Well, that shouldn't be surprising coming from the RTB Insider Summit's opening keynote Michael Weaver. After all, his title at Coca-Cola Co. is director o data strategy. But the way he sees it, the progression of "precision marketing" has evolved from "owned and earned" media that Coca-Cola has some control over to "paid," which has historically been controlled by the people who sell it to the people who pay for it -- you know, media suppliers (and the data companies that supply them with insights about how, why, when and where consumers interact with their medium).

With publishers and networks under intense financial pressure, it's never been more difficult for news divisions to maintain their editorial independence. Take AOL and its "This Built America" video series, which is sponsored by Ford. Fara Warner, Editorial Director of Aol Tech, has had to fight to keep the series from turning into one big advertorial for the car company. "You'll never see a Ford truck drive through any of our stories," Warner told attendees of MediaPost's Content Marketing Insider Summit on Wednesday. Testing the church-state divide, Ford recently wanted Warner and her team to remove a mention of General …

Fara Warner, editorial director of AOL Tech, shared some interesting behind-the-scenes insights about working with big brands on the production of branded content. In this case, it is AOL's new series, "This Built America," which is sponsored by auto giant Ford. The series, which features short video vignettes profiling and chronicling companies and organizations that are the unsung heroes of American industry, is produced with 100% editorial integrity, Warner said, adding, "You will never see a Ford truck drive through any of our videos."

Speaking at MediaPost’s Content Marketing Insider Summit, Fara Warner, editorial director of AOL Tech, talked about a recent series of stories looking at businesses in U.S., called “This Built America,” where Ford Motor is a sponsor.In one piece, focusing the company Shinola, which is based in Detroit, the story talked about how company’s headquarters was "in the shadow of the former GM headquarters”.  Warner was asked by AOL's program director -- who was in contact with Ford Motor executives -- if it was possible to take out the words GM out of the story. She said: “No. …

You might expect a panel on content marketing to begin with a discussion about serials, but the opening "Contextualized" panel at the Content Marketing Insider Summit kicked off with a conversation about cereals.That's because moderator Adam Naide, executive director of marketing/social media at Cox Communications, is also a cereal buff. "My latest cereal is a little out," confessed Chris Kilroy, senior director of digital integration and content development at CNN, who also described himself as a cereal fan: "Barbara's Cinnamon Puffins from Whole Foods."

It's not unusual for accomplished advertising men to get their start in ways that have little to do with the ad business. After all, David Ogilvy worked as everything from a door-to-door salesman to a French chef before finding a path to Madison Avenue. John Dukakis described a similar story this morning during a keynote conversation with Content Marketing Insider Summit chief Steve Smith. Dukakis, who has been senior vice president and director of content for Boston-based Hill Holliday, began his professional life facing the jaws of death, literally. He was a child actor in Steven Spielberg's "Jaws II."

What makes a good social-listening tool? It all "starts with people who want to listen, and who are curious," said Ian Fitzpatrick, founding partner and Chief Strategy Officer at Boston-based agency Almighty. On a deeper level, a good social listener is one who can "accept multiple, conflicting truths," rather than those who insist on forcing contradictory data into oversimplified packages, Fitzpatrick told attendees of MediaPost's Content Marketing Insider Summit on Tuesday. Having recently sat through what felt like "50 million demos," Marisa Guerrero, Social Media Specialist at Nautilus, got a good feel for the social listening marketplace. As far as …

Why are brands struggling with their content strategies? Nicole Bohorad, Senior Manager of Social Media Marketing at Capital One, counted the ways on Tuesday. First off, "We're not prepared to develop content," she told attendees of MediaPost's Content Marketing Insider Summit. (According to research cited by Bohorad, 70% of marketers lack a coherent content strategy.) Making matters worse, most brands are "not organized to manage content across their company," Bohorad said. At Capital One, she said, a least six other teams are probably working on content at any given time, and the communication between those teams needs to be improved. …

A marketer’s target audience has always been important, but there is a bigger question to ask when it comes to content marketing. Speaking at the MediaPost’s Content Marketing Insider Summit, Dan Rubin, executive director of digital strategy of MXM, says while a target audience is important to determine, there’s a more pressing question to ask -- how is your target audience going to share content? Marketers still want to be “viral” with content but this shouldn’t be confused with planning. “Viral isn’t a strategy; it’s an outcome,” says Jeff Smith, VP/South of Buzzfeed. Content marketing creation …

When it comes to showing great examples of brand content, Lee Topar, Director of Online Marketing at GoPro, is a tough act to follow. But when you think about the brand he represents, he has an unfair advantage, because GoPro is inherently a brand that people use to create amazing content. So all he had to do is show some. Specifically, he showed three examples. I'm going to embed the first two below, because they show the extremes of content you can find people using to document heroic personal experiences via a GoPro Hero camera. The first one featured a …