The End of Media Houses? You'll Manage Content Yourself!

Group One, the largest independent communications group in Poland, is not slowing down. Just after Value Media won the title of Media House of the Year, the group announces the launch of a new structure – LABCON, whose first project will be a campaign for L'Oreal. The company, with a level of digital competence unique on a Polish scale for building own content on platforms such as YouTube or Facebook, will be headed by Marta Łysiak, who has worked with the biggest YouTubers and advised key Google clients in the United Kingdom.

Group One strengthens its digital business with another company

LABCON is for us a natural move in the group's development. We already know that the business model we have adopted is not only very effective, but also increasingly appreciated by the market - the group's independence and its ownership structure give us the ability to quickly expand our competences and respond to our Clients' needs. It is precisely in response to new market demand that LABCON was created. The huge growth in the share of social media and YouTube in media planning is today a trend that sets the pace of development for the entire market. Clients and brands feel they need a new approach, because today it is easier than ever to miss the moment and fall out of the market. Building engaging online communication based on own content is a necessity, and users choose platforms that are genuinely attractive, based on building relationships rather than binary communication. LABCON guarantees such an approach.

Thanks to Group One's backing and access to the broad know-how of all its companies, we can also provide Clients with comprehensive management of brands' presence in the media – from creative, through production, media buying, SEM support, e-commerce, to engagement in content. We believe this is how thinking about brand communication should look today – says Marek Żołędziowski, CEO of Group One.

Marta Łysiak, who is building LABCON, joined Value Media in March this year. Since 2008 she had been associated with Google, and for the last 3 years she served as CEE Strategic Partner Manager in YouTube's London office. In the United Kingdom, a top market for digital communication and e-commerce in Europe, she worked with the biggest YouTubers and advised key Google clients on how to build content and communicate with YouTube audiences in our region. She was involved in projects for, among others, Nestle, Avon, L'Oreal, Unilever, ING, Millennium, Allegro, Asos, BBC, Tymbark.

LABCON – we know how to create relevant stories

LABCON is the most modern approach to content in Poland. The company creates and manages broadly understood "content" at the highest global level, offering above all a strategic approach to building content as well as tools and know-how little known in Poland. The newest structure within Group One offers Clients comprehensive consulting, strategy and execution, taking into account the entire media plan, in the building of which it participates at every stage. The company stands out for its holistic approach to the long-term, systematic process of creating narratives and for creating so-called adaptive content, which is built through interaction with the user, based on verification and analysis of feedback. LABCON focuses on using the latest technologies such as face recognition, which allows measuring satisfaction with a message based on facial expressions. An important component of Labcon's competences is the analytical side – studying insights, everything that happens with content, what works and what does not, as well as scheduling, i.e. adjusting formats and frequency, and an extremely precise selection of target groups. Finally, a truly quality-based, rather than purely reach-based, selection of influencers. All so that the content delivered by the brand responds to real needs and is genuinely engaging, and the brand can communicate better, more easily and faster.

There is no rule for good content.

Nobody knows what will catch on, all brands want to have content that will set them apart, and the line between what is cool and what is not is very thin. LABCON is a fresh and total approach to content, it is more than pure influencer marketing. We know and are able to do it on a much larger scale than just engaging influencers based on reach. Good and natural content makes the brand become a platform and the crux of all communication. And this is the approach we propose to our Clients. We show that stories based on own content can be built long-term and systematically, going beyond the framework of a single campaign. We want to build such communication of brands in social media and YouTube that internet users will want to genuinely engage in themselves. I know that cooperation with influencers can be built "without embarrassment", authentically, in such a way as to extract from it what is best for the brand. The Polish media market is only just beginning to learn all the tools that can be used to manage content. We already have that workshop. We teach brands starting from answering important questions, so that we know that what we create will respond to demand and be nicely consumed. The first project of LABCON in cooperation with Value Media is the upcoming long-term campaign for the Maybelline brand, in which, thanks to our recommendation, L'Oreal for the first time on such a large scale bases all its online activations on own content that is created in interaction with users – says Marta Łysiak, Managing Director of Labcon.