Welcome to Contentdome!
In the movie Mad Max, Beyond Thunderdome , a structure was built as a steel arena for a post-modern death match where warriors fought for their lives. There were no rules and the only person who actually could decide a match would be the leader by using the Wheel of Fate, which is sort of like Wheel of Fortune, but only if Pat Sajak was a sadistic sociopath… which, by the way he has forced Vana White to turn letters for her entire career, he might actually be one. Such is the world of content marketing with publishers, advertising agencies, production companies, brands and community catalysts battling it out with the wheel of fate controlled by one leader…the consumer. Let’s look at each warrior’s strengths and weaknesses.
publishers: The most obvious strength for this warrior to triumph in Contentdome is its existing subscriber base, its existing direct contact with brands and its discipline in churning out material. Publishers born digital have a solid advantage over publishers born on traditional media structures. Traditional media structured publishers have struggled to reengineer their existing structures because digital is more dynamic and content is consumed quicker. If this consumer is not fed, it will flee. Traditional publishers were also built on a traditional compensation structure. The challenge here is for traditional publishers to build a spin-off from the ground up within the traditional structure and just like Frank Gehry’s philosophy for his House, wrap new life around an older yet solid structure.
advertising agencies: The most obvious strength for traditional agencies here is creativity. It is basically what is left for traditional agencies once independent media shops became the norm. A stronger suit here is the independent content shop that creates content constantly and can collaborate with different publisher by shipping out to multiple channels. Specialized agencies, such as PR firms, event producers, experiential, influencer marketing shops can plug in content creators and producers as well. Advertising agencies with research assets have an even bigger lead since accountability and the ability to measure content performance is very appealing to brands.
production companies: Not many saw this one coming. DIY clients are seeing a direct link to production companies and enjoying the final product. Now, for this to be effective clients need to have an internal structure or collaborate with research assets in order to measure content performance. Production companies are creative at the core, so the challenge here for production companies is their knowledge of marketing and media.
brands: Coca-Cola is the example to follow here. They have created a totally malleable structure that pursues best-in-class talent to develop their content, from creative to production and media placement. Other brands have opted to develop internal structures, but this is very similar to in-house advertising agencies where there is no coming together of ideas and the internal team just becomes a producer for what the owner wants instead of a relationship where brand brings goals and challenges external teams to bring their A games to the task at hand.
community catalyst: This game changer has had so many names, such as influencer, yet they hold two major weapons that are definite game-changers and these are context and insight. By living within communities (places or people) they can create extremely relevant content and change the feeding pattern. Instead of brands looking for content, these players are able to contact brands and show them a huge library of relevant content at a fraction of a cost(without agency, publisher or media commission). Locally, a great example is Santurce es Ley’s Alexis Bousquet. Through this event and his background in art he has been able to generate unbranded content that has created amazing traction among a very elusive target group.Imagine the day a big publishing company offers to give him total freedom in a massive media scale. The challenge here is client facing sensibilities where you really just need to trust the brand completely and that makes some CMO’s kind of nervous.
Thunderdome had one clear rule. Two men enter, one man leaves. In Contentdome my money is, once again, on the doer. The structure that is born creative and the structure that was built for producing quality content non-stop with great media placement and research to retire, at the flash speed of social what is not working and to learn constantly from the market to create better specialized content. For now, every player is biting their nails waiting for the final spin on the Wheel of Fate.
Originally published September 2016.