The Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as, "a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience- with the objective of driving profitable customer action." There is a blurred line between if content marketing is advertising or marketing, and in all honesty, it is a mixture of both. Content marketing is done best when you are showcasing your brand or product, in a way that consumers want to watch, react to, or share with their friends- they will actively seek out your content. Recently, you may have seen on our Twitter we really enjoyed Listerine's 'Feel Every Smile' campaign- with the tag line, "Your smile is more powerful than you think." The concept of the video is to show how important your smile is, with blind people telling the camera how life changing it would be to see strangers, friends and families smiles, and then being introduced to Listerine's app which is a motion detector camera which vibrates when people are smiling at the individual. Listerine 'believe in the power of smiles'- and in doing so, in a round about way, enforced by the end text, "Listerine Advanced White," encourage you to look after your teeth. They aren't encouraging product placement, or making actors talk about how fresh their breath is, which many people would skip over, but creating a moving 3.5 minute video is much more valuable promoting their brand as people actively find it to watch- proved by the 1,577,478 watch count at the time I'm writing this! 

https://youtu.be/9L8P3XZ9mIo

There are examples of content marketing everywhere- from Disney producing a video of their cast creating a 'hashtag' in their themepark, to Intelligentsia Coffee having 'Brew Guides'- PDFs giving you a step by step guide- from filling the kettle, to using their particular coffee beans to create their perfect coffee- from a Chemex Brew to a French Press Brew. The coffee means they can help people create an at home perfect coffee, without having to go to a coffee house- and pay their prices! Disney know lots of their fans love extra content of behind the scenes magic, and so the blogs and videos they give their fans well wanted glimpses. Their channel promotes their events- such as Halloween at Disney, but also produces videos such as, "Rehearsals for Tangled the musical" or "Magic Kingdom Park transforms for Fall"- videos which are constantly reminding viewers of their brand, creating an excitement around the parks, and showing the fun and relaxed atmosphere at the parks- all things which will make people want to go- attempting to increase visitors at their parks as an end result.

 
intelligentsia
 
Whether your content marketing strategy is videos, photos, help guides, infographics, books- the list is endless, the fact you are using it as a strategy to garner sales, or awareness of your business is  very important. Consumers may not realise they need your product or service, however when they see your fun and creative marketing strategy, they may gain some value from it- they see the advert about the smile app from Listerine, they think what a wonderful idea that is and what a contribution Listerine have made to the blind community, and be more inspired to pick up the listerine product over another item. It seems a far fetched idea, but when you think of your own shopping strategy, you're probably much more likely to pick up a product you know of, exposure through the media is one of the top ways we are introduced to brands, and their ideals are important to consumers.
 
The most important part of content marketing is to add value from what you are producing- when you're wanting to watch a YouTube video, if the 5 seconds before you can skip the advert is the longest 5 seconds of your life, the advert isn't successful content marketing. If you are interested enough to watch beyond the 5 seconds, it means the video holds some value, whether its entertaining or is giving information, and regardless of the company promoting their business, you still were inspired to watch the rest of the video and be more exposed to their product whilst recieving value in exchange- it's a two way street with content marketing- they want you to be exposed to their product, and you want quality content to watch and share with your freinds.