CNN‘s Courageous branded content studio has moved quickly since launch one year ago. Now, Courageous is producing the Human By Design conference, exploring the current state of human augmentation, at NYC’s Paley Center for Media on August 3. Otto Bell, head of Courageous, explains how the conference came about, and what sets the studio apart.

Cynopsis: What is the Human X Design conference, and what prompted Courageous’ association with it?

Otto Bell: The conference, and all of the content that surrounds it, was born out of a fairly standard launch brief we received a year ago from Square Enix (the video game studio behind the “Deus Ex” series). The latest installment of the franchise is set 13 years from now, in a world divided by human augmentation and unregulated technological advancement.

This premise was perfect for us. After a bit of journalistic digging, the Courageous team realized these were not the problems of tomorrow: a lot of the issues and societal tensions that the game imagines are already surfacing today. What’s more, we couldn’t find much commentary on the subject – there was a bit of vacuum – so we embraced the idea and decided to hold a conference to thrash out some of the open questions.

Cynopsis: Has Courageous accomplished all you set out to since launch, and has your strategy shifted at all over the past year?

Bell: I’m happy to say we have, and then some. It all starts with people and we’ve built a first rate staff of “doers” – award-winning directors and producers, web developers, documentary cinematographers, motion graphics artists, designers and craft editors. Secondly, we’re profitable. We’ve pushed out 40 client projects in our first 12 months, and as of today, we have 14 projects in production. The strategy for distributing that content has shifted as new products have come on stream. For example, the rollout of Turner Native Plus, which expands the power of native advertising to television, and the establishment of Launchpad, our social optimization tool, have been powerful amplifiers of our custom work. Lastly, the year ahead looks very good. We’ve just signed the lease on another 12,000 square feet and are hiring more full time staff to further strengthen our self-sufficient production model.

Cynopsis: Content studios are springing up a lot these days. How is Courageous different?Bell: Our difference stems from the reach and credibility of CNN and Turner’s premium brands. We have enough demand to sustain a full time staff and kit room full of owned equipment. Then there’s the reach of CNN, HLN and Great Big Story. Our work spans TV, online, social media, your phone, Snapchat and on location – all at scale. This allows us to be channel agnostic about the solutions we create for our clients. It could be video, text, an event – whatever the right format is to meet the brand’s objective, we can guarantee a large audience for it. And finally, our commitment to editorial merit sets us apart. There’s a real sense of responsibility when it comes to creating custom content that lives on CNN. The work that we do has to live comfortably on a network known to be the most trusted name in news.Cynopsis: What types of marketers are the easiest/most challenging to work with?

Bell: The most challenging clients tend to be those brands that are dipping into the world of native branded content for the first time. They’re often (rightfully) cautious and protective of a marketplace perception that they’ve spent a lot of time and money building. But what’s interesting is that you cannot make any blanket statements about a vertical or industry. We’ve had very advanced B2B clients, who are fully versed in the merits of content marketing, and then we’ve coached less experienced fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) brands through the process too.

Cynopsis: What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned over the past year?

Bell: You need to approach recruitment like a full time job.

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