As a brand whose bread and but­ter is con­tent, Conde Nast is in a unique posi­tion to weigh in on brand­ed con­tent. The media com­pa­ny can lean on a long her­itage in the con­tent busi­ness and may the­o­ret­i­cal­ly have a leg up on con­tent novices, but, like many brands, it must still find a way to pro­mote itself in the bold new dig­i­tal era.

Even a con­tent brand must cre­ate brand­ed con­tent. That’s the case with Conde Nast, whose vice pres­i­dent of cor­po­rate part­ner­ships, Josh Stinch­comb, was on the “Sto­ry­telling: The Dig­i­tal Expe­ri­ence” pan­el dur­ing New York’s Adver­tis­ing Week.

Stinch­comb shared his con­tent exper­tise and tips for oth­er brands look­ing to get in on the con­tent game.

Tip 1: Don’t Focus So Much On Data That You Lose Sight Of Everything Else

“Data with­out cre­ativ­i­ty is just noise,” Stinch­comb said. “There is a risk of being too focused on what the data tells us what we think some­one wants that we lose serendip­i­ty. We have to cau­tion against over­re­liance on data in terms of con­tent cre­ation.”

In oth­er words, brands should still go with their guts if there’s a par­tic­u­lar piece of con­tent they think will res­onate even if the data doesn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly tell them it’s the right thing to do.

At the same time, Stinch­comb said Conde Nast looks at what seg­ments of audi­ences are con­sum­ing what con­tent on its sites and takes that insight to cre­ate new, unex­pect­ed con­tent.

“Data is inter­est­ing in terms of con­nect­ing the right sto­ries with the right peo­ple,” Stinch­comb added. “A lot of data we use to think of how to con­nect back to seg­ments of audi­ences.”

Tip 2: Utilize Visual Content

Stinch­comb cit­ed the rise of the image-based web thanks to ubiq­ui­tous cam­eras as anoth­er great source of con­tent.

“Images are pow­er­ful,” he said. “We’re see­ing that become a big­ger and big­ger fac­tor in the sto­ries we tell. A her­itage can be built on pho­tog­ra­phy for a lot of brands that aren’t used to telling sto­ries.”

Tip 3: Consumers Are Consuming Content, Not Collaborating

For his part, Stinch­comb said the notion of col­lab­o­ra­tion is “over­stat­ed.” He con­ced­ed there is an oppor­tu­ni­ty for per­son­al­iza­tion, but notes con­tent mar­ket­ing remains most­ly a giver/recipient rela­tion­ship.

“Most peo­ple are con­sumers, not cre­ators,” he added.

Tip 4: Proceed With Caution And Preserve Brand Integrity

“There are some advan­tages com­ing from being a lega­cy busi­ness in this space,” Stinch­comb said. “There’s cash flow, con­tent infrastructure…there’s a lot we have going for us, but it’s how we mix [con­tent and dig­i­tal that] we take seri­ous­ly…”

As a result, Stinch­comb said his brand may have a rep­u­ta­tion for being risk- or change-averse, but Conde Nast doesn’t want to be cav­a­lier.

“We’re cau­tious about pre­serv­ing the integri­ty of our brands,” Stinch­comb said. “There’s a huge oppor­tu­ni­ty for brands like us to lever­age assets that want to do busi­ness with Conde Nast and find­ing the right ways to have these things coex­ist.”

Tip 5: Start With The Editorial

He cit­ed a long­form native piece on Wired for the Net­flix series “Orange is the New Black” as a good piece of con­tent mar­ket­ing.

“You have to start with the edi­to­r­i­al. What’s going to inter­est con­sumers? What’s some­thing you can own?” he asked. “That’s the approach we’re tak­ing.”

He added that if a brand is start­ing its con­tent mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy with a prod­uct in mind, it should prob­a­bly just make an ad.

Tip 6: Think Digital Video

In addi­tion, Stinch­comb not­ed Conde Nast is “mak­ing huge bet on dig­i­tal video” and launched 11 chan­nels about 18 months ago.

“It’s a huge under­tak­ing in devel­op­ing script­ed, real­i­ty-based, how-to videos, but what we’re see­ing — espe­cial­ly among Mil­len­ni­als – is that’s the pre­ferred way.”

What’s your take on this media com­pa­ny’s per­spec­tive on con­tent mar­ket­ing? Is it use­ful for your own efforts?