HHCC Content | Delivering Choice-based Impressions

Think - Choice-based Impressions

At the most fundamental level, we define content as any marketing execution that people choose to spend time with. While content may deliver fewer overall impressions than traditional advertising channels like television, recent research has supported our contention that choice-based impressions (CBI's) have a disproportionate impact. In a recent study conducted with researchers from MIT and Brown University, we found that experiencing the "choice condition" increased audience recall by 32 percent and likability by 100 percent.

Make - Josh Ritter

Execution: This short film for The Responsibility Project is part of a broader series that explores the connection between responsibility and the arts. It features the acclaimed singer/songwriter Josh Ritter as he opens up about his creative process, life on the road and a performer’s duty to the audience.

Context: In 2010 on The Responsibility Project, we set out to capture the underlying sentiments of responsibility that inform all walks of art, from theater and music to culinary arts. Five films later, it’s clear to us that Broadway performers and popular musicians alike all share a deep responsibility – to their crafts, audiences, families, communities and, perhaps most importantly, to themselves.

Think - Content Taxonomy

Content comes in many forms, from documentary-style films to interactive tools and games, and every kind of content plays a specific role. Creating the right mix of content types is an important component of creating a holistic content strategy. For any project, the mix depends on the client's business needs and marketing goals. Our content taxonomy lays out six key types of content—information, infotainment, entertainment, toys, tools and services—and their various roles, that can be combined to help our clients deliver the right content to achieve their goals.

Make - Freedom Riders

Execution: The 2011 Student Freedom Ride commemorated the 50th anniversary of the original Freedom Rides, when over 400 Civil Rights activists rode interstate buses through the South to challenge racial inequality. For 10 days this past spring, 40 current college students retraced the original route of the 1961 rides from Washington, D.C. to New Orleans, LA.

Context: To amplify Liberty Mutual's sponsorship of American Experience's Freedom Riders documentary, we sent a photographer along to capture the 2011 Student Freedom Ride in its entirety. For each day throughout the ride, we uploaded a new photo slideshow to The Responsibility Project documenting the previous day's journey, and supplemented these photo galleries with excerpts from student essays and short films culled from the Freedom Riders documentary. It was a fully integrated execution that tied together both the film and the 50th anniversary initiatives.

Make - Lesster

Execution: Felicity Huffman wore many hats in making Lesster, including that of writer, director and lead actress. In the end, she created a short film that both entertained and educated, using one little boy’s mission of green responsibility as a wake-up call to realizing our own lack of environmental awareness.

Context: Felicity Huffman wrote, directed and starred in this short film about environmental awareness for The Responsibility Project. The film clearly hit a chord: In its first six months on The Responsibility Project, "Lesster" earned over 200,000 site visits and 3,000 shares.

Make - LMFAO

Execution: Music was a critical component within the MLB Fan Cave’s mission to attract younger audiences to professional baseball. And it just so happened that the Fan Cave was an ideal location for hosting live shows. As such, we had a number of top acts stop by throughout the season, and among the many highlights was a set by LMFAO, whose single “Party Rock Anthem” was arguably the hit song of the summer of 2011.

Context: Two guys. 2,464 baseball games. A 15,000-square-foot space in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. House calls from David Ortiz, Robinson Cano, Jose Bautista and dozens more of MLB’s brightest stars. Impromptu concerts, interviews, parties and events with Jesse Eisenberg, Lisa Kudrow, LMFAO, Eric Stonestreet and Tinie Tempah. All recorded, filmed, photographed, blogged and distributed via a robust online content platform. Welcome to the MLB Fan Cave.

Make - Pink’s

Execution: A seven-decade banking relationship helped legendary Pink’s Hot Dogs grow from hot dog cart to L.A. icon. Creating content is often as simple as finding the best way to tell a good story. In the case of Pink’s Hot Dogs, we thought the story was told best through several complementary content types, including this video and the essay that preceded it.

Context: Bank of America's local markets campaign strives to highlight the triumph of small businesses in the communities it supports. Using articles and videos to tell a variety of stories, like Pink's, allowed Bank of America to deliver much more depth than could have been afforded by a typical TV spot.

Think - Iterative Content Development

Unlike a traditional ad campaign, effective use of content requires ongoing development, maintenance, and optimization. Borrowing from the principles of agile software development, our content process is an iterative model that combines planning, editorial, and distribution components designed to use metrics data, business goals, and cultural input to constantly improve the performance of our content programs. Having built and scaled successful programs for multiple clients, our model has proven to be an effective and flexible method for brands of all shapes and sizes.

Make - Big Papi

Execution: We put a wrinkle in the most classic rivalry in professional sports by putting Red Sox slugger David Ortiz on the streets of Manhattan in a campaign to hug New Yorkers, and in the process created the Fan Cave’s most successful video, with well over 250,000 views on YouTube and counting.

Context: With the aim of dimensionalizing some of baseball's biggest names and bringing its emergent superstars to a mass audience, player visits to the Fan Cave quickly became humor-filled exploits that let the athletes show off their personalities in ways that don't often come through in their on-the-field behavior.

Think - Content Funnel

While content can be used to support many goals, we're always focused on delivering measurable business value to our clients. The content funnel is a framework that helps us illustrate how capitalizing on naturally occurring interests can translate into business-building behavior. The top layer of the funnel is about capturing attention by creating content that aligns with the existing interests of the target audience—often playing off of cultural touch points like music, fashion or art. It's content created by a brand, but not about a brand. The middle layer of the funnel begins to translate attention into business-building behavior by talking about the brand's role in the cultural topic. It's content about how and where the brand intersects with culture. The bottom layer of the funnel is designed to spur conversion, giving audiences the information they need to make decisions, often in the form of how-tos, tutorials and tools. Together, these types of content create engaging experiences that have been proven successful at driving substantial business returns for our clients.