The Best Advertising Isn’t Advertising Anymore
For decades, advertising was a joyous place. Executives enjoyed two-martini lunches as they watched the ad dollars roll in. Ads were spread through every new medium—from print to radio to television. Ad agencies were held to vague benchmarks, and they promised massive exposure (as measured by metrics like number of print subscribers, average daily travelers passing by a billboard or number of television purchases) to the highest bidder. Brands blindly believed that these metrics (potential eyeballs) meant guaranteed success.
Advertising still is a joyous place, but for different reasons. Two-martini lunches are a thing of the past (or at least I’m not invited to them). But martinis aside, advertising in the post-advertising age is filled with amazing creativity and opportunities to constantly challenge the status quo, innovate and reach audiences with unique and authentic content.
4 Lame Excuses for Not Creating Content
Content marketing is all the rage, and brands of all shapes and sizes are focusing more time, effort and budget dollars on creating entertaining, useful and relevant content that audiences will want to share. Some brands, however, still stand at the water’s edge, not so sure an always-on commitment to social media and content creation is right for them.
Even the most successful marketing efforts have their detractors and doubters, who hold tight to the traditional methods: interruption and overexposure of their brands. They cling to the past and continue to invest in telemarketing, direct mail and pricey television spots and billboards. Even the London Olympics, which were praised as the most tech-savvy and social-media-supported games ever, were heavily supplemented (or, rather, dominated) by traditional advertising.
While those methods have their place, it’s about time we set the record straight and started to challenge those who insist that content marketing isn’t yet an established brand communication strategy.
Here are some of the reasons brands are abstaining from content and why they’re on the wrong side of history.
All Together Now: How Crowds Record History
This post originally appeared in our May issue of “Live Report from the Future of Marketing,” our monthly Post-Advertising newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
Perhaps the greatest part of the internet is how it allows complete strangers to come together around a singular event and create things both profound and absurd. The death of Osama bin Laden was just such a momentous occasion. While some took to the streets to celebrate, most went straight to their computers and mobile devices to let the world know how they felt. If Twitter's record breaking 3,440 tweets per second (TPS) is any indication: people had a tremendous amount to say.
The Next Big Media Battle:
Publishers vs. Ad Agencies
The media business has been in chaos for a decade, and there's more coming. The next big media revolution will be an escalating and increasingly bitter competition between the content creators--especially newspaper and magazine publishers--and their former friends, the traditional ad agencies, which still create and buy most print ads for their clients.
The traditional ad agencies are going to lose because creating great, engaging content is emerging as the key skill in marketing. And they don't have it.
Ford Takes on Social Media Off-roading
New cars have always been unveiled at auto shows. Boring and perfunctory auto shows. But on Monday, Ford took the road less (read: never) traveled. Armed with funny guy Mike Rowe, CEO Alan Mulally, and a truckload of video content, they systematically unveiled their snazzy new 2011 Ford Explorer via its official Facebook page. Absurdly enough, it's the first time a carmaker has unveiled a fresh model anywhere other than an auto show. Could this spark a new trend in the automotive world? 54 thousand eager fans, excited to check out (and possibly buy!) your new vehicle; or a room full of the industry's elite, seers of innumerable new car launches, yawning and droopy-eyed. Hmm...
We’re All Curators Now
Business Insider columnist Steve Rosenbaum recently riffed at length about the changing nature of the media game. Here's the gist: Our old media overlords are out and anyone and everyone is in. The new demand is for people and platforms that make sense of the online cacophony. Cue the culture of the curator.
EC=MC: Explaining the Brand-Media Metamorphosis
The metamorphosis of brands into fully realized media companies — that is, providers of real, quality content — is something we like to talk about a lot at Post Advertising. And we're thrilled to see it take hold. In particular, Tom Foremski, purveyor of the newly-launched EC=MC discusses many of the same concepts. Think Einstein would've agreed with us?
