When Jesper Carlsson was hired as the editorial manager at Skandia, the vision was clear: create an editorial department at Skandia for the company's content creation.
– Back then, the marketing department was separated from the communications department. I was probably pushing the boundaries a bit when I started pulling employees from both sections into coordination meetings. We've now had an integrated unit for several years - Strategic Communication & Marketing - where the editorial team plays an important and fundamental role in our work.
There are obvious advantages of the editorial approach, according to Jesper, who has a long background in journalism.
– We simply have to coordinate our resources and channels to maximize our efforts, and I can't stand silo mentality. Our editorial team is a group of fantastic professionals with unique profiles and incredible competence, but they are even more powerful when they work together. And with the editorial department in place, we create a lot of great content!
Bringing the new pulse into marketing and communication
The editorial approach is reflected in everything, from how the meetings are structured to how they think about storytelling.
– Every morning at 9 am we meet to discuss the content of the day. We certainly have a cohesive marketing- and communications plan that we adhere to, but we also work reactively and respond to what's happening in the world and stay up to date if there's something we want or need to comment on. We also have weekly and monthly meetings.
Jesper and the rest of the editorial team make sure that the morning meetings are productive and taken seriously.
– Everyone participates with a sharp mind and it creates a positive pulse and breeds creativity. Classic news' evaluations play an important part of what we do and that's why we use the term 'editorial department'. We bring the news pulse into our marketing- and communications department because it has a very positive effect on our work.
Do you think working editorially would benefit all types of companies?
– I'm absolutely convinced that all companies would benefit from moving away from working in silos. Working as an editorial department has worked really well for us at Skandia!
Working strategically with video
In recent years, Skandia has worked strategically with video content.
– A couple of years ago, we decided to radically increase the frequency and quality of our video production. That includes both video on social media and our site, but also in terms of product videos, events and internal screens.
Why video?
– There are billions of figures that confirm the benefits of working with video, but for us, it's mainly because we noticed a growing demand for video content. We also see how effective it is.
Jesper and his team came across several challenges when they decided to step-up their video production.
– Video production can be very resource-intensive. Sure, you can go with simple mobile videos and super basic productions, but the public's demands and expectations have increased significantly. Today, people expect content to be relevant, attractive, and engaging. And creating that type of videos used to be so time-consuming that we weren't able to produce everything we wanted to create.
Storykit - solving the problems
To solve this problem, Skandia is now working with Storykit.
– We no longer need to use photographers and motion designers in all of our projects, and we have a team of people that create videos. If you have a good story, anyone can create video content in Storykit and that's why the tool is so valuable for the quick and brief storytelling we do on a daily basis.
