For brands, gaining and maintaining mindshare in today’s increasingly crowded media landscape can be challenging. Earning eyeballs and effectively leading conversations, in both traditional and social media, means thinking outside of the box and tapping into what consumers really care about. And that can be difficult: Some 56 percent of consumers think brands spend too much time looking for ways to force them to pay attention and not enough time thinking of ways to make them want to pay attention.

So what makes consumers want to pay attention? What makes a brand story newsworthy?

The key ingredient is cultural relevance. Over the past year, the brand stories that made the most impact in consumer media tapped into what we were all doing and feeling, and turned some heads in the process. For some brands, cultural relevancy can be as simple as tapping into seasonal moments and finding an insight that consumers care about, such as Hershey’s Halloween Candy Convertor (which allowed consumers to swap out their unwanted Halloween candy haul for what they really wanted – a Reese’s peanut butter cup, of course) or Google’s perfect re-imagination of the Christmas classic Home Alone (now with the addition of Google Assistant).

Other brands captured and quickly responded to relevant breaking news and ongoing conversations on social media – and really owned the conversation. Point and case, Philadelphia Cream Cheese’s campaign to correct the bagel emoji capitalized on that “controversy,” and actually managed to change Apple’s mind.

So what does this mean for your brand? It’s about understanding what consumers love and are talking about, finding the whitespace in conversations relevant to your brand, and leaning into those conversations in manner that is highly authentic.

It’s something we do for all of our clients – and it’s how we approach storytelling at RF|Binder. By looking analytically at relevant earned media and social conversations, and applying a deep understanding of what media care about, we work with our clients to create stories that media and consumers want to care about.

Interested in taking a deeper dive into what goes into telling a great story? Take a look here.