This post will end with the greatest moment in musical comedy ever.
The television show, “Heroes” is content. Coca-cola is a company that runs ads on the show, “Heroes.” If “Heroes” does well, then a lot of people are watching it. As a result, more people see Coca-cola’s ad, and they buy more soda from them. Content pages are also content. (Hence the name.) If they are entertaining or interesting, then people will save them, pass them around, link to them from their blogs and web pages, etc. If this happens, the company that made the content page will get more inbound links, do better in search, and sell more of whatever it is they’re selling. They will also generate buzz about their company, resulting in more searches for them, also resulting in more stuff being sold. But if a company writes a content page that is nothing but “branding” and “call to action” and any other kind of euphemism for, “things the average web surfer absolutely does not care about,” then that would be like making the show “Heroes” about a group of people with special powers WHO REALLY REALLY LIKE COCA-COLA. Then no one would watch, because 1) It’s not interesting 2) The show is an obvious pitch, and those are universally hated Even shows like, “Texaco Star Theater” and “Philco TV Playhouse,” which had advertiser’s names right there in the title, still weren’t about Texaco or Philco. And when Sid Caesar had to do musical numbers about Firestone Tires or Ernie Kovaks did spots on his show for Dutch Masters cigars, they were still trying to be entertainment – not pitches. In short, if you want people to ooh and ahh about your online content so that it becomes that elusive viral phenom so many companies would kill for, you must stop thinking of it as a “commercial.” Think of it instead as entertainment. Brand it, host it, and make sure people know who made it… …but for God’s sake, make ‘em laugh.
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5 comments so far
the_strza says:
Well put. It is amazing how otherwise intelligent people fail to grasp this concept. I've been struggling with it myself for two years. Seems so self-explanatory: "put good stuff on your site and people will visit and probably buy something". I wonder about this and I'm tempted to suggest that it's caused by marketers learning tactics before they learn strategy.
If 2006 was the "year of linkbait", I hope this year will be remembered as the year when companies started adding real value to their sites, instead of just crapping up the internet.
Thanks for an insightful post.
Quebedox says:
This raises the spectre of product placement. As more and more media are infiltrated by advertisements masquerading as content in order to thwart ad-skipping, the notion of superheroes that really really like Coke is not that absurd.
Even my medium - video games - is not exempt. Heck, even games that were NOT created with advertising content can now be modified to include ads: http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN0335078620070904?pageNumber=1
Granted, that's not as subtle as product placement. Or for that matter paying people to infiltrate web forums until the time comes to spring their pitch on the communities they have joined.
The day they start adding real value to their sites, well... I'm not holding my breath. I refer you to the entire output of the Disney Channel and MTV for examples of people who actually excel at making their ads appear to be content, and it's still cack.
KJB says:
Very true. Just the latest example of the way in which content is the first casualty in the pursuit of commercial interests. However, unlike film, print and broadcast media, the potential to establish a standard on the web that holds content as the most important consideration is within reach. It is only required that people/companies/organizations launching sites recognize their power and responsibility to make their material functional for visitors first and foremost.
Braden says:
Sorry. Art is either plagiarism or revolution.
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Thank :-D Braden.
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