“Content is king!” has been ringing in marketers’ ears ever since Bill Gates made the proclamation in a 1996 essay. In it, he predicted all companies would eventually become Internet publishers. But only recently have many brands truly recognized the power of producing content about their customers’ interests as a way to attract them and grow their business. This list of 50 Brands to Watch in 2012 is our way of honoring the pioneers who have built thriving content marketing operations, paving the way for the rest of us who are now taking up the strategy.
During 2011, our team members at Kapost were entrenched on the frontlines of Internet publishing, working with a diverse spectrum of content creators—legacy journalists, leading brands, industry influencers, and others—to meet their publishing needs. That work exposed us to various brands and businesses that were leading the charge in digital content marketing. We followed their efforts closely throughout the fourth quarter of 2011 to better understand their processes and operations.
While our initial selection of 75 brands to track was subjective, we used a variety of metrics to analyze and determine the top 50 rankings for this list. (Read about our full methodology here). Our partners at Click Z have published the top 10, with the remaining 40 in our own slideshow.
Since the outset of this project and the launching of the Marketeer, we’ve been introduced to numerous other content marketing efforts that certainly deserve a mention here. But we stuck with our initial 50 for the sake of completing our research and sharing it with you, our readers. After all, a comprehensive list of content marketing efforts would be futile. Instead, our intention is to add new brands to this inaugural list throughout 2012 and share their stories with you regularly at the Marketeer. We’ll be gathering information as the year moves along and look forward to researching an even larger sample of brands the next time around.
Until then, we hope you’re as inspired as we are by the hard work and dedication of the brand publishers on this list. And we anticipate your nominations for others to consider for 2013. Please share them with us via the forms available after each entry here. Happy reading.Research and reporting provided by Cameron Naish and Will Riseley.
Click here to view The Content Marketeer 50: Brands to Watch in 2012, #11-50 →
The Full List
Rank | Brand | Content Marketing Index |
---|---|---|
1 | American Express | 400 |
2 | Intuit | 384 |
3 | General Mills | 377 |
4 | Mr. Porter | 373 |
5 | IBM | 365 |
6 | Kate Spade | 363 |
7 | Williams-Sonoma | 350 |
8 | Cisco | 347 |
9 | Verizon | 347 |
10 | Liberty Mutual | 346 |
11 | P&G (HomemadeSimple) | 345 |
12 | Birchbox | 344 |
13 | Unilever (Degree Men) | 342 |
14 | Patagonia | 340 |
15 | L’Oreal | 337 |
16 | GE | 336 |
17 | P&G (ManoftheHouse) | 335 |
18 | Bergdorf Goodman | 332 |
19 | Tory Burch | 331 |
20 | Eloqua | 324 |
21 | Whole Foods | 321 |
22 | The Boston Consulting Group | 318 |
23 | Adobe | 317 |
24 | Marketo | 317 |
25 | Anthropologie | 315 |
26 | Zillow | 315 |
27 | Zappos | 314 |
28 | Fiskars | 311 |
29 | Southwest Airlines | 308 |
30 | Sun Life Financial | 306 |
31 | AT&T | 303 |
32 | Playstation | 301 |
33 | SEOMoz | 299 |
34 | Kelly Outsourcing and Consulting | 296 |
35 | Barneys New York | 294 |
36 | Deloitte | 292 |
37 | Radian 6 | 292 |
38 | Starbucks | 292 |
39 | Dell | 290 |
40 | P&G (BeingGirl) | 289 |
41 | Amazon | 287 |
42 | Target | 287 |
43 | Evernote | 278 |
44 | Macy’s | 267 |
45 | The Gap | 266 |
46 | AtTask | 262 |
47 | Pepsico | 259 |
48 | Ebay | 250 |
49 | Wegmans | 250 |
50 | SAP | 247 |