Nine ways content makers are failing
In this guest posting, Mark Pollard picks out his pet peeves in the jargon-tastic world of branded entertainment
I recently caught myself asking someone to explain the term “content idea”. I didn’t ask because I believe an idea is an idea is an idea (for how to explain an idea, read here). I didn’t ask because jargon deployed to control and patronise people frustrates me. I asked because “content idea”, to this global media agency, meant “not a TV script” and I was stunned that this was the level of conversation in 2012. Everything is content.
My time in advertising agencies never led to a fetish for television commercials. What happened around them – and whether we could subvert the role of the television commercial from an end-point to a something-else-point that sat as a small piece of a bigger story unveiled elsewhere – interested me most.
I’ve watched the groundhog-day “Content is king (no, it’s not)” debates – they happen on cue every two years. And I’ve created a bunch of content – as a magazine publisher, a writer, a collaborative book compiler, and a person in this industry. To me, content is everything. So I relished the chance to lose myself in the Australasian Branded Entertainment Award submissions last weekend.
Brilliant post @Mark. Really enjoyed some credible commentary in this space in plain language and some decent advice that is actionable.
I miss you Mark 🙂
Mark Pollard is the Vice President of Brand Strategy at Big Spaceship
I thought that Joe Biden was the Vice President? I also thought that NASA used spaceship’s?
Arrrggghhhh too much content!!!!!!
Nice post Mark.
The biggest issue I reckon is understanding the opportunity that content can play in the context of an individual campaign, and how that can deliver results. Real ones. Not Facebook likes or ‘engagement’.
Understanding why there is a role for content, why audiences will care, and the impact it will have. Rather than just including it (along with ‘and we need to be doing social’) in a brief or recommendation for the sake of it.
Shouldn’t you be in America Mark? 🙂
Where is transmedia in all of this. That has to be the biggest loaded buzz word of the category
I have never understood how ‘content’ is different from ‘communications’.
Isn’t it just a jargonized abused incomprehensible word for comms?
If someone asks, ‘whats the content of the ad?’ Don’t they just mean ‘what’s it going to say or do?’
Just a thought around jargon busting.
Agree @Marek… the CONTENT is ENGAGING in a truly ORGANIC way achieving the OUTCOMES of the communication in a meaningful way; STRATEGICALLY, with WOW FACTOR to ACHIEVE RESULTS! 😉