Can Automated Content Rescue Brands From Multi-Channel Overwhelm?

Content is everything, everywhere, all at once. Whilst many of us may be old enough to recall sitting down on an evening to give a singular TV screen our full attention, this increasingly feels like a cultural relic. Instead, we dip in and out of multiple channels on multiple devices, our attention as fragmented as the media landscape we live in. For brands looking to connect with audiences, it’s been a serious challenge: How do you earn attention in an attention-deficit world? 

It’s a trend that Guido Derkx, the co-founder and chief commercial officer at Storyteq, has seen play out in real time. “Back in the day, content was linear – you might watch some TV, and that was pretty much it,” he tells LBB. “Now, if I look at my kids, they’re jumping between YouTube, CNN, and a blog in the span of 30 seconds across phones, TV, and tablets. But we shouldn’t think of these devices and channels as totally separate – they’re all part of the same journey.” 

That’s a holistic view of the way we interact with media, which has underlined Storyteq’s approach to content automation. For Guido, the conversation around automation needs to be centred on quality – not just the quality of the hero assets that comprise modern campaigns. But, crucially, quality in the way they are delivered and show up for the end user. 

“To tell a compelling and connected story across all of these modern channels, brands have been forced to generate more and more content,” says Guido. “The trouble is that current budgets are not sufficient to deliver the volume and diversity of content that’s required.” 

It’s at that point of tension which, Guido tells us, content automation steps in. And he’s keen to emphasise that ‘content automation’ is not a synonym for AI-generated creative, but rather a means by which to maximise both the scale and quality of modern campaigns. 

“When we talk about automating content production, we’re not in the space of automating the initial hero idea,” he explains. “The creative aspect is still a competitive edge – companies and agencies are still generating new hero ideas and concepts. For us, automation is about taking that hero idea and turning it into beautifully executed, channel-specific, and channel-compliant Halo content.”

In other words, it’s about sharpening a marketer’s creative edge. As Guido goes on to note, a huge number of modern campaigns will leverage thousands of individual assets, only a tiny percentage of which are truly unique. The overwhelming majority are adaptations – content that amplifies that hero idea across different channels, audiences, and formats. 

Context Is Everything

To stand a realistic chance of cutting through and getting noticed, modern brands do need to engage with audiences across a range of channels. But, as Guido explains, “You can’t just take TV content and throw it on TikTok. That’s not how it works. TikTok has a bespoke feel - how you engage with content there is different from linear television.”

So yes, brands need to be everywhere – but they need to be context-specific, too. “If something looks like it was copy-pasted from another platform, people instinctively scroll past it. It needs to feel native to the channel, part of that connected journey. When we talk about automation and moving from hero to Halo content, it’s about contextualising content – making it fit for the specific platform and audience.”

There’s an undeniable and instinctive logic to this – when we see content that appears tailor-made for the platform we’re watching it on, it feels more relevant. And that relevance is further heightened when the content can take advantage of another tool in the modern marketer’s arsenal: Data. As Guido goes on to explain, Storyteq’s approach to content automation allows marketers to make the most of the nuances of that data, delivering content that makes good on the industry’s long-heralded promise of personalisation at scale. 

“An example would be a brand that knows, thanks to its data, that both you and I are dog owners. As a result of that, traditional marketing might present us with a dog-walking image,” says Guido. “But we can now go further than that. The nuances that truly drive relevance are about personal needs. Maybe my dog is elderly and requires special food, whereas yours is a puppy that needs a different kind of nutrition. Understanding the consumer's context, and tailoring content accordingly, is key. Automation allows us to determine the right content for the right moment, ensuring true personalisation.”

With that framework in place, the next challenge for effective content automation is optimisation. What’s unique about Guido and Storyteq’s approach here is that they won’t wait until a campaign is concluded to pore over the results and see what worked best. Instead, their approach to content automation tracks how a campaign is performing in real time and – crucially – who is seeing it. As a result, they’re able to optimise a campaign instantaneously. 

“This is the future of advertising – an organic, always-learning system that efficiently adapts to changes. Traditionally, content optimisation has been a media play, assuming fixed content that can only be minimally tweaked in delivery,” he explains. “But real optimisation happens earlier in the process. For example, if past campaigns show that images of beer being poured into a glass perform better, the system should suggest using existing assets depicting that instead of creating new ones.”

To get a sense of why this is such an effective approach, Guido points to the analogy of manufacturing a car. “If you only test the engine at the end and find flaws, it's too late to fix them efficiently. But if you get feedback during early development, adjustments can be made before production even starts,” he says. “Since we provide an end-to-end system, we ensure that content creation starts with insights, allowing brands to build campaigns more effectively from the outset.”

Less Is More 

Gartner, the tech research and consulting giant, posited two years ago that “content, not data” would be the bottleneck for marketers looking to communicate on digital channels. Guido’s work with Storyteq has been recognised by Gartner as a leader in both content marketing platforms and digital asset management. Its approach is geared towards breaking through that content bottleneck and, with content automation, Guido believes he’s found a way. 

“The best answer to the challenge of creating more content is actually understanding how to create less by focusing on what works, reusing assets effectively, and repurposing content instead of constantly producing new material,” surmises Guido. “Automation isn't just about more; it's about smarter, more strategic content creation.”

In many ways, that’s a paradox that’s been central to the art of good communications since the beginning of time: Less truly is more. 

Content automation, then, isn’t about haphazardly throwing ever-denser volumes of messages at your audience in the hope that some of them stick – it’s not a case of ‘flooding the zone’. 

Instead, it’s simply about getting to know who your audience is, and meeting them where they are.