John Lynch of award-winning digital agency e3 spoke at the Bath & Bristol Marketing Network on 26th March about their work with the Royal Navy and delivered a masterclass in digital storytelling.
Full details of the talk and upcoming events here: http://www.marketing-network.org/catch-up/overcoming-sea-blindness-deliver-successful-digital-strategy/
7. 7 July 23, 2013
“A worryingly low percentage of the British population
have any level of understanding as to how relevant
the Royal Navy is to the Nation."
8. 8 July 23, 2013
Defense spending
under pressure
8
32. Information architecture – story telling
− Defining the top level
hierarchy
− Understanding the
different user views
− Understanding how
content connects
41. Substance
• The message
Workflow
• Volume and frequency
and people responsible
• Updating Process
Governance
• Decisions on strategy
• Responsibility for
quality control?
Structure
• Organisation
• Priority and format
Content strategy
Content
Strategy
45. 27 March 2015 45
In Summary website content must…
1. Have a clear audiences
2. Have strong inspirational or informational value
3. Be in the most appropriate tone
4. Be in the most engaging format
5. Be labelled intuitively
6. Be actionable - Have a clear next step
Thanks
E3 digital agency
Here to tell you about our work with the Royal Navy.
Been working with them for past 3 years
Social
Digital strategy.
Campaigns
Retention
A bit about e3.
The Navy has multiple challenges that we have worked with them to solve,
Today focus on how we have used digital storytelling to help meet the some of these challenges.
First up.
Royal Navy, unique.
16th century 500 year old organisation.
Heritage, 35,000 staff, key to England's security as an island nation.
Digital landscape has changed.
How does the Navy tell its stories in compelling ways to achieve their goals?
Capability = equipment + people.
People = recruit and retain
Equipment = money!
Against a backdrop of soaring public debt, defence spending is under close scrutiny. Every penny must be justified.
Furthermore 2015 will see the next SDSR and a general election.
The future is therefore uncertain and it’s more important than ever for the Royal Navy to clearly articulate the case for continued funding.
The public don’t know what we do….
This has always been an issue for the navy.
A grey ship on a grey horizon.
Navy 6 key messages.
Preventing Conflict
Providing Security at Sea
Promoting Partnerships
Providing Humanitarian Assistance
Protecting our Economy
Ready to Fight
Disinteresedt teenager
So this is the very high level summary of your objectives that we will take forward into the solution design process.
Navy has loyal supporters
Proud serving personnel
Passionate extended family (diaspora)
Navy has loyal supporters
Proud serving personnel
Passionate extended family (diaspora)
If you remember, the Personal Audiences are those on the left of our diagram - those with a personal connection to the Navy. Those who form the wider navy family. It’s true that much of the ‘Youth‘ segment is not connected yet, but reaching out to wider youth is handled separately - we are focused here on those who are considering joining, or who have made the decision to join and are simply deciding what to apply for, or indeed those that are in the application process already.
Navy produces loads of news stories that it shares on its site and channels
News stories like (e.g e.g. e.g.)
This is brilliant… right?
Drive by content.
Actually… no
News has little cache and little impact.
News by itself wasn’t achieving the Navys goals.
And the users don't care.
Low social sharing
Low page visits to important messages
Who Why What When and How
Stories are like Features that need more narrative.
Navy has amazing people doing amazing things
Not stunts (RedBull Stratos)
Stories that are lasting not ephemeral
Real stories of Integrity, adventure, heroism and courage
Difference between stories and news?
Telling these stories effectively will
Communicate our core message payload (inspire / make the case)
Engage a new generation to create their own stories with the Navy (recruit)
Inspire the supporters and make the current staff proud (retain)
Engage advocates to share our message (virtuous cycle)
Less drive by
And whilst this premium content does require some upfront investment it pays for itself by generating inbound traffic over a longer period of time. Yesterdays news by definition has little value, but a crafted and authoritative piece of content on certain issue has a longer shelf life and can be returned to again and again.
Authority
Navy can hold authority over certain topics,
Heroisim, pride, service, loyalty…..
The key is to expand the place where the message you want to send is bundled in content that the target user is interested in. It’s about being relevant. Thinking about things from the user’s perspective.
We need to tell stories not just because we can but because they are relevant
We would then develop a top level taxonomy for each key section which can then be expanded during the sprint process. Methodologies include running a workshop with the client to develop the taxonomy and also using user testing tools such as Treejack
to test taxonomy online with real users - we can tailor the methods used depending on your requirements.
(ii) Thinking about how content and data connect.
(iii) Developing a top level sitemap from this work.
Lists top 10 pirates, buzz feed,
5 page Sunday times supplement.
Tom hanks film.
What makes up a brand? Lots of elements not just colours, logo and font. How do we bring your brand values to life?
Photography – RN value – courage
Responcive design patterns that are common for the audience
Interaction design that the audience would be use (during work and outside of work)
Key consideration for RN was how we bring facts to life – infographics overlaid onto imagery
Responsive
Collaboration – WCRS, Carat and MEC
Applications Up 45%
Voted number 3 career site in UK after Microsoft and Rolls Royce
Short listed for 9 awards this year including best Public sector
Won the Army business
Digital CRM program
Planning what your content should be and having the people and process in place to execute it
Stops people generating content in an adhoc fashion with no consistency which is always the danger
Core strategy defines how you will use content to meet your objectives and user needs
1 in ??? To 1 in
Social media has created a new playing field. Traditional media no-longer has a monopoly over the story. We now have an opportunity to directly influence public opinion through social media, which in turn has an effect on traditional media, which reflects back into social adding fuel to the fire. Decision makers are able to listen to this conversation in more sophisticated, digitally enabled, ways.
This is a test you need to apply to all items of content – if it doesn’t do these things it shouldn’t be going online – I’m going to go through each one in more detail