* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Download Content marketing: A review of academic literature and future
Streaming media wikipedia , lookup
Marketing channel wikipedia , lookup
Affiliate marketing wikipedia , lookup
Multi-level marketing wikipedia , lookup
Ad blocking wikipedia , lookup
Target audience wikipedia , lookup
Ambush marketing wikipedia , lookup
Neuromarketing wikipedia , lookup
Marketing strategy wikipedia , lookup
Audience measurement wikipedia , lookup
Social commerce wikipedia , lookup
Guerrilla marketing wikipedia , lookup
Marketing plan wikipedia , lookup
Marketing communications wikipedia , lookup
Marketing research wikipedia , lookup
Integrated marketing communications wikipedia , lookup
Direct marketing wikipedia , lookup
Multicultural marketing wikipedia , lookup
Youth marketing wikipedia , lookup
Social media marketing wikipedia , lookup
Social media and television wikipedia , lookup
Marketing mix modeling wikipedia , lookup
Green marketing wikipedia , lookup
Sensory branding wikipedia , lookup
Street marketing wikipedia , lookup
Advertising campaign wikipedia , lookup
Viral marketing wikipedia , lookup
Content marketing: A review of academic literature and future research directions Paper presented at emma conference 2015, May 27-29 of 2015 at the Business School of the University of Hamburg, Germany Keywords: content marketing, digital content marketing, digital content, credibility Songming Feng ([email protected]) and Mart Ots ([email protected]) Media Management & Transformation Center (MMTC), Jönköping International Business School Address: JIBS AB, MMTC, Box 1026, Gjuterigatan 5, SE-551 11 Jönköping, Sweden Abstract In a world where traditional advertising gets a decreasing share of marketing budgets, companies seek new ways to engage their target audiences. In the intersection between paid, owned and earned media, content marketing has quickly become an industry buzzword. However, as a rising phenomenon, content marketing is a relatively unexplored area for academic research and the term itself lacks proper definition. This paper conducts a review of academic publications related to this topic, identifying key research streams, their core assumptions, and their theoretical underpinnings. There are gaps of knowledge and blind alleys, but the theoretical frameworks, research designs, and methodologies in previous studies are helpful references for stimulating ideas for future research about content marketing. A number of potential sub-fields or research topics are identified and discussed for future academic research. 1. Introduction Whereas the economic decline of traditional media has attracted substantial academic attention, there are paralleling, largely neglected, processes of constructing tomorrow’s content industries. One example is the silent rise of corporate-funded media as demonstrated by the phenomenon called “content marketing”. Funded by companies or brands, content marketing been generating increasing amount of content online, some of which is on par quality-wise with that of traditional media. A once partner and sponsor of media outlets, the corporate world, is reducing spending on traditional media and instead start to take over the latter’s job. Content marketing has become a buzzword for corporate marketers as more and more companies or brands are planning to be the publisher of their own content, delivered through a variety of new media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube. Companies like Red Bull, American Express and Burger King are considering turning themselves into a “media company” by setting up content creation operations inhouse. Instead of advertising, the shift is towards publishing. Companies of all types and sizes flood the market with articles, white papers, videos, podcasts, Facebook posts, and tweets. Reshaped to look like digital newsrooms, corporate communications teams begin to prioritize and produce high-quality brand content at scale to power owned media sites, social media, and real-time communications efforts. Speaking at the 2012 Global PR Summit organized by the Holmes Report, Silicon Valley Content marketing: A review of academic literature and future research directions Page 1 of 17 veteran Tom Foremski wondered if a company might one day win the Pulitzer Prize (Shah & Sudhaman, 2013). According to a 2014 survey conducted by the Content Council and AdAge, content marketing accounts for 23.3% of overall budgets and is projected to grab a third of budgets within two years (“Content marketing budgets set to rise”, n.d.). In a world of shrinking editorial resources for traditional media, content marketing is of high relevance for media management scholars seeking to understand the new economic structures and interrelationships between stakeholders that are developing in the so called media industry. Content marketing is not by any means a new phenomenon. In 1895, Deere & Company, an agriculture equipment company located in the Midwestern United States, launched The Furrow magazine, which provided education information for farmers while helping with the sales of products of the company, and this magazine is often given credit for being the first content marketing initiative in modern times (Lieb, 2011). The recent revival of content marketing is due to multiple reasons. First, technology—the Internet and other digital channels, particularly social media, has lowered the entry barrier and costs for publishing. Second, consumers accept content from corporate sources more than ever as they would like to search and find information themselves in various channels. Third, shrinking budgets in traditional media yield a space for companies to fill gaps. Finally, content expertise becomes more widespread as more and more journalists shift to work for the corporate world (Lieb, 2011). Definitions of content marketing Despite the buzz, confusion still abounds - from how to define content marketing to how it can fit into marketing. The definitions of content marketing are mostly provided by industry consultants and experts. Pulizzi (2013) defines content marketing as “the marketing and business process for creating and distributing valuable and compelling content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience with the objective of driving profitable customer action” (p. 5). Pulizzi (2013) also gives a less formal definition: “Content marketing is owning media as opposed to renting it. It is a marketing process to attract and retain customers by consistently creating and curating content in order to change or enhance a consumer’s behavior” (p. 5). Lieb (2011) states that content marketing “is not push marketing” and it is a pull strategy where content is there when consumers need it and seek it out “with relevant, educational, helpful, compelling, engaging, and sometime entertaining information” (p. 1). Content marketing focuses on communicating with customers and prospects rather than selling. The U.S.-headquartered Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as “the art of communicating with your customers and prospects without selling” (“What is content marketing?” n. Content marketing: A review of academic literature and future research directions Page 2 of 17 d.). The Content Council defines content marketing as “the discipline of creating content, on behalf of a brand, designed with the specific strategy of influencing consumer behavior in order to drive quantifiable profitable results” (“The content council definition of content marketing,” n.d.). Holliman and Rowley (2014) define digital content marketing as “the activity associated with creating, communicating, distributing, and exchanging digital content that has value for customers, clients, partners, and the firm and its brands” (p. 287). The above definitions of content marketing imply that content is used in marketing exchanges by organizations as part of marketing. There is another context for using the term “digital content marketing” where it refers to the marketing of digital content as a commodity or goods (Rowley, 2008). Therefore, the term “digital content marketing” has two different kinds of meaning, one referring to a marketing program where content is provided by brands for free without any expectation of revenue, and the other referring to content marketed as a tradable commodity charging fees with some business models behind it. The latter scenario is not what this article would address. The current knowledge base is dominated by advice from practitioners and consultants, and available information is mostly from the industry, existing in expert blogs, trade publications and business press articles. This fact prompted the need to conduct a systematic review of extant academic literature, analyzing the status of academic research and figuring out future research directions. 2. Method The review was limited to scholarly publications written in English, specifically peer-reviewed journal articles. Consistent with commonly practiced database search efforts, a “key word” approach was used. The database Scopus was selected as the database as it is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature, covering comprehensive overview of the world's research output covering multiple fields, including social sciences. The search did not set any time frame because: first, there were not many results for each search performed; second, even though content marketing is very related to digital media and the Internet, future research might need to apply some old theories or methodologies adopted prior to the digital era. So, to set a timing frame would block or miss valuable results. Search terms: The database was queried for keywords in the title, abstract and the key word list. A set of key words or combinations of key words were developed as shown below. These search Content marketing: A review of academic literature and future research directions Page 3 of 17 terms were distilled and deducted from previous reading of academic and trade publications (Haeusermann, 2013; Lieb, 2011; Pulizzi, 2012 & 2013), and they reflect the core meaning, connotations or components of content marketing. Content marketing is closely related to or partially overlaps with a variety of periphery terms, such as brand journalism, inbound marketing, storytelling, native advertising, branded content, custom publishing, corporate journalism, and social media marketing. Below are the search keywords: Content marketing: content marketing, marketing AND content Brand-related: brand journalism, branded storytelling, branded media, branded social content, branded social media, branded social campaign Content: content strategy, paid content, sponsored content, branded content, editorialized content, editorial AND marketing, digital content, social content, message strategy, digital AND content, customer relationship AND content, content AND brand, content AND corporate Custom publishing: custom publishing, custom media, customer media, customer publishing, member media, private media, contract publishing, customer engagement agency Corporate media or journalism: corporate media, corporate publishing, corporate journalism, owned media, company press, corporate newsroom, sponsored media, corporate AND media, commercialization AND news, commercialization AND journalism Storytelling: storytelling, storytelling AND marketing, digital AND storytelling, story AND brand, story AND corporate, company AND story Other: native advertising, inbound marketing, hybrid message, masked-news, publisher AND corporate, publisher AND company, publishing AND corporate, publishing AND company, publishing AND business, social publishing, sponsored stories Screening process: After the database submitted a list of results for each search, a manual screening and evaluation procedure was performed. We evaluated the title, abstract and key words of each article, selected those which matched the need, and discarded those which were not related at all. Each selected article is either directly or adjacently related to the topic of content marketing. In addition, after reading selected articles, we identified and selected related articles in the reference lists of some articles. Quite a proportion of finally selected articles do not contain the term “content marketing” in the text, but they were deemed useful as they have some valence or potential of being useful reference tools for future research for content marketing. 3. Summary of Results and Analysis The search and evaluation yielded a total of 64 articles published during 1985 to 2015 as shown in Table 1. They are distributed in peer-reviewed journals of a variety of disciplines such as Content marketing: A review of academic literature and future research directions Page 4 of 17 communication, marketing, journalism, media, psychology, public affairs, computer information system/MIS, and management. Holliman and Rowley (2014)’s article is one of the few peerreviewed journal articles directly addressing content marketing, suggesting applicable theoretical frameworks and concepts such as B2B buying process, branding theory, information quality, information system, and brand communities. They concluded that “research specifically on content marketing is virtually non-existent” (p. 271). Seminal and representative of some key research streams in the past, selected articles of this project were classified into three key topic clusters, which indicate potential patterns of antecedents and research streams related to content marketing. Table 1. Summary of 64 selected academic publications Topic areas Sub-topics & concepts No. of articles Content Digital content marketing, B2B 3 marketing content marketing Year Discipline areas of journals 2004, 2008, 2014 19852013 Marketing Content Digital content, message strategy, online content, branded content, paid content, message effects, branded entertainment 22 Brand Journalism Credibility and trust Brand journalism 1 2013 Credibility, message framing, judgement of news, hybrid messages, comparison between editorial content and advertising, media credibility, perception of information credibility, credibility of online information, credibility assessment, trust in news media, source credibility, persuasion Storytelling, visual narrative, consumers and brands talk Customer magazine 17 1969, 19942015 Marketing, journalism, advertising, public relations, media research, information processing and management, communications, psychology 7 Public relations, business, psychology, marketing Journalism, advertising, publishing research Consumer engagement in branded social content, brand communities, audience labor in social media using Facebook’s sponsored stories, online content curation, dissemination of news content in social media, online information search, corporate blogs Online product user reviews and word-of-mouth (WOM) communication, how people cope with persuasion attempts, consumer responses to different 7 20062014 2007, 2010, 2013 20102015 1994, 1998, 2009, 2011 Internet commerce, consumer research, advertising Storytelling Custom publishing Social media Consumer behavior 3 4 Marketing, psychology, public affairs, Internet commerce, behavioral science, computer information systems, media, MIS, management, policy research, advertising Journalism, mass communication Marketing, psychology, media, communication, management Content marketing: A review of academic literature and future research directions Page 5 of 17 promotional formats, message content strategy and its effect Out of the 64 articles listed above, we classify the majority of them into three key clusters: 1). typology and characteristics of content; 2). social media marketing and consumer behavior; 3). credibility and trust (details in Table 2-4 below). There are articles whose subjects are marginal or the quantities of them are not large enough so that they cannot form a cluster in this article due to the limit of space. Cluster 1. The typology and characteristics of content As a core component, content is central and intrinsic to content marketing. The notion of content has its root in the publishing world where texts, images, and motion graphics have to be sufficiently interesting for the target audience to seek out. There has been studies about content in both traditional media settings and on digital platforms, discussing its definitions, characteristics and value, and analyzing how people use it. Sometimes, researchers use the term “information” or “message”, which is interchangeable with “content”. Table 2 shows a list of selected, representative articles with “content” being a key construct or variable in their research. Given the digital revolution, content of traditional media are migrating onto social media and digital platforms, either paid or free. Today, content marketing is mostly conducted online, therefore this paper would focus more on digital content. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) defines digital content (as a growth industry) as “a medium that increases user participation and interaction through the digitization of text, data, sound, and video” (as cited in Kim, Oh, & Shin, 2010, p. 79). Kim, Oh & Shin (2010) define digital content as information and experiences that provide value for users. This content can be understood as a combination of original design and scenario (narrative content) associated with such structural elements as text, sound, music, images, and videos, which can be accessed by consumers through both wired and wireless digital media. Digital content can be used for both marketing and as a specific end product. Koiso-Kanttila (2004) conceptualizes digital content as “bit-based objects distributed through electronic channels” (p.46) and argues that it is essential that both the distribution process and the actual entity acquired are digital. Examples of digital content include online news, electronic journals, e-books, virtual pets, online healthcare advice, databases, online dictionaries, mobile micro movies, games, music downloads, and software package updates. Ashley and Tuten (2015) point out the three major sources of content on social media: media/journalist sources, brands, and consumers/users. Content marketing: A review of academic literature and future research directions Page 6 of 17 Koiso-Kanttila (2004) analyzes characteristics of digital content, and identifies five key characteristics: information recombination, accessibility, navigation interaction, speed, and essentially zero marginal cost. These five characteristics can form the essence of content digitization. She argues that digital content entails both conventional service and product features, and it is a product that behaves in a service-like manner. Rowley (2008) proposes nine characteristics of digital content: 1. value is contextual; 2. reproducibility and multiplicability; 3. interactivity; 4. repackageability; 5. delivery and technology; 6. perishability; 7. homogeneity; 8. inseparability; 9. tangibility. These characteristics derive from its essential nature as information, and the fluid and contextual nature of its value. As for the classification of content, Tuten and Solomon (2013) state that, in social media, content can take so many forms that it is sometimes difficult to categorize. Holliman and Rowley (2014) suggest that content includes the static content forming web sites, as well as dynamic rich media content, such as videos, podcasts, user-generated content and interactive product selectors. Kim, Spiller and Hettche (2015) classify social media content into three categories - task, interaction and self-orientation. Task-oriented content can be advertising and a new product or service announcement, interaction-oriented content can be a picture, image or video not directly related to the brand, and self-oriented content can be news, information or story about the company or its products. Table 2. Cluster 1 – The typology and characteristics of content (Content marketing is abbreviated as “CM”) Authors Concepts Major questions Relevant theories Kim, Spiller, & Hettche (2015) Media type: text, photo and video Article title: Analyzing media types and content orientations in Facebook for global brands. Content orientation: task, interaction, and self-oriented Peng, Fan, & Hsu (2004) Dimensions of content attributes: informativeness, entertainment, organization, interactivity, and vividness Article title: Proposing the content perception theory for the online content industry – a structural Analyzed media types, and categorized the content orientation of corporate Facebook pages Theories in interpersonal communication, specifically salesmanship literature How the content perception dimensions molded by content providers will influence web users’ psychological responses and behavior. Content perception theory, telepresence theory Content marketing: A review of academic literature and future research directions Relevance to content marketing The content on social media is also the content distributed by digital content marketers; analysis of consumers’ response to content on social media is also the concern for content marketers. Classification of content; the consumer behavior (how content perception perspectives can influence web users’ attitude and then behavior) is applicable in CM context Page 7 of 17 equation modeling. Kim, Oh, & Shin (2010) Article title: An empirical investigation of digital content characteristics, value and flow. Graber (1989) Article title: Content and meaning what’s it all about. OestreicherSinger & Zalmanson (2013) Article title: Content or community? A digital business strategy for content providers in the social age. Content can be divided into 3 categories: design characteristics (visual appeal and musicality), scenario characteristics (creativity and entertainment value), and structure (unity and conciseness) Evaluated characteristics of digital content and examined how different components of content are related to its value, flow and use intensiveness Flow theory (the users’ interpretation of the current experience as the most positive one from a series of possible experiences) The understanding of digital content; how consumers respond to different aspects of digital content Discussed various aspects surrounding content: symbols, connotations, meaning construction, how to analyze content and meaning, content choice, content-making behavior, and usefulness of news. Concept of “social content website”; content consumption as a social experience; levels of participation: content consumption, content organization, community involvement, and community leadership N/A Human information processing, democratic theories, the etiology of content The perspectives about content and related concepts are helpful for CM. Consumers’ willingness to pay for content is strongly linked to community participation than to the volume of content consumption. Community behavior patterns (Lave & Wenger, 1991) Consumers’ consumption of content and community participation patterns in social media are related elements of digital CM. Commitmentbased approach Cluster 2. Social media marketing and consumer behavior Social media have become important outlets for news, information and content. For content marketing programs running online, they have a lot to do with social media. The core logic of content marketing is to leverage content online, which customers would search for and find valuable, to engage and dialogue with them. The research domains corresponding to these two terms of “content marketing” and “social media marketing” overlap in such areas as online information searching and sharing, content curation, content/news reception, dissemination and consumption, consumers’ reaction to content/information, brand community, among others. Social media marketing is a wide-ranging concept or research domain, and it could be elusive to capture or delineate it. Table 3 shows a list of selected, representative articles in the field of social marketing with consumer behavior elements. Research about social media marketing entails consumer behavior, and these two concepts are highly related to each other. Peltier and Nill (2013)’s review of Internet marketing research during the past 20 years (1993-2012) find out that consumer behavior is the number one area of research in terms of quantity of articles, accounting Content marketing: A review of academic literature and future research directions Page 8 of 17 for 26% of the total of 2,859 journal articles about Internet marketing. Many scholars are trying to apply consumer behavior theories to Internet marketing. That’s why this article groups social media marketing and consumer behavior together into one cluster. As shown by Table 3, selected articles in the cluster of “social media marketing and consumer behavior” do not necessarily contain the keyword “content marketing”, but what is being studied is actually part of the process or result of content marketing. Future research for content marketing can focus on certain antecedents in social media marketing, borrowing theoretical frameworks, methodologies, and research designs. Table 3. Cluster 2 - Social media marketing and consumer behavior (Content marketing is abbreviated as “CM”) Authors Concepts & Major questions Theories antecedents Botha & Reyneke Viral marketing Users’ emotional Emotions in (2013) reaction to the videos consumer behavior Content sharing and relevance of the (“affect”, Job Affect Article title: To behavior by users content played key Scale, Positive share or not to roles in their decisions Affect Negative share: The role of to forward and share Affect Scale, twocontent and factor model of emotion in viral emotion) marketing. Theories related to the spread of epidemics. Gregory (2006) Two approaches The study examined N/A of message readers’ reactions to Article title: Using strategy: different message message strategy information/argum strategies used in eight to capture ent and publications (brochures audience emotion/entertain and postcards) about attention: ment healthcare issues, to Readers’ find out how to use reactions to message strategy as a health education technique to capture publication. audience attention. Ashley & Tuten (2015) Article title: Creative strategies in social media marketing: An exploratory study of branded social content and consumer engagement. Fotopoulou & Couldry (2014) Brand social content (or campaigns), social media content, social content, and branded social content Uses and gratification theory; elaboration likelihood model; identity theory, selfexpansion theory Social media marketing The study explored how the channel and creative strategies used by companies related to consumer engagement in branded social media. Three message appeals related to performance on Facebook: image appeal, exclusivity appeal, and incentives. Content curation (reuse and Through a case study communication media N/A Creative message strategy Content marketing: A review of academic literature and future research directions Relevance to content marketing The videos in study are largely created and driven by brands as content marketers. Content sharing behavior Consumers’ reaction to different types of content. Even though the framework of message strategy is in print format, it can be applied to research about CM Brand social content is a result of CM driven by companies, and the consumer behavior aspect is what marketers are concerned about in terms of result. Content curation overlaps and is Page 9 of 17 Article title: Telling the story of the stories: Online content curation and digital engagement. Weeks & Holbert (2013) Article title: Predicting dissemination of news content in social media: A focus on reception, friending, and partisanship. Chauhan & Pillai (2013) Article title: Role of content strategy in social media brand communities: A case of higher education institutes in India. circulation of content) on digital media Community tagging (a usergenerated tagging system to bring together the practice of curating content) Social media as important outlets for the dissemination and distribution of news and information Information sharing journalists, the study explored how they implemented certain digital technologies and the ways in which imaginaries and material limitations coexisted in the shaping of a digital infrastructure. part of content marketing, which generates original content and curates third-party content. How people engaged news content in social media - social media news reception and friending a journalist/news organization were predictors of social media news dissemination. N/A In addition to traditional news organizations, companies are an important source distributing their own news and info in SNS, to be shared by users. How content strategy of higher education institutions initiated and enhanced customer engagement in brand communities of those institutions in SNS. N/A Brand community (BC) in SNS overlaps with CM, and the research methods are highly useful for the study of consumers’ activities of consuming content online. Friending in SNS 4 scenarios of news dissemination Content strategy Brand community (BC) in SNS Customer engagement Cluster 3. Credibility and trust Marketers are increasingly embracing editorial-style storytelling to supplement or replace traditional advertising to enhance the appearance of neutrality and message credibility. Editorial credibility, once the sole province of traditional media, is now being bought and paid for by the brands themselves. As the lines blur between news and marketing messages a brand, not all consumers will be able to distinguish a news organization’s story about a brand from the brand’s own stories about itself. The Facebook stream and the Twitter feed have brought the numbing sameness to all content on the Internet. An increasing amount of today’s information and content on the Internet is a result of and the output from content marketing. Given content marketing’s practice of hiring ex-journalists to create content, Content marketing: A review of academic literature and future research directions Page 10 of 17 which tends to be news-like or editorial-like to be trusted by consumers, and controversies surrounding corporate-funded journalism, it is necessary to look at the issue of credibility and trust tied to content marketing. The assessment of media or information credibility requires appropriate ways of operationalizing credibility with multi-layered, complex constructs. Prior to the digital age, there was research comparing audiences’ perceptions of the credibility and trustworthiness of different forms of traditional communications such news, advertising, publicity, advertorial, and product placement, aiming to know how to effectively persuade audience. Since the late 1990s when the Internet became a new environment for providing information and content for people, the concept of credibility or trust has received considerable attention. Researchers from diverse fields such as information science, marketing, communication, humancomputer interaction, and psychology have examined the assessment of credibility or trust from a variety of perspectives, uncovering the dimensions, antecedents and predictors of credibility (Balasubramanian, 1994; Cole II & Greer, 2013; Flanagin & Metzger, 2000; Hilligoss & Rieh, 2008; Kohring & Matthes, 2007). These previous studies can serve as valuable references for the research about content marketing in terms of research design, theoretical frameworks, and techniques (see Table 4). For example, Hilligoss and Rieh (2008) conducted studies to identify a framework with common aspects of credibility assessment regardless of media, type of information, and environment of information use. Their theoretical frameworks and research methods for testing trust or credibility of traditional media or non-media settings, could be extended to examine content marketing. Table 4 shows a list of selected, representative articles in this topic cluster. Table 4. Cluster 3 - Credibility and trust (Content marketing is abbreviated as “CM”) Authors Concepts Key questions Cole II & Greer (2013) Article title: Audience response to brand journalism: The effect of frame, source, and involvement. Brand journalism, custom publishing, and custom content Source credibility, and message credibility Product involvement This study examined the effect of frame (editorial vs. commercial) and attributed story source (a peer customer vs. a corporate source) in a custom magazine on audience ratings of content credibility, attitude towards the brand, and purchase intent. Conclusion presenting a custom magazine as editorial can positively affect readers’ perception of message Theories Framing theory Content marketing: A review of academic literature and future research directions Relevance to content marketing The term “brand journalism” is used interchangeably with CM. This study’s research questions and methods are applicable to CM where companies hire ex-journalists to create editorialtype of content to be distributed. Page 11 of 17 Balasubramanian (1994) Article title: Beyond advertising and publicity: Hybrid messages and public policy issues. Flanagin & Metzger (2000) Article title: Perceptions of Internet information credibility. Hilligoss & Rieh (2008) Article title: Developing a unifying framework of credibility assessment: Construct, heuristics, and interaction in context. Kohring & Matthes (2007) Article title: Trust in news media: Hybrid messages (something between advertising and publicity, such as product placement, program tie-in, program-length commercial, masked news, masked spokesperson) Credibility of Internet information Information verification Media literacy under the Internet environment Credibility and credibility assessment Construct level (truthfulness, believability, trustworthiness, objectivity) credibility and increase positive attitude toward a brand. A comprehensive analysis of hybrid messages, a rising marketing phenomenon in the 1980s. The marketing effect aspect – how to assess the persuasive impact of hybrid messages. Attribution theory, classic conditioning principle, and modeling paradigm This paper studied subjects' perceptions of the credibility of different types of information - news, reference, entertainment and commercial - in five different media channels (Internet, magazine, newspaper, radio, and TV). Overall, credibility did not vary as a function of medium. Media credibility is less a result of audience response to media institutions and personalities and more a result of audience responses to specific content. The paper developed a theoretical framework of credibility assessment, involving three levels of judgement: construct, heuristics, and interactions. Context emerged as an important factor that influences the three levels. Theories of persuasion, social judgment theory, the elaboration likelihood model The paper presents the development and validation of a multi-dimensional scale of trust in news media. The Sociological theories of trust, hierarchical factor model Prominentinterpretation theory Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) Commonalities– the deviation from intrusive, shortformat advertising that tends to evoke skepticism, and the effort of trying to look like news or editorial. CM could be considered as the evolved, updated version of hybrid messages in today’s digital environment. This paper provides useful referential frameworks to analyze CM, such as users’ perception of credibility in relation to source, media forms and specific messages. This study provides theoretical foundation and methodology for investigating credibility under CM. Heuristics level (media, source, endorsement, aesthetics) Interaction level (content cues, periphery source cues, periphery info object cures) Trustworthiness or credibility of news media Content marketing: A review of academic literature and future research directions The content generated by CM has certain characteristics from that of Page 12 of 17 Development and validation of a multidimensional scale. Source credibility, the comparative approach of media credibility, factor analytical approach Arora & Arora (2004) Communicator (source) credibility Article title: The impact of message framing and credibility: Findings for Nutritional Guidelines. Message framing (positively vs. negatively) Credibility in marketing model was tested via confirmatory factor analysis. Trust in news media can be considered a hierarchical factor (of second order) that consists of four lower order factors, including trust in the selectivity of topics, trust in the selectivity of facts, trust in the accuracy of depictions, and trust in journalistic assessment. Using experimental approach to test the influence of message framing and credibility on the attitude and intention of people toward following the guidelines for healthy eating and preventing cancer. The persuasive impact will be greater under high credibility and negative framing. media, and the research techniques can be borrowed. Framing theory, attribution theory, Elaboration Likelihood Model (sourcecredibility inferences), prospect theory This research is about advertising copy and layout in the old paradigm of marketing, but the concept of source credibility and the research method of consumer behavior can be applied to content marketing. In addition to the three topic clusters analyzed above, out of the 64 articles, there are ones addressing other topics such as storytelling/ digital storytelling, custom publishing/ customer magazine, and branded content/branded entertainment. In terms of quantity of these articles, they are not as prominent as those in the three clusters listed above. Due to the limit of space, this paper does not elaborate on them. 4. Discussion and Conclusion This article has categorized the fragmented body of academic literature related to content marketing. The analysis identified a handful of interest areas that have shaped previous research in different fields. Unfortunately, there is scant academic literature directly addressing content marketing. The absence exists for good reasons. First, content marketing, especially the digital part, is a recently proliferating phenomenon, waiting to be treated as a distinctive research area. Second, it is a matter of defining and delineating concepts and research domains. Content marketing overlaps with a variety of other concepts such as social media marketing, brand journalism, custom publishing, storytelling, and business models of online content. Scholars researching about these other phenomena or antecedents did not necessarily label their research topics as content marketing. Thirdly, content marketing is at the nexus of communication, marketing, journalism and consumer behavior, so the research about it would be cross-disciplinary, making it hard to find a easy home in the current academic community. Content marketing: A review of academic literature and future research directions Page 13 of 17 The status of academic research in content marketing does not allow convenient referencing or borrowing of extant academic knowledge. The review conducted by this paper has identified the three main topic clusters: 1). the typology and characteristics of content; 2). social media marketing and consumer behavior; 3). credibility and trust. Within them, we can see some meaningful cues, theories, research questions, research methodologies, and isolated antecedents, used by previous research in relevant or periphery fields. These findings can serve as a foundation for future research, bridging past research and what can be done for content marketing in the future. Then, we propose a number of sample research streams or topics for the future, based on the review of academic literature as well as issues raised by practitioners: New business models: In digital environments, it is as easy to become media as it is to buy media (Lieb, 2011). Brands are investing in or acquiring media assets and capabilities, and some new types of media business models or organizational forms emerged, such as Ecommerce interwoven with content, sponsored content, and corporate in-house media units making money by licensing content. The research can look at new organizational forms, revenue and profit models, value chain, process, and operation models of these new organizations under content marketing. Human resources: More and more former journalists shift to work for companies as the so-called brand journalists. This role shifting presented some issues such as the changes and compromises in professional identity, job roles, editorial judgment criteria, and professional values. Consumer behavior: o Linkage between content consumption and product buying - the direct and lagged effects on consumers’ purchasing behavior (situations where consumers make or do not make purchase decisions after consuming content). o Consumers’ reaction towards editorial-like content or brand copy, and their responses about the credibility and trustworthiness of content marketing. o Consumers’ exposure to content and its impact on their becoming brand advocates. o Brands’ effort of building thought leadership via content marketing and its impact on consumers, and how consumers engage in this process. o Consumers’ motivation and behaviors of search and sharing content and information tied to content marketing. The credibility and trust of content marketing: Does knowledge about the true nature of the content of content marketing affect consumers’ response? If such knowledge becomes available, would consumers resist them as propaganda? How can companies or media solve Content marketing: A review of academic literature and future research directions Page 14 of 17 the dilemma of incorporating commercial content into editorial content, while creating unbiased information for readers? Impact on public interest and public policy: Given the ever-increasing, pervasive content generated by content marketers or corporate-funded journalism, content marketing might lead to the shrinking of public interest. How would policy makers, the traditional media industry, the corporate world and consumers address it? Content marketing: A review of academic literature and future research directions Page 15 of 17 References Arora, R., & Arora, A. (2004). The impact of message framing and credibility: Findings for Nutritional Guidelines. Services Marketing Quarterly, 26(1), 35-54. Ashley, C., & Tuten, T. (2015). Creative strategies in social media marketing: An exploratory study of branded social content and consumer engagement. Psychology and Marketing, 32(1), 15– 27. Balasubramanian, S. K. (1994). Beyond advertising and publicity: Hybrid messages and public policy issues. Journal of Advertising, 23(4), 29-46. Botha, E., & Reyneke, M. (2013). To share or not to share: The role of content and emotion in viral marketing. Journal of Public Affairs, 13(2), 160–171. Chauhan, K., & Pillai, A. (2013). Role of content strategy in social media brand communities: A case of higher education institutes in India. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 22(1), 40-51. Cole II, J. T., & Greer, J. D. (2013). Audience response to brand journalism: The effect of frame, source, and involvement. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 90(4), 673-690. Content marketing budgets set to rise (n.d.). In the Content Council website. Retrieved from http://thecontentcouncil.org/Post/Content-Marketing-Budgets-Set-to-Rise Flanagin, A. J., & Metzger, M. J. (2000). Perceptions of Internet information credibility. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 77(3), 515-540. Fotopoulou, A., & Couldry, N. (2014). Telling the story of the stories: Online content curation and digital engagement. Information, Communication & Society, 18(2), 235–249. Graber, D. A. (1989). Content and meaning what’s it all about. The American Behavioral Scientist, 33(2), 144-152. Gregory, J. (2006). Using message strategy to capture audience attention: Readers’ reactions to health education publication. Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing, 15 (1-2), 1-23. Haeusermann, T. (2013). Custom publishing in the UK: Rise of a silent giant. Publishing Research Quarterly, 29 (2), 99–109. Hilligoss, B., & Rieh, Y. R. (2008). Developing a unifying framework of credibility assessment: Construct, heuristics, and interaction in context. Information Processing and Management, 44(4), 1467–1484. Holliman, G., & Rowley, J. (2014). Business to business digital content marketing: Marketers’ perceptions of best practice. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, 8(4), 269-293. Kim, C., Oh, E., & Shin, N. (2010). An empirical investigation of digital content characteristics, value and flow. The Journal of Computer Information Systems, 50(4), 79-87. Kim, D., Spiller, L., & Hettche, M. (2015). Analyzing media types and content orientations in Facebook for global brands. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, 9(1), 4-30. Kohring, M., & Matthes, J. (2007). Trust in news media: Development and validation of a multidimensional scale. Communication Research, 34(2), 231-252. Content marketing: A review of academic literature and future research directions Page 16 of 17 Koiso-Kanttila, N. (2004). Digital content marketing: A literature synthesis. Journal of Marketing Management, 20(1-2), 45-65. Lieb, R. (2011). Content marketing: Think like a publisher—how to use content to market online and in social media. Indianapolis, Indiana: Que Publishing. Oestreicher-Singer, G., & Zalmanson, L. (2013). Content or community? A digital business strategy for content providers in the social age. MIS Quarterly, 37(2), 591-616. Peltier, J., & Nill, A. (2013). A review of Internet marketing research over the past 20 years and future research direction. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, 7(3), 166-181. Peng, K., Fan, Y., & Hsu, T. (2004). Proposing the content perception theory for the online content industry – a structural equation modeling. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 104(6), 469-489. Pornpitakpan, C. (2004). The persuasiveness of source credibility: A critical review of five decades' evidence. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 34(2), 243-281. Pulizzi, J. (2012). The rise of storytelling as the new marketing. Publishing Research Quarterly, 28(2), 116–123. Pulizzi, J. (2013). Epic content marketing: How to tell a different story, break through the clutter, and win more customers by marketing less. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education Publication. Rieh, S. Y. (2002). Judgement of information quality and cognitive authority in the web. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 53(2), 145-161. Rowley, J. (2008). Understanding digital content marketing. Journal of Marketing Management, 24(5-6), 517-540. Shah, A., & Sudhaman, A. (2013, June 16). The PR world’s play for content marketing clout. Holmes Report. Retrieved September 1, 2014, from http://www.holmesreport.com/featurestories-info/13536/The-PR-Worlds-Play-For-ContentMarketing-Clout.aspx/ The content council definition of content marketing (n.d.). In the Content Council website. Retrieved from http://thecontentcouncil.org/About-Us Tuten, T. L., & Solomon, M. R. (2013). Social media marketing. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education. Weeks, B. E., & Holbert, L. (2013). Predicting dissemination of news content in social media: A focus on reception, friending, and partisanship. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 90(2), 212-232. What is content marketing? (n. d.). In Content Marketing Institute website. Retrieved from http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/what-is-content-marketing/ Content marketing: A review of academic literature and future research directions Page 17 of 17