The Plane Truth: Brand journalism and the new Boeing site

The Boeing Company recently launched a completely new approach to the Web.

The dramatic shift in direction brings what was a dull technology and product focused site to one focused on brand journalism, with interesting stories about people.

Brand journalism is the creation of videos, blog posts, photos, charts, graphs, essays, ebooks, and other information that deliver value to your marketplace. Brand Journalism is not a product pitch. It is not an advertorial. It is not an egotistical spewing of gobbledygook-laden, stock-photo enhanced corporate drivel.

The new Boeing site does an excellent job at putting a human (and canine) face on the company.

One of the featured stories as I write this is Rocky earns his rest, about a Belgian Malinois, who served for 56 "dog years" as a Boeing explosive detection dog.

"Rocky's story is unusual and we never would have used him on the site before," Todd Blecher, Communications Director, at The Boeing Co tells me. "Now on our site we show there are real people who work in the company. And we are willing to talk about them even if they are a dog."

Humanizing a giant company

Todd heads up the editorial team at Boeing, gathering story ideas from all over the company. An interesting aspect of the brand journalism approach now used at Boeing is that each of the stories carries a byline of the person who wrote it.

"The bylines are another way that we humanize the stories," Todd says.

I particularly liked Freezin' in Florida, about testing the 787 Dreamliner in the largest refrigerated hangar in the world. The hangar simulates temperatures as low as minus 65 degrees Fahrenheit or as high as 165 degrees Fahrenheit. There is a fascinating two-minute video of the very, very cold airplane featuring the people who are testing it.

"Rather than have a standard news release that describes testing, we take you inside the hanger to actually show what people have to do to freeze the airplane," Todd says. "No airplane comes together without the people who work on it. Now we're talking about our technology from the perspective of the people."

This is a terrific example of brand journalism from a company whose products I fly in almost every week.

I'll be keeping an eye on the site and look forward to watch what comes next.

Rocky photo by Boeing’s Marian Lockhart

Comments

[NicP]

Nice and informative story. Doing it this way will add great value to stories and, in my view, show respect for the readers who use their time to read your content

[Russ Jefferys]

Perfect example of what I'm trying to convey to a client: content on your website doesn't have to mean product imagery and spec.

http://www.google.com/profiles/russ.jefferys

[Gerald J Leonard]

This post really demonstrates how large corporations are putting the new rules of marketing and pr in to practice. More companies should follow Boeings example and humanize their brand

[BoeingCorporate]

David, thanks for the write up. I learned a lot from speaking with you. And while it sounds corny, I truly believe we are fundamentally changing how Boeing communicates. We're treading carefully. We can't toss out decades of corporate culture overnight. But we are on to something exciting.

[David Meerman Scott]

@BoeingCorporate (Todd)

Thanks for jumping in. You are doing great work. I'm looking forward to seeing what else you create! David

[David Gordon Schmidt]

Todd: nice job on the new approach. Having worked many years to promote capital equipment manufacturing companies and their products, I can empathize with the corporate culture challenges. I'd be interested to know the relationship between the new, human-story home page strategy and goals to counteract troublesome industry perceptions due to the Dreamliner multiple delays, labor strikes, and supplier frustrations.

[chandani]

Great and much needed approach in today's economy and world. Making the corporate more human to which consumer can relate and feel part of. This makes me wonder about Lovemarks by Kevin Roberts. Another great informative post David.

[Rob Leavitt]

Thanks David, definitely a nice example of how big companies (or any, of course) can provide interesting content rather than the same old marketing fluff. Kudos to Boeing for trying something new here.

It will indeed be interesting to see if they can move more fully in the direction of truly providing useful and educational material to all their stakeholders on a consistent basis -- right now this looks more like a nice new add-on to a still fairly traditional approach. Hopefully they'll get great response internally and externally to keep going.

One small footnote: When you click on "News Features" in their Media section, the latest piece is a 2008 Year in Review. This is the kind of thing that undercuts the good first impression work of the new look on the home page. Overall, though, a great step in a better direction.

[Talmadge Boyd]

This does go to show that EVERY company is interesting as long as you focus on the human story and why that story can help the reader.

I do wonder why you've zeroed in on bringing journalists over from the dark side. Because Marketers promote too much? Because journalists can write?

Great bloggers have been providing multi-media content for quite some time without journalism degrees.

Don't get me wrong; I dig. Just wondering about the angle.

[Gauravjha83]

Brand Journalism - nice new word in my dictionary of lingo's :)

Every company today wants to shift focus to humanize their approach to promoting their brand. Social Media gives a good headway to come closer to the customers and prospects and interact at a more personal and casual level, than boardroom talks. With the advent of podcasts, video share, blogs, and many other avenues for people to communicate, companies are understanding that if these mediums are used in the right manner, they could do wonders for the brand, without sounding pompous or narcissistic.

I talk about some ways in which the Social Media is effecting B2B businesses in the new world, and how Connection Mapping has emerged as the new darling in my post: http://bit.ly/cLwKjZ

Visit if you'd like to learn more about this and if you have time to spare.

[Josh]

Very good writeup. We have been trying this humanizing approach and have had a lot of success with it. We have seen a big jump in customer loyalty. Hopefully we are on our way to creating some brand evangelists. :)

[Veronica Brown]

What happens, though, when the news is bad, as with BP lately? Is it realistic to expect a marketer to be objective like a journalist, and not put on its happy face--as Boeing is fortunate to be able to do?

I think the standards of journalism will help B2B marketers think like publishers, as they must. But marketers can't, and won't, have the same objective standards as journalists, and the result is no different from what we have have always called "good B2B marketing content."

I blogged it here and linked to this post and the Boeing site: http://bit.ly/dzzpEb

[David Meerman Scott]

Veronica

A few thoughts:

Journalists who write for mainstream publications must show both sides of an issue. But brand journalists do not. However both need to tell interesting stories that are true.

If a brand delivers news now--when times are good-- there will be goodwill built up for when times are bad.

David

[Fred Kapoor]

I couldn't agree more with @NicP, this adds value to the content the viewers read, and sharing valuable content makes the difference and it also shows respect for the reader.
thanks for sharing.

[anelina]

i think with time everyone advancing his strategies then why not Boeing. its a good step by them.