Content Marketing
I must have blinked.
And up pops another word for the same stuff we’ve all been doing for years, yeah millenia,
It’s now called “Content marketing”.
Or it could also be called “read stuff-buy stuff”. However, it’s tricky to sell services at £150/hour to a marketing executive when all you are going to tell them is to implement the read stuff/buy-stuff concept.
You may argue that content marketing is far more nuanced and psychologically driven, blah blah especially if you are selling content marketing serivices (which I am btw) then you probably are the type to elaborate and gesticulate and obfuscate and drop a bit of management speak and other such guff.
But those kinds of people never actually create content that makes people crawl over broken glass to consume.
They tend to repackage mediocre old school stuff in a sharp, brushed aluminium box with a logo coloured a soft shade of blue. A blue that has a subtle but effective gradient. Then they get the deal by revealing they go to the same school or buy the same crampons or kite surf the same beaches.
There are those who can present content which actually gets the results that turn the marketing executives heads, and there are those that can present and pitch trendy concepts and…. that’s about it.
Content marketing used to be called informercials, or advertorials. And they used to make mountains of cash. With not a blue gradient in sight.
Linkbait is content marketing, but what it is selling is the emotional warm glow you will receive if you link to the content. That is the action, that is the point.
Most of the people pushing the concept of content marketing seem to be fresh faced 20 somethings who have a brightness in the eye and think a new discovery has been made and use such terms as “globalize your creative concepts”.
Maybe I’m just a cynical, middle aged, frustrated film script writer who has seen the concept of “read stuff-buy stuff” repackaged and reformed so many times that it takes a lot even to raise one eyebrow 2.7mm.
But, I think not. I think this has always happened, the crowd always follows but it’s the mavericks that have found the oasis a few years ago and have time to build a hamburger stand to feed the hungry mob (Gary Halbert nod of the day) who eventually arrive at the place after following the 20 something, bright eyed, trendy types.
Imagine picking up a plump chicken. Holding it firm and then stretching its neck, it’s muscles taut and strained and then sinking your teeth into its neck. The hot, wet blood pumping out and running down your chin.
The life seeping out of the feathered body as it lies limp in your hands.
Shocking isn’t it?
But you wont forget that bit of “content”, even if you try for the rest of the day.
That’s the point.
You read, but did you buy?
That’s content marketing!