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Content Pillar & Big Idea

COMM 2789 – Week 3 – Topic 3
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Learning expectations
• After Week 3 – Topic 3, you should be able to 

• Based on a single-minded big idea that offers a creative

solution to achieve business goals and solves customer
pain points.

• Plan a content calendar using the content pillar approach. 

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Presentation summary
• Definition and role of the Big Idea
• How to develop big idea and key message
• Content Pillar approach
• Content Creation and Optimization
• How to plan a content calendar
• What is, and how to create a strong brand identity and
voice 
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The Content Marketing Cycle

Topic 3 focuses on:

• Ideation & Planning: Big

Idea and Content Pillar

• Creation & Optimization

(SEMrush 2019) 4
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Big Idea
Definition and How to develop a Big Idea

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Ideation and Planning

• Brand needs a big idea to guide a campaign through the
noise and generate the desired attention from the target
audience.
• A campaign’s big idea is the overarching message that
underpins all elements of a campaign in order to resonate
with the target audience.
• The big idea will need to be rooted in a piercing insight and
linked to the campaign’s objectives to ensure it has
maximum impact and relevance. (Llewellyn, 2021)
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The ‘Big Idea’ defined

• You can do homework from now until doomsday, but you
will never win fame and fortune unless you also invent big
ideas. It takes a big idea to attract the attention of
consumers and get them to buy your product…
the cumulative value of an idea, and no idea is big unless it
will work for thirty years. (Ogilvy 1983)

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The role of the ‘Big Idea’

• To develop an idea that is joined up and integrated with all other
relevant channels, rather than a series of separate executions.

(Llewellyn, 2021)

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How to develop the “big idea”

Environment, the “Big Idea”, Message strategy

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Developing the Big Idea

• What specific, unique, and valuable ideas you will build your
content assets around?
• Identify the specific and unique value you will deliver in exchange for
your audience’s trust and support.
• That value is your story. It should be informed by your passions, as
a business, and serve as the through-line that will inform all your
future content initiatives.
• Once you’ve established your story, you can start to work toward
mapping the content types that will serve as the expression of that
story (e.g., a blog, email newsletter, digital magazine, webinar
program, etc.).
(Llewellyn 2021) 10
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Developing the Big Idea (2)

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Step 1: Analysis of the Challenge

Questions to answer
What is the challenge the brand needs to To counter what every other brands were
tackle?
What does the brand want to achieve?
Who is the brand target audience?
BelVita Case Study
talking about: the morning was
something to survive and get through
To creating buzz and engagement and
generate trial and sales
‘morning optimists’, a group of people
who were positive, ambitious but also
constantly busy with very hectic
lifestyles.

(Llewellyn, 2021)
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Step 2: Looking for insight

• From research findings using digital tools, markets and
brands will make conclusion that turn into insights.

• “Consumer insights are secrets hidden beneath the

surface, that explain the underlying behaviors, motivations,
pain points, and emotions of your customers.”

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Step 2: Looking for insight (2)

• Means-end theory proposes that customers make decision about a
product/service or issue based on four dimensions: attributes,
benefits, emotions, and personal values (Reynolds and Olson,
2001).

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Step 2: Looking for insight (3)

• Understand customer logic
behind search and purchase
behavior

• Social listening

• Vision of potential value

• Interview and survey

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Step 2: Looking for insight (4)

The morning was not a problem to be overcome but a fresh opportunity to
accomplish things

(Llewellyn, 2021) 16
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Step 3: Brand Connection

• What is your strategic positioning?
• What is your unique selling points (attributes, functional benefits,
emotional benefits, values)

Questions to answer BelVita Case Study

Brand positioning Healthy breakfast biscuits
Unique selling points Breakfast biscuits provides energy

(Llewellyn 2021) 17
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Step 4: Articulate the Idea

• Big Idea = name of the belVita “Morning Win campaign”
campaign
• Describe the big idea:
explain what the idea is
and how the creative
mechanism will work
(140 characters)
• Reasons to believe:
role of the
brand/product/service
(Llewellyn 2021)
• Deliverables: what
content to create
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Activity 1 - Case study – Clear Men

• In groups, answer:

• Brand challenge?

• Customer Insight?

• Brand positioning and

USP?

• Articulate the big idea

yourself
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Key Message and CTA

How to communicate with your TA

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Key Message Development

• An advertising message is defined as an underlying idea or point that
an advertiser wishes to convey to its target audience.

• Message advertising can be based upon content, slogan, taglines,

catchphrase, graphics, etc to do the storytelling of advertising
campaigns and make an emotional appeal to persuade a target
consumer.
(Bhasin, 2021)

• Call-to-Action is vital for message development. Answer the question:

What actions you want your audience to take after reading/watching
your content?

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Message Development
Example

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Message Development
• Advertising appeals are message strategies that marketing and
advertising professionals use to grab attention and persuade people to
buy or act.
o Rational appeal: Rational advertising appeals present information that is
immediately important to the target audience and data that they accept as
true (Casais, B. and Pereira, A.C., 2021).
o Emotional appeal: campaigns with the emotional tone of appeal transmit
messages that persuade the target audience through appeals to emotions
(Casais, B. and Pereira, A.C., 2021).
o Moral appeal: An appeal in an advertisement or sales literature that is
directed to the audience's sense of what is right and proper (Oxford Ref).
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Message Development
• Semiotics – study of gestures, signs,
symbols, and their use or interpretation.
Marketers must consider the meanings
consumers attach to the various signs
and symbols.

• A semiotic analysis has three steps:

• Analyze verbal signs (what you see
and hear).
• Analyze visual signs (what you see).
• Analyze the symbolic message
(interpretation of what you see)

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Message Development
Example

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Activity 2 - Black & Abroad: Go Back to Africa

• Black and Abroad, a travel company, turned the racial slur 'Go back to
Africa' into an uplifting call to action with its campaign Go Back to
Africa.

• Analyze the message "Go back to Africa" in semiotics meaning.

• WARC, Black & Abroad: Go Back to Africa, Cannes Creative Lions,

Shortlisted, Creative Effectiveness Lions, 2021, case study.
https://www-warc-com.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/content/article/cannes/bl
ack--abroad-go-back-to-africa/137665
. RMIT sign-in required.

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Content Pillar Approach

Definition, How-to

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 4 Top Content Marketing Strategies (Brit,
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2020)
1. Use content pillar – A content strategy that’s based on
topic clusters which prioritizes a few key topics that are
great for SEO and relevant to the company’s ideal
audience.
2. Develop evergreen, reusable content
3. Research first, write second
4. Focus on on-site SEO and build links to improve domain
authority.
(Brit 2020) 29
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Content Pillar Approach

• The content pillar approach to content marketing is the
method of creating one very big piece of content topic (key
theme or bedrock content), from which smaller assets can
be derived and linked back to it, and each other.

• Brand Pillar > Content Pillar > Bedrock Content > Core
Themes > Topics (Jordan, n.d.)

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Brand Pillars

• Sitting behind strong content pillars are key brand pillars

that guide your brand’s presence across all media,
including content.

• Brand pillars often represent a brand’s identity, purpose,

story, values, or positioning.

(Jordan, n.d.)

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Content Pillars
• Content pillars help content creators focus on what is relevant for your
audience.

• Content pillars must be born from brand pillars/ story.

• To develop content pillars:

o Look for most important keywords for the brand or the sector.

o Question: Are you a thought leader or a problem solver?

(Jordan, n.d.) 32
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Bedrock Content

• A piece of bedrock content should be directly related to

your content pillars. Ideally, content pillars should be
related to the core branded marketing messages of your
business.

• Bedrock content must be up-to-date, but also “evergreen”

(long-lasting and interesting any day). (Jordan, n.d.)

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Example – Content Pillar

• Insight: Consumers spend lots of Female, aged between 35-50,
living in suburban areas
time browsing lipstick colors. They
often click on multiple shades,
followed by high basket
abandonment.

=> colors are not easily discernible.

Needed to show shades in a more
(Jordan, n.d.)
accessible way.
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Example – Content Pillar
• The Content Pillar: Lipstick Shades for
Different Skin Tones
• The Bedrock Content: The essential
guide to choosing the right lipstick shade •
for your skin-tone, including model
images, videos and how-to tutorials.
• The Core Theme: A deep dive into
choosing the perfect lipstick for extremely
fair skin; choosing the perfect lipstick to
make teeth appear whiter; choosing the
perfect lipstick to suit a cool undertone
complexion.
The Topics: How-to videos, make-up
artist top tips, different shades within a
particular grouping, lip-liner advice,
catwalk trends, seasonal trends, celebrity
looks, day-to-night styling… and many
more! (Jordan, n.d.)
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Visualisation
Content Pillarof
Mind
the Map
Content Pillar

Upland n.d.. 36
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Content Pillar Distribution Chart

Upland 2019

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Pillar Pages
• Topic clusters centered around pillar pages are a can’t-
miss way to develop a strategy that helps you rank and is
focused on the key topics that are most relevant to your
ideal audience.

Create individual
blog posts that are
Create a pillar page based on a Link back to the
relevant to and
hyper focused "key phrase". pillar page.
support the content
in that pillar page.

(Britt 2020) 38
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Activity - Scoot: Go Yellow! Escape the Ordinary

• Scoot, the low-cost airline, championed its signature yellow brand

colour and its fun, sassy spirit to build brand visibility and preference in
Singapore.

• Read the case study, what is the brand pillars/story? What are the key
content pillars of the content strategy?

• WARC (2020), Scoot: Go Yellow! Escape the Ordinary, WARC Awards

for Asian Strategy, Shortlisted, 2020, case study.
https://www-warc-com.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/content/article/warc-awar
ds-asia/scoot-go-yellow-escape-the-ordinary/133425
. RMIT sign-in required.

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Content Creation & Optimization

Content types and ideas

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Content types decisions

Questions to answer when
decide content types:

• Objectives of the pillar?

• Which stages of the

customer journey?

=> Map a content journey &

create content for each stage.

(Petrova, 2022) 41
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Content Marketing Matrix

• A content mapping tool to help
decide which types of content will
best support the path to
purchase for your target
audience.
• It can also be used for content
ideation, to brainstorm future
content ideas to generate leads,
nurture prospects, encourage
sharing and generate backlinks
for SEO.
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(Chaffey, 2022)
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Ideation Process for Content Topics

• Keep track of competitors.

• Track industry trends and topics
covered by influencers
• Social listening
• Keyword research

• 2 criteria to choose your topics/

ideas: usefulness to audience +
impact to bottom line.
(Benitez, 2020)
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Keyword research

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Keyword research (2)

• It is also vital to know what your competitors
and other content creators are doing.

• Find the topics, keywords, and content formats

that work well for them.

o Primary keywords they target,

o Top-performing content for them.

(Petrova, 2022)
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The Rule of Thirds (Content)

• Divide the content consistent sourced from the
into thirds among the publishing cadence people who know
three primary types across all channels. and love your brand
of content: licensed, (for example, your
original, and user- 2. Original Content: employees), and are
generated content. Custom content like already actively
daily blog posts, shouting about it
1. Licensed Content: infographics, videos, from their social
Content sourced and more. media accounts.
from publishers
enables companies 3. User-Generated
to maintain a Content: Content
(Islam 2016)
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Content Calendar
Ideas, frequency, and timing

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Content Calendar
• Content calendar help organize all the content topics and
ideas to help content creators execute content production. 
• Key elements of a content calendar: topics or keywords,
target dates and time, headlines, categories or pillars,
content types, target personas, and others.

(Petrova, 2022) 48
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Content Frequency
• The right posting frequency keep your audience engaged
but each platform has its own best practices. 
• What to consider: objectives of content creation,
audience preferences, team size, and budget.
• Activity: Search “How often to post on…” and look for
best practices on each platform.

(McLachlan S, and Cohen B., 2021) 49

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Content Frequency (2)

• Brands that publish at least 4 blog posts per week receive 5 times more site
traffic than those that publish less than once a week.
(Stechman B., 2020)
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Content Timing
• “The right content delivers at the right time is powerful”.

• What to consider: who are your target audience,

audience active time on the channels, audience channel
behavior, audience content consumption behaviour
• Activity: Your target audience is gen Z, search for their
video consumption behaviour on social media channels.

(Mach, 2021) 51
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Content Calendar
• Activity:
• In teams,
brainstorms your
content ideas for
your stimulated
client 1 month
campaign.

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Brand Identity and Voice

Look & feel, tone of voice

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Keeping content consistent

• Brand identity and voice defines what a brand will say
and how it says it across social platforms.

Aligns
Helps to communic Consisten BRAND
humanize ation back cy across
the brand to content platforms VOICE
pillars

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Brand identity
• Before the digital age, brand identity was expressed
themselves via physical and visible elements: Logo, Store
design, Packaging, OOH advertising 

• With the arrival of digital marketing, brands require to

maintain their identity via: consistent look & feel of all digital
assets
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Brand voice
• The arrival of social media poses a question that is beyond
just the ‘visual’ appearance
• Brand voice is expressed through the following in social
media: tone of voice and language
• These are observed in brand communication with
consumers via: interaction and dialogue, replies and
comments, keywords and long tail keywords, taglines and
hashtags etc.

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Protecting your brand

• It should be noted here that besides the benefits that social
media offer to firms, there are some risks concerning their use.
For instance, one of the most frequent unpredictable situations is
negative Facebook comments made by users (Dekay 2012).
• Ineffective handling of such situations may lead to negative word
of mouth among social media users. As a result, a major
challenge for social media active companies is to develop
appropriate response strategies to negative word of mouth
(Hennig-Thurau et al. 2010; Roehm and Tybout 2006).

(as cited in Tsimonis & Dimitriadis 2014)

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Crisis management
• Brand pages on social media are
filled with conversations between
a brand and its customer on a
regular basis and these need to
be managed for risks.

• Brands need a framework and

“script” for community managers
to answer consumers and
customers that fit to the tone of
voice, the brand, its regulations,
or regulatory governance.
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“Response Protocol” script
Conversation Starter
from Consumers
“Are these low carb?”
“Please bring back the
Skinny cow ice cream
cones. Especially the
chocolate. I’d drive out of
the way to buy a four
pack.”
“Chocolate only please.
Vanilla too boring unless
it has hot chocolate
fudge over it!”
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Type Brand Response Takeaway
Question Product “While they aren't labeled Sell more by both
Feature as low carb, hopefully answering the question
you can find a treat that and then sharing the
fits your diet, Debbie!” product landing page of
their website.
Request Product “We still have our ice Shared an exact website
Availability cream cones, Donna. link address of the
Especially the chocolate ‘Chocolate Ice Cream
ones!” cone’ so customers can
buy online immediately.
Complaint Product “What a chocolat-y idea! Turned the complaint into
Flavors We'd be happy to pass a suggestive feedback
your suggestion on to the from consumer.
team.”
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How to create a
strong brand
identity & voice?
Character / Tone of voice
Persona
Brand Identity & Voice

Language Purpose

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How to create consistency?

• A content studio 1. Have a lexicon 4. Test your voice
writing team must be (list slangs, main using paid
able to deliver the terminology, advertising
same brand voice alternatives)
across different 5. Monitor
collaterals, mediums 2. Have personas performance
and styles of (consider your (keyword
copywriting. classic types of performance)
audiences)
• How to have a strong
brand voice: 3. Keep a library of
good/ bad copy

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Example: RMIT Brand Pillars

(RMIT September 2019) 62

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Example: RMIT Brand Identity

(RMIT September 2019) 63

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Example: RMIT Visual Identity

(RMIT September 2019) 64

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Example: Digital examples

(RMIT September 2019) 65

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Activity 3  
• Analyze the brand identity and brand
voice of the stimulated client:
• Character / Persona can be: Friendly,
Warm, Playful, Authoritative, Inspiring, Character / Tone of
Professional
Persona voice
• Tone can be: Personal, Honest, Humble, Brand Identity
Direct, Clinical, Scientific
•
& Voice
Language can be: Complex, Simple,
Savvy, Jargon filled, Insider, Fun, Serious,
Whimsical Language Purpose
• Purpose can be to: Engage, Entertain,
Educate, Delight, Inform, Sell, Enable,
Amplify

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What we learn to day

• Bid idea and how to develop a big idea
• Key message development
• Content Pillar approach
• Content Creation and Optimization
• Content Calendar
• Brand identity and voice
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