5 World Brands With Great Content

Gaining insights from the top of each industry

6 min readAug 8, 2019

While there are thousands of brands today to use as examples for success in our world, something truly commendable is the ability to build an original content plan from scratch and have people love it. And what better brands to look at than the ones we all know of? Brands that have found renowned success on a global scale through their own unique approach — by building their own platforms — and sometimes even being the first to attempt their marketing strategy. They’ve skyrocketed to success, defining content creation today, and we at GoFable are sure you’ll recognize them. So here are five world renowned brands that are winners in content creation.

Ben and Jerry’s

I would highly doubt most Americans have never heard of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream. However the magic of their brand lies not in the fact that they have fantastic visibility across multiple generations, but in their stellar reputation for being a brand that cares.

Through their socially conscious marketing with flavor titles like “Save Our Swirled,” “Pecan Resist,” and “Hubby Hubby,” Ben & Jerry’s has taken a stance on subjects and issues that have nothing to do with their delicious product. These clever flavors are even affiliated with organizations that support these causes, and a portion of their profits go to the causes they support. This has given them quite a following from customers who prefer corporations who make statements about something larger than themselves — especially when these issues can affect their customer base.

While not the approach that all businesses take for original content creation, Ben & Jerry’s pull at the heart strings and does everything that great content should. They’ve gained headway over their competitors by showing they are the ice cream that cares. This initiative has found them quite at home with younger generations like Gen Y and Gen Z. And to top it off, Ben & Jerry’s even focuses their content distribution efforts primarily through Twitter and other young social media platforms so their socially just content reaches the age range of those who are most likely to support and appreciate their causes. If that is not a stellar content strategy, cleary designed with plenty of thought, I don’t know what is.

Lyft

Lyft has been all over the news lately hashing out their space in the stock markets with their ride-sharing competitor and vicious duopoly counterpart, Uber, as they have both gone public in 2019. While both giants are grappling for control, Lyft is taking the best advantage of the content marketing realm by creating an image that isn’t just about their prices and convenience. Lyft has always made a particular effort to be more than just a transportation service — they champion the idea of getting to know a wonderful stranger during your shared ride, while Uber holds a more executive and luxury air. This position alone has distinguished them from Uber, but the reason Lyft has made the list for our article is for a different reason.

Lyft has taken the beautiful opportunity to shift gears and create original videos for the entertainment of their users, without even mentioning pricing, availability, and other technicalities. For example, in December 2016 Lyft released a short film about an elderly woman named June who finds a community and purpose again in her rides after she lost her husband. By creating a touching and heartfelt story about June and her buggy (seriously, quite tear-jerking), Lyft was able to entertain customers and viewers with a topic that had nothing to do with advertising their services.

Their success has shown that by simply altering the way a customer base perceives you, Lyft was able to distinguish themselves from a very competitive counterpart in their industry. Simply from a few original content videos, without even talking about business, good content is able to create an advantage over one’s competitors, even in the harshest of industries.

Rolex

While perhaps not having as large of an immediate platform as Lyft, Rolex’s dominance in the luxury brand arena is absolutely commendable. Aside from being one of the first luxury brands to make the leap to digital marketing through Facebook in 2013, Rolex has also been around for almost 100 years. For a brand that was founded in 1920, they are doing absolutely amazing, evolving to the most current advertising strategies within an industry that is not known for swift innovation.

Beyond their commitment to keeping up with the times, Rolex has also done a grand job associating their image with the events and projects they sponsor. Their relationships with high-class experiences and similarly luxurious artists have found them as one of the brands that has best changed the public’s perception of them. Their image to always align with the companies they endorse. For example, Rolex has sponsored the Wimbledon Championships since 1978. They may have later created a timepiece with Wimbledon as its main selling point, but more value was surely gained from the image they gained from a 40-year tie with the most respected tennis competition in the world.

Remaining one of the world’s standards for perfection and elegance is a spectacular accomplishment, and their understanding of the necessity of evolution is surely what has allowed such success. Beginning with newspaper advertisements and arriving now at original digital content production must not have been easy, but it’s what it takes to stay on top for almost a century.

Under Armour

While Rolex has made it clear that adapting and evolving is the way to the future, Under Armour has shown what the future of digital content marketing holds. Under Armour is leading the exploration of user-generated content.

When a customer opens UA’s website, they are immediately greeted by the videos, pictures and accomplishments of ordinary people on their homepage. These athletes, teachers, construction workers and everyday folks are generally not even sponsored by Under Armour. They are just wearing the brand in their personal Instagram photos while doing whatever amazing tasks they normally do. From these images (which are connected to their social media accounts), one can then find a direct link to the shirts and leggings on their online shopping platform. In this way it is literally content generated by the users.

Through these more authentic media endorsements, UA is able to develop more trust and respect than if the brand had planted reviews of sponsored athletes. Other customers seem to trust and respect the reviews and opinions of other customers much more than what is said by an advertising team the public knows is constructed specifically to make the brand seem more desirable. While Under Armour may be on its own in this field now, this could very well be the pathway that most companies take when trying to increase their usership, brand loyalty and reputation.

Red Bull

Red Bull, like Rolex, is a brand that uses their relationships with other events to enhance their brand image by associating with their qualities. However, Red Bull takes it a step further than just sponsoring other company’s events and products.

Red Bull is the proud owner of Red Bull TV, a channel that specifically shows daring and exciting things, like live music and extreme sports. Not only do they produce their own original TV shows on the channel (like Sky Trippers), they make everything about the channel 100% free. That’s right, anyone can watch the shows and content they have invested LARGE amounts of money into, for not even a dollar. Why would they do this you ask? The image and visibility that they gain from this channel is worth more than the money they could gain in profit. They want it to be as accessible as possible, since the content they show will promote the image Red Bull wants to be associated with. Soon the viewers will describe Red Bull with these characteristics by themselves.

The perfect example of this would be the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series. Not only is this something they create for viewers for free, but these users now believe that Red Bull is as extreme as this extreme sport.

Conclusion

Content marketing has proven itself as one of those special things that can put a company on the map without mentioning objectives or products. Beyond that, it has opened a space for companies to create a message for themselves that gets more foot traffic than their company values page. What’s best? Each company has the freedom to do it their own way, allowing the flexibility to pursue their cause differently than every competitor.