twitter yet. Really give them the tools and techniques to realize their potential on the platform.
There are three components to #Fuel. We have a content strategy; activation of the campaign, which is really creativity; and then the video editing. And the video editing is completely new to the branding team from this year. That's what we brought to the market to help brands optimize their content for the feed and make it more native to the platform.
ML: Are there any rules of thumb that could help a brand determine if it would be appropriate for #Fuel?
Minero: [They would be a fit] If they have a marketing plan but they have not understood the role that Twitter plays in this marketing or communication plan and how to use some creative tools and products to really connect with the audience and generate business results.
We always talk about helping brands get disproportionate attention. I think that they understand the why behind this, but they do not really have the how. We work hand-in-hand with them to help them find ideas, put them on the market and help them support their marketing efforts.
ML: Does #Fuel work with brands on the content of their tweets and advertising campaigns?
Minero: When we help brands define a content strategy, we always think about mixing or balancing the organic and the paid. Organic is really about to reach your existing customers, and paid off reaches your prospects. So we focus on the last part of this equation, which helps brands reach new audiences and impact businesses.
ML: Twitter has described #Fuel as "an agile fast response center that responds quickly to creative files." This sounds like one of the branded content writing rooms that were talked about after the Oreo Super. Bowl tweet. Is this part of what is #Fuel?
Minero: I do not want to belabour this point. We start experimenting with content in real time. We did it for the first time two weeks ago when Bank of America activated "Friends Again". It was around the day "Pay Back a Friend". They saw trending topics around small business owners and wanted to seize this opportunity. We helped them to edit and adapt some existing content to make them more social and more food-friendly. Most of what we are doing right now is optimizing campaign resources before a moment or a launch. The quick answer is something we are just starting to experiment.
ML: How does #Fuel optimize the assets of the campaign?
Minero: When we think about content optimization, there is something longer to shorten, because we know that videos under 15 seconds lead to a picture. encoding of memory. We think about loading the video to create a narrative plot and punch in the first frames. And then we think to add legends. When you think about cognition and processing a story in the stream, these captions can help understand the key messages.
ML: In regards to # Fuel's video editing services, do brands share their raw video files and the Twitter team publishes them in an original video, or the brands take they a longer video? to cut it into a shorter version?
Minero: Both. We try to browse through their entire catalog of assets to assemble the best story. There have been cases where we have had several files, and we are in the process of aggregating them into a new asset. And in other cases, we take a TV ad and adapt it to make it shorter or optimized for mobile.
ML: Are brands able to take content produced with #Fuel and use it elsewhere, such as a six-second video that can be broadcast on Twitter, but also on YouTube or on a YouTube channel? TV spot?
Minero: Once we have edited and adapted the content, we send it back to the client partner, and it's theirs to use on all platforms.
ML: Are there financial conditions for a brand to work with #Fuel?
Minero: We believe that we are investing in partners invested on Twitter. We are committed to these partners to put them in place to succeed. We just want to see some investment in the platform to make sure that we are allocating our resources in the right way.
ML: Is it an investment that a brand has spent a certain amount of money on to advertise on Twitter in the past or that a brand name? commit to spending some money in the future?
Minero: Usually, we do not list commitments publicly. We try to be as flexible as possible based on potential growth with a partner. I'm just going to stop there.
ML: What is the lead time for #Fuel for a campaign?
Minero: When we get an asset on the video front, we can actually turn around within 24 hours, depending on the customer's response time or the sophistication of the client. edition. The time of day is pretty standard.
At the activation level of the campaign, when we receive a briefing, we can often reverse the ideas within 72 hours. It may take time to plan and execute, but the concept itself and the beginning of the ideas can happen quite quickly.
ML: The idea for brands to work with #Fuel once or twice, to learn what they need to learn in terms of quick creative tailoring to Twitter, then incorporate that by themselves or work with #Fuel on a longer and more sustained term?
Minero: Our goal is always to inspire and educate the brand and the agency to do their best. Then we work with them to create memorable experiences and generate impact. When we talk about more immersive things, whether it's live broadcast or chatbots, they will still help us build those experiences for the consumer.
When it comes to telling stories, they tell these stories; we are just helping to make them more resonant on the platform. So part of what we do is education, and part of what we do is build experiences. I think the last part is where they can rely on us stronger.
ML: In the past, you said that Twitter's branding team does not compete with agencies because it does not focus on production. #Fuel seems more focused on production. Is it competitive with agencies?
Minero: I do not think it's competitive with agencies because we are a complement to what they do. We are not competing for services. There have been instances where we have worked with creative agencies and made some guidelines to make their content work harder on Twitter.
When it comes to developing ideas, we come upstream with agency partners to understand the marketing mission, their communication and their creative strategy, and then build something that really amplifies the work. that they already create.
