NYSE Tries Storytelling

“Brands are publishers, and this platform is our way of co-owning the message with consumers,” said Marisa Ricciardi, CMO of NYSE. “It’s a way to have a conversation instead of just speaking at them. A lot of the content out there right now is around financial news and stock prices. We decided to take it from a listed-company perspective because these companies have interesting stories to tell. They’re inspiring.”

To turn the Big Stage into a newsroom, NYSE is working with Time Inc. and Digitas, and the three organizations are collectively creating content. Some of the content on the site is borrowed from NYSE’s 12-year-old magazine, “NYSE Magazine.” There’s an editorial calendar, which is planned similarly to how a magazine is run. NYSE knows it’ll have X number of IPOs or events at the exchange any give month and plans content around that. It gives readers behind-the-scenes looks at events at the exchange, like Pepsico Frito Lays’ “Brand do Us a Flavor” event. The site is focused less on the news and more on adding some small interesting tidbit, like the back-end story on how a company came to be or reorganized and then succeeded.

Content on the site comes in all different forms. There are in-depth feature stories, Q&As, photo essays, videos, infographics and user polls, to date. The content is tailored for the business audience and is updated daily. It includes stories that focus on developments around IPOs, success stories about NYSE-listed companies and their leaders and thought-leadership pieces on policy actions such as the JOBs act.

To ensure site traffic, NYSE has a paid, owned and earned media strategy in place. It has a large presence on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and will also promote the new content platform in its print magazine and on the NYSE site. It’s working with some financial services news sites like Time Inc. and the Wall Street Journal where it is running dynamic banners that change the content in the banner to match what’s on the Big Stage site at the time. When the Big Stage changes content, so do the banners.

The site is very visual, much like Pinterest, with big bold images. And according to NYSE, it takes advantage of how people are using tablets now, with a scrolling feed. It’s set up for responsive design so that it formats well on tablet and mobile as well.

“Business execs are on the move, so mobile was a must to reach this audience,” said Todd Stanley, evp of marketing at Digitas. “But what’s interesting here is that NYSE is an established, global brand that is willing to try out a forward-leaning marketing strategy. It’s moving away from pure paid media strategy, to providing value. It gets that marketing today needs to be about building value, not just impressions.”

Image via Shutterstock