Boston , June 22, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, Tom Gerace, founder and CEO of Skyword, a leading content marketing technology and services company, announced a partnership with award-winning story authority and best-selling author Robert McKee at Skyword’s annual conference on brand storytelling, Forward 2016.
The partnership will include Gerace collaborating with McKee on McKee’s Storynomics seminars in the U.S. and Europe. The seminars instruct senior executives and marketing professionals on how to apply storytelling structure to their business in order to drive revenue, margins, and brand loyalty. In addition to the seminars, McKee and Gerace will offer customized day-long workshops to individuals within specific companies. They also plan to develop online Storynomics courseware that will help people master the craft. Working with McKee, Skyword also intends to operationalize story craft in its clients’ marketing processes through its technology and services.
“Storytelling is the future of marketing,” said Gerace. “To succeed in an increasingly ad-free world, marketers have to put story at the center of their strategies. We believe the future of content marketing, and indeed marketing in general, will be the application of story to connect with audiences on an emotional level and move them to act.”
“Marketers may think they understand story, but most don’t,” said McKee, whose seminars have been attended by more than 60 Oscar and 200 Emmy award-winning directors and screenwriters. “There is still a disconnect between what story is and how and when to use it effectively. Instead of stories, companies are producing narratives that are full of bragging and promising and have no dynamic movement. Storynomics teaches the tenants of story craft and helps attendees apply it to business.
“Tom Gerace understands story and its application to marketing better than anyone I have ever met,” said McKee. “It’s going to be a great collaboration and a crucial resource for marketers as they move their organizations from rhetorical to storified marketing.”
New Content Marketing Framework Will Help Brands Integrate Storynomics into Organizational Mindsets and Cultures
Skyword announced the partnership along with the launch of the Content Marketing ContinuumTM, an assessment for measuring an organization’s content marketing skillfulness and a framework for achieving greater levels of expertise.
“Many brands are doing content marketing at some level, but not enough are creating content that truly adds value, engages audiences, and drives revenue growth for the company. The continuum formalizes the process and gives marketers a roadmap for consistent improvement,” said Gerace.
The Content Marketing Continuum assessment ranks marketers on a five-stage scale, starting with those who are focused only on product-level content and gradually advancing to those who have adopted a sustainable, storified approach to content creation. The goal is to get teams thinking about the desires, challenges, and triumphs of their target customers, and ultimately embed story into the culture of their organizations.
Storynomics aims to bring marketers to the leading stages on the Continuum by arming them with the knowledge and skillsets they need to infuse story into their external and internal communications strategies.
Storynomics seminars will begin this fall, with the first scheduled in Los Angeles on October 12 and New York City on October 26. Registration is now open, and custom seminars are also available for companies wishing to teach management and marketing teams how to incorporate Storynomics into their organizations. Online courses will begin in early 2017.
For more information on Storynomics™ visit: www.storynomics.org or contact learnmore@skyword.com.
About Robert McKee:
Robert McKee, a Fulbright Scholar, is the most sought-after screenwriting teacher in the world. The best-selling author of STORY and the forthcoming book DIALOGUE:
THE ART OF VERBAL ACTION FOR PAGE, STAGE, AND SCREEN, McKee occupies a unique crossroads in modern media storytelling. His teachings have spread beyond the screen and stage to influence all story forms. Writers, producers, directors, media professionals, and business leaders from the world over read McKee and attend his sold-out international seminars for an exclusive deep dive into the narrative potential of their material. McKee’s former students include over 60 Academy Award Winners, 200 Academy Award Nominees, 200 Emmy Award Winners, 1,000 Emmy Award Nominees, 100 WGA (Writers Guild of America) Award Winners, 250 WGA Award Nominees, 50 DGA (Directors Guild of America) Award Winners, and 100 DGA Award Nominees.
McKee continues to be a project consultant to major film and television production companies such as 20th Century Fox, Disney, Paramount, & MTV. In addition, Pixar, ABC, BBC, Disney, Miramax, PBS, Nickelodeon, Paramount, GLOBOSAT, MNET and other international TV and Film companies regularly send their entire creative and writing staffs to his lectures.
Since 1984, more than 100,000 students have taken McKee’s courses in various cities around the world.
About Storynomics™
Robert McKee created Storynomics™ as the ultimate business communication tool. Storynomics™ illuminates what story is, why story works and, most importantly, how storytelling in business translates into economic success and beyond. In recent years, Storynomics™ has helped organizations as diverse as Microsoft, Nike, Hewlett-Packard, Kraft, BOLDT, Church & Dwight Co, Inc., Costa Del Mar, UBISOFT, Mercedes-Benz, and Siemens develop their evolving narrative game plans.
Connect with Robert McKee
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RobertMcKeeSeminars/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mckeestory
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertmckee2
McKee Seminars: http://mckeestory.com/about/
About Tom Gerace
Tom Gerace is the founder and CEO of Skyword, the leading content marketing technology and services company. Prior to Skyword, Gerace founded Be Free, a publicly traded affiliate marketing platform and services company, which transformed online advertising from pay-per-view to pay-for-performance advertising. At the time of its acquisition by ValueClick, Be Free served more than 300 leading brands. He is a founding member of the Social Media Ad Consortium, an industry group responsible for creating a common vocabulary, standard buying units, and uniform measurement methods for social media. Early in his career, Gerace also served as a senior business analyst at the Harvard Business School, where he wrote the first case studies on the emergence of the Internet in 1998.
About Skyword
Skyword liberates brands from ineffective marketing practices and inspires them to create deeper connections with their audiences. The Skyword Platform makes it easy to produce, optimize, and promote content at any scale to create meaningful, lasting relationships. Skyword also provides access to a community of thousands of freelance writers and videographers, an editorial team, and program managers who help move clients’ content marketing programs to new levels of creative excellence. Skyword is a privately held company headquartered in Boston, MA. The company’s technology center is located in Pittsburgh, PA. Investors include Cox Media Group, Allen & Company, Progress Ventures, and American Public Media Group.
Connect with Skyword
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/skyword
Twitter: @Skyword
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/skyword-inc-
The Content Standard: http://www.contentstandard.com/