In a surprising twist to the rapidly evolving art of brand storytelling, a top Nissan media executive unveiled a new hybrid form of brand content -- the truckumentary -- and how it can be used to launch a new product. It all began, Jeannie Whited, senior manager-executive communications & Media Center operations at Nissan Motor Co., told Content Marketing Insider Summit attendees this morning, when one of her marketing communications colleagues came to the team with the idea of "making a truckumentary" to help launch the story surrounding the launch of Nissan's new Titan truck this fall. He was like …

Columbia Sportswear's Scott Trepanier gave a behind the scenes look at how the company targets, distributes and optimizes their branded content at scale for maximum reach and consumer engagement.

Speaking at the MediaPost Content Marketing Insider Summit, Andrew Susman, president of Studio One Networks, asked whether native content can be transactional.Dave Lavine, chief revenue officer of Hone, responded that it is more about communication. "All users are asking for feedback. We are saying 'we think we know what you want, and we are going to put it in front of you.'" He adds: "Most people are saying, ‘You got close but you missed. Good idea; bad execution. All you needed to do is ask.' There has to be a better way to communicate.”Jon Lewis, vp of content for …

Expedia's Jason Rubenstein's presentation to the MediaPost Content Marketing Insider Summit moved many in the audience to tears.That's okay, it was by design.

Studio One Networks President and Founder Andrew Susman opened the panel he was moderating at the Content Marketing Insider Summit in Scottsdale, Az., on an emotional note. Segueing from preceding keynoter Expedia's Jason Rubenstein's emotionally-charged presentation, Susman noted, "Everybody has been talking empathy [at the summit], but I don't think I've ever seen anyone crying at a trade conference."

Sending a shiver down many a marketer's spine, experts are presenting talking about UGC (!) at MediaPost's Content Marketing Insider Summit. Yes, having backfired a time or two, UGC campaigns make many brands "nervous," admitted Beth Tomkiw, Chief Client Officer at McMurry/TMG. But user generated content need not put a brand's reputation at risk, she insisted. Take a campaign the consulting firm did with UPS, which encouraged customers to send in their favorite driver stories -- rather than encourage people to share their stories via social media channels. That way, the brand and partner agency were able to safely package …

Other than an obsession with getting home, there are two other things Major League Baseball and Coldwell Banker Real Estate have in common: places where the heart is. In a keynote presentation at the Content Marketing Insider Summit in Scottsdale, Az., Vice President-Brand Engagement Davie Marine explained how the real estate brand leveraged that common narrative to create a unique form of empathy among consumers.

Empathy is the answer for brands looking to cut through the content clutter, according to David Marine, Vice President of Brand Engagement at Coldwell Banker Real Estate. It's about "being able to say you've walked a mile in users' shoes," Marine told attendees of MediaPost's Content Marketing Insider Summit, on Friday. It's about "telling a story about human relationships ... even between brands and people." Fortunately for Coldwell Banker, "Buying a home is an extremely emotional experience," said Marine. In practice, this translated to Coldwell Banker Home Field Advantage -- a partnership between Coldwell Banker and Major League Baseball, which …

The success of video is no secret, but content marketers say it's an even better deal than you might imagine. Not only is "video killing it," but it's cost is dropping, too, Brittany Richter, Associate Director of Social Media at iProspect, told attendees of MediaPost's Content Marketing Insider Summit, on Thursday. Yet, marketers are still having trouble getting budgets set aside for good content. Ellen Sirull, Senior Marketing Manager of Content at Experian Consumer Services, this is the first year her department was actually given a budget. "I got really good at spending other peoples' money," she joked, referring to …

“Content is the panacea, but we’re not actually very good at it,” Allen Gannett, CEO and founder of TrackMaven told Content Marketing Insider Summit attendees this morning during a presentation. According to a recent study from TrackMaven, a growing majority of professional marketing content fails to have an impact. The marketing research firm found that while the content output per brand has increased 78 percent from the start of 2013 to the end of 2014, content engagement actually decreased 60 percent. That raises the obvious question: is more content necessarily better?  “We are publishing more and more content than ever before, and …