The Content Con

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to recognize that this year's online magical marketing word is "content."

All the hustlers who were selling us "the conversation" a few years ago and "social media marketing" for the past two years have suddenly all become "content" experts. The great thing about content is, it's anything you want it to be. If you can upload it to the web, it's content.

It may be "content" in the digital world. In the real world it's mostly garbage. 99% of it will go unnoticed and will live and die anonymously.

Like all the online wonder drugs, there will be a few winners. They will be the same really smart people and the really smart agencies who know how to do things right. They will be a tiny, tiny minority.

As usual, the 99% talent-free mediocrities will attach themselves to these winners as proof of the magical powers of "content." And, also as usual, the vast majority of content "providers" will produce nothing but drivel that no one will pay a moment's attention to.
 
A growing number of marketers and agencies have already quietly given up on over-hyped online marketing marvels. Websites that aren't transactional lay around like a lox waiting to be upgraded "next year."

Between 2010 and 2011 over 25% of "fast-growing" companies identified by Inc magazine who had blogs dropped them. And according to USA Today, only 23% of Fortune 500 companies have a blog anymore. A far cry from the days when websites and blogs and podcasts were going to be the fast track to marketing stardom.

Now, of course, everyone has a Facebook page and a Twitter feed. Why? Because everyone else has one.

They're the lazy mans' blogs. It's just so much easier to write a tweet or an update than a blog post. And you get the same credit for "doing social media."  In fact, you are not doing social media. For the most part you are doing nothing. But it's masquerading as social media.

Plus you don't need brains to Tweet or update a Facebook page. Here is Coke's last tweet, as of this writing:

For your to-do list today: “pay a compliment to one friend and one stranger” #HappyMonday

This abominable idiocy could have been written by a half-bright 9-year-old. In fact, it probably was. Pepsi's latest Facebook update (again, as of this writing)

One way to make this the best week EVER is to ____. (With a picture of a Pepsi can.)

This pathetic nonsense drew over 4,000 likes.

The essence of social media is democracy. Everyone has something to say. Unfortunately, everyone doesn't have something interesting to say. Or intelligent to say. As a matter of fact, almost no one has anything interesting or intelligent to say.

As user-generated-content has become the standard, and as marketers' content tries to emulate and imitate user-generated-content, it is being relentlessly dumbed down. It is devolving into empty platitudes and boosterism.

We are in for a period of truly vapid online marketing in 2013. It will be the year of content without content.

 

Sex And Commerce

Back in high school there were people who were "heavy users" of sex. Remember them?

They often had one characteristic in common -- they were promiscuous. They didn't just have lots of sex with one person. As we used to say, they "got around."

The world of commerce is like that, too. Heavy users in a category tend to be promiscuous. They tend to try lots of different brands in the category. They get around.

Someone who is a heavy user in the fast food category might go to McDonald's 4 out of 10 times; Subway 2.5 in 10; Wendy's 1.5 in 10; Taco Bell 1 in 10...etc.

People in advertising and marketing often wrongly equate usage and loyalty. They think that heavy users in a category tend to be brand loyal. And that heavy users of a brand are brand loyal. The truth can be quite the opposite.

In the above example, the heavy fast food user might also be a heavy user of McDonald's. He may go to McDonald's 4 times a week. But he is not brand loyal. In fact, 6 out of 10 times he patronizes a competitor.

This is true in many categories. Heavy users of sneakers (like yours truly) will tend to have Nikes, Adidas, and Reeboks in their closets. Heavy users of wine are very avid brand jumpers. Heavy travelers visit a lot of different locations. 72% of Pepsi drinkers also drink Coke.

Meanwhile, light users can be very brand loyal. My parents didn't eat out much, but when they did, they always went to the same places.

Of course, this does not mean there are no heavy category users who are highly brand loyal. But in general, the idea that heavy users in a category and heavy users of a brand are more loyal than light users is not just mistaken, it is dangerous.

It's dangerous for two reasons. First, because it fosters the infantile fantasy that people care deeply about brands and want to have "relationships" with them.

Second, it has large implications for advertising strategy. Success of a brand is not singularly related to high degrees of brand loyalty. Let me repeat that. Success of a brand is not singularly related to high degrees of brand loyalty. In fact, the most important success factor for mainstream consumer brands is not how many loyal customers you have, but how many customers you have.

Which is why the current obsession with "engagement" is so misguided. The idea that your success is dependent upon your customers becoming deeply emotionally attached to your brand is a delusion. Consumers are promiscuous. Most successful brands have a customer profile that is a mile wide and an inch deep. They're just not that into you.

As Martin Weigel says... "Your consumers are just someone else's consumers who occasionally buy you."

That is also why the current mania for spending enormous amounts of time, money, and energy getting your "fans" to "engage" with you is such a silly preoccupation. Having your customers "like" you may be nice, but having your competitors' customers try you is what builds your business.

Wanna grow your brand? You don't need more engagement. You need more customers.

Who The Hell Is "The Consumer?"

One of the things that gives me big chuckles is listening to account planners and creative directors talk about "the consumer."

"The consumer" is someone they think they know a lot about. Apparently she attends the same pilates classes as planners, and goes on mountain bike rides with creative directors.

Despite their unctuous devotion to mouthing the word, most people in advertising don't know the first thing about "the consumer."

This point was reinforced to me recently by two things I read. First was a blog piece by the great Dave Trott, writing about the reaction he gets to his cockney accent when speaking to business groups.

"Was the white collar world of marketing and senior management made up exclusively of middle class people with middle class accents?

Did they think everyone, everywhere was exactly like them?

Because here’s a funny thing.

Where I grew up everyone had cockney accents.

Around three million people.

And I’d lived my whole life without anyone ever commenting on it, until I started doing talks to people in marketing.

People who, apparently, never hear anything but middle class accents."

The second occurred when I was doing some research on automotive trends. I was reading a piece about how some cars stay in the hands of owners far longer than others. The writer of the piece thought he had uncovered a startling anomaly. He found that people with crappy cars held on to their cars longer than people with quality cars. Why would people hold on to lousy cars, he wanted to know?

He was digging around for explanations for this crazy fact. I'm pretty sure this would have stumped most agency people.

So here's the answer Mr. Strategist -- they hold on to their crappy cars longer because they don't have any fucking money.

Unlike us marketing wizards, people in the real world are forced to buy crappy things and hold onto them. To them, Walmart is a way of life. To us it's a punch line.

Here's something I wrote three years ago in a post called Reality At The DMV...

I'm thinking of making a monthly visit to the DMV a condition of employment for everyone on my staff. 

I want them to see what the people they're making ads for really look like. I want them to see the people they never see at the restaurants they go to; never see at the bars they frequent; never see at the focus groups they attend; and never hear from on Twitter.

In other words, I want them to see the "consumer" they're all so very certain they know everything about.