Brett Pulley: Content is everything

Efemena Efeurhoboe
e055313@ohio.edu

Smart moves

Brett Pulley, a very well established man, is the Executive vice president at Weber Shandwick. One of the world’s leading PR/advertising/marketing firms with offices in 79 cities that covers 80 countries.

18 months after Instagram was created in April 2012 Facebook bought Instagram for a whopping 1 billion dollars. People might ask, "Why?", "How did they know Instagram would be such a big hit?". The potential that they saw in this social media platform was it's ability to create content. Nothing more, nothing less, a concept that was so simple. Although, yes the price was rather expensive, but look at Instagram now. 

This was one of the biggest and smartest moves Facebook has ever done, and is probably one of the best buys of the century. "Emarket predicts Instagram will bring in 595 million in ad revenue this year, which is no drop in the bucket relative to Facebook's 12.4 billion last year. A Wall Street analyst said in December that Instagram is worth 35 billion."-Source (fortune.com)

Flash forward to 2017 look at Instagram now. It it was of the biggest social media platforms in the world with over 800 million monthly active users. -Source (statista.com). Instagram has a ton of features like: allowing users to post "stories" (modeled after Snapchat), direct message, share photos, like them, and in some cases create a business. There are a ton of boutiques and shops that even got started from Instagram as well as famous Instagram "influencers" making money off of sponsored content.

This era

"Most of our lives era of extreme fascination of new platforms and gadgets"- Bret Pulley

This raises the question of: "What kind of stories can you tell in this new world of digital media?" One thing we must note is that media is an art form,and that it is a form of communication. It is highly important for brands to be extraordinary communicators. This is where Brett Pulley's company Weber Shandwick comes in and helps out different brands.

Different steps that are needed to craft a good story Brett Pulley notes are as follows: Having an anecdote, meaningful colorful detail, personification, knowledge, facts, background, and history.

You can do anything

A very key insight that is worth noting is having a clear and precise understanding of what action you want the reader to take. We can look at the new Barbie campaign. The new Barbie Campaign gives Barbie a more inclusive look. Barbie is now marketed and targeted to girls of all races and colors. They have also expanded more of Barbie's professions that she takes on. Now instead of the traditional white Barbie that only had professions such as, a house mom, and a cook. Barbie is made in all different types of shades and has professions such as, president, professor or an astronaut. This has made to be one of the most brilliant and most successful campaigns. The clear action for the reader to take is to "Imagine the Possibilities" as the campaign says and to have young girls be inspired. 

From writing about gambling in America and covering social and political issues around the world, to being apart of the most successful campaigns in the advertising and pr industry, we can all agree that Brett Pulley is a man of many talents and skills. His advice is "As you pursue opportunities don’t overestimate the value of all the communications you exchange " From the Barbie campaign I must finally note their powerful slogan that resonated with me, "You can be anything".