Imperial Sugar Company Newsroom: Brand journalism creates an authoritative voice

When an explosion at the Imperial Sugar Company (ISC) sugar refinery at Port Wentworth, near Savannah, GA, occurred in February 2008, fires burned for nearly two weeks.

It was mainstream media's dream story: Death and fire affecting a big corporation. Unfortunately for ISC, when journalists turned to the search engines for information about the company as they were writing their stories, many outdated reports and information appeared on the first pages of Google and the other search engines.

When the crisis subsided, executives at ISC hired David E. Henderson and the team at The News Group Net LLC, to create a brand-new, content-rich ISC Newsroom.

David is an Emmy Award winning former CBS News correspondent and veteran communications strategist. I'm a fan of his blog and book, so I contacted him to learn more about the Imperial Sugar Company Newsroom.

I'm particularly excited about how ISC hired journalists to create their newsroom, something I’ve advocated for years. This is something I've called brand journalism and is an increasingly effective marketing tool. In fact, ISC has hired the skills of a print journalist, a television journalist, and a photojournalist.

"The ISC Newsroom positions the Imperial Sugar Company as an authoritative voice in the sugar industry, in the U.S., Mexico and elsewhere," David says. "It is a one-stop shop for the best thinking and views on sugar and all of the issues and market forces that surround it."

Henderson and his team chose to present a steady flow of legitimate news stories (not just press releases) as well as high quality news images shot by former AP and PEOPLE photographer Ed Lallo.

"While most corporate online newsrooms are dusty and static press release archives, ISC Newsroom is always fresh, not only with stories about the companies but about the industry, customers, and the communities in which the company does business," David says.

According to David, the main goal of the ISC Newsroom is to be clearly heard and stand out in all of the right ways. "We're expressing the ICS corporate voice above the noise of the marketplace, where often people much less qualified—but far more vocal—pump out their opinions into mainstream and social media. The sheer speed, volume and rapid dissemination of information—right or wrong—can inundate communications and sway public opinion," he says.

Of course, when a company creates information in a newsroom like ISC and updates it frequently, the valuable content is indexed by the search engines, and will gravitate into the top positions.

Don't overlook your online media room as an important place to deliver valuable information to not only the media, but to your buyers as well.

And consider hiring journalists to help you.

Comments

[Jonathan Kranz]

Boy, does this make sense. Why just post press releases when you can create the stories YOURSELF? Why hope for reporter/editor attention when you can leverage social media to generate attention YOURSELF?

And I might be wrong, but I do believe there are vast numbers of under-employed journalists who just might be available to help you...

[Ryan Barton]

Great points! It's refreshing to see a company put out a newsroom that isn't focused on themselves.

Consumers don't want to read about what YOU think is important. They want to learn and become more educated. And if YOUR site is the venue for that, you've positioned yourself all that much better.

[Ted Lallo]

It is so nice of you to write an "objective" piece about your friend (http://www.webinknow.com/2009/03/the-one-question-to-ask-your-prospective-social-media-agency.html). That is a really nice way to help him with his new venture. Not so transparent, but oh well.

I was hoping that you could ask Mr. Henderson exactly what his definition of "dusty" is. He puts "most corporate online newsrooms" on blast by saying they are dusty, but when I look at the ISC Newsroom, it has not been updated in more than 8 days. That is way more "dusty" than most of the corporate online newsrooms I've seen which are rich with updated content.

Perhaps some more vetting needs to be done before you take on the task of artificially pumping up your friends project? This really hurts your credibility.

But hey, what are friends for?

[David Meerman Scott]

@Ted, thanks for the comment.

I have been writing about online media rooms for years, way before anybody else saw the potential of an online media room as a place for buyers.
http://www.webinknow.com/online_media_room/ There is a chapter about media rooms in my book The NEw Rules of Marketing & PR. And I have also been frequently writing about the use of journalists by corporations. This post combines many of my favorite ideas.

Yes, I am a fan of David Henderson's work and I said so in my post. We have spoken on the phone only once but have never met in person. We do not have any business relationship.

I write about marketing that I like. Sometimes people send me things and I write about them. If you look through my many case examples you will see that. http://www.webinknow.com/case_studies/ Happy to write about something that you've done that's interesting if you want to send it along and I like it.

I did not write this post to "artificially pump my friends project." Sorry that you feel that way, but it is not true.

I'll point this comment out to David and see what he has to say about the "dusty" part of your comment.

Best, David

[David Henderson]

Dear "Ted,"

We know that Ted is not really your name. You have used several names of both men and women to post inane comments to express your objection to this new approach to online newsrooms. In this case, you are using a derivation of Ed Lallo, one of my colleagues.

The world is changing, "Ted." There are new ideas, new approaches, new concepts in this digital revolution whether you like them or not.

David Henderson (my real name)

[Rhoda Israelov]

Dear David,

I composed a blog post inspired by your post about Imperial Sugar. I will go live with it on Sept. 21st. Wanted to make sure I quoted your post in a way that meets your approval.

Rhoda

[David Meerman Scott]

Rhonda - As long as you quoted me accurately and linked to the post, that's great. Thanks - I appreciate it.

[Emil Bestorini]

Imperial Sugar is to be taken over in a buyout scheduled for February 1, 2011. The company will retain it's name as a subsidiary of the acquiring entity, and the price per share in the transaction is IPSU at $18.70.