This morning I received an email marketing piece pushing online video creation with the following;
“Smart brands are evolving from promoters of stuff to publishers of meaningful content that empowers their audiences and moves people to action.”
I think that this is dangerous rubbish.
Yes, all brands likely need to create more “content” than before but if you are an SME who is going to evolve from promoting the stuff you sell to publishing content you will go broke.
The biggest brands have always had deep enough pockets to be wasteful in expanding their brand to drive sales.
“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” John Wanamaker
One of the key ways to prove that you are a “big” brand is to bet big on mainstream advertising. Nothings says “look how large my business is” than billboards all over town and TV ads in primetime. It is impressive and useful because of its wastefulness. By its very design this is an arms race with a price of admission that keeps the small fry out of the game.
The creation of meaningful content (as suggested in the offending email) isn’t cheap at all. Stop dreaming that it will magical go “viral” and you will realise that good content still need’s promotion to the masses and thus once again is very much out of reach for anyone other than a brand on at least a national level.
Seeing this hogwash blindly pushed on SME’s is frankly disgraceful.
I’d suggest a healthy diet of The Ad Contrarian as a good antidote for this kind of rubbish.