It was good knowing you. But this farewell has been coming for a while now—you know that, right? It’s not as if this is a Bolt out of the blue or a message arriving from another Galaxy, is it? And I think she’s somewhat Siri that she’s come over so dominantly sexy, but the signs have been there for a long while, and you can’t really blame her for your own self-neglect, can you?
Imagine Tripadvisor.com but with the added comfort of attributed, independent reviews alongside the gazillion user-generated, over-the top gushings of Brian and Mary W from Michigan.
How awesome would that be?
Well, you’ll probably have to wait for that particular enhancement, but not for the spiffy new Tripadvisor for apps—the just-launched Recapp website.
We are more and more inclined within our business these days to talk about content as “liquid” or “living in buckets” or even as an “asset to be managed.” It’s an understandable development as we work with our clients to deploy their ideas and opinions and information across devices and platforms and shareable applications.
I worked briefly with a lovely man named David Haigh when he was at the branding consultancy Interbrand.
There’s no surer sign that a new job category is taking root in society than when public service recruitment ads start appearing.
It’s always difficult to separate the hype from reality once marketers latch on to their “next big thing”.
And what did all of the client speakers (except CBS) and most of the other speakers have in common at the third CCC Conference that took place in Charleston, S.C., last week? Surprise, surprise: Social Media.
"Where Content Meets Commerce": This is a phrase that we’ve increasingly been using within our business. It takes in a plethora of live issues: brands as media owners; measurement and analytics; the role of content in e-commerce; the evolving nature of SEO … and allows us to examine the role of content in bringing customers to the retail environment.
This article from David Carr in yesterday’s The New York Times underlines the growing realization within brands themselves of the need for a content strategy when it comes to their developing e-commerce businesses. And it also recognizes the unique skills that editorial and journalism bring to the in-house creative process.
A particularly relevant article appeared in the McKinsey Quarterly last week. Entitled “Beyond Paid Media: Marketing’s new vocabulary," the paper expounds on the changing nature of marketing and the changing requirements of the job for marketers.
In a previous post, "The Future of Magazines (through a Custom Content Lens)", I considered the rise of custom magazines as a potential future for the printed magazine. In this paper, taking a closer look at this trend reveals that this magazine-like content—particularly that being produced by organizations for their stakeholders and customers—is migrating across all channels, print and digital.
Eight of the Top 10 circulating magazines in the U.K. are now “customer magazines.” This means that in the country that brought us William Caxton and the first commercial printing press, 80% of the most popular magazine titles are being published by consumer brands—not traditional magazine publishers.
So the quadrennial world watercooler fest is over, and some of us reluctantly refocus on ongoing summer baseball, cycling, NFL exhibition games, hot dog eating and Polanski-berating contests as a poor substitute for the passion, the emotional highs and lows, and the sheer, shimmering spectacle that the last month in South Africa brought us.
The 2010 annual customer service champs list in BusinessWeek was published recently, and it's similar this year to last, with the notable exception of the entry of L.L.Bean at No. 1. It says a lot for the changing nature of our customer relationships as consumers that e-commerce and online businesses rank so prominently in this list. Amazon.com, Zappos, Apple, USAA and, of course, L.L.Bean are all brands with minimal or limited retail presence.
SEO, SEM . . . It seems a sepia-tinted age ago that every marketing conversation did not include the 'S'-for-Search word. We are guilty as charged here in Greensboro Central, too. So, it gives me pleasure to reproduce a recent post from my friend Rob Norman, North American CEO of Group M. Rob’s blog is an enlightening and entertaining place to stop by. Here, he introduces a note of caution for marketers seeking what might be best described as SHG (Search Holy Grail).
Actually, it’s the Custom Content Council. I omitted the word “Custom” because the title without it sounded like a good band name—like the Style Council—only with substance!
In the late 1990s, our office was full of writers and “technical” guys (I don’t think we had adopted the word “developer” at that point), feverishly writing screeds of copy for new Web projects demanded by our clients who were busily jumping into the brave new Internet world. It’s interesting to recall because at the time—like social media now—no rules were set and everyone was following their best instincts to explore the new medium.
We have been luxuriating in the warm glow that surrounds achieving success at a major industry event. On the custom content side of the business that time comes around each November when the Pearl Awards—hosted and sponsored by the Custom Publishing Council—are announced. When I worked in the ad business there was always much angst about these types of awards—which are variously seen as “great for clients,” ”great for the agency,” “self-serving,” “a great vindication of our work,” “a waste of time” or “a great morale booster.”
Craig Waller
Craig is one of our chiefs.