Content Remains King

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.

The mantra “Content is King” appeared around that time; the subtext being: “Just because it’s easy to publish, it doesn’t mean that you should publish anything, or indeed that anyone should do it.” That mantra became somewhat discredited by the new Web agencies that arrived on the scene with an arrogant flourish. I was running a business within the Omnicom empire at the time and Lord Omni (as we Brits cheekily referred to our American masters) acquired (with great foresight), Razorfish, Organic and Agency.com among other interactive agencies. The new masters of the Web sneered at us “amateurs” attempting to adapt our journalistic ways and talked a lot instead about functionality and usability. The then head of Razorfish actually stood up at our annual brainfest at Babson College and told us that we would all be out of business in 10 years.

Well, here we are 10 years later; Razorfish has changed hands at least three times and my old company and most of the rest of us in that room still appear to be in business.

So, whisper it quietly, but content appears to be King again—assuming it was ever, if only for a moment, dethroned. Every time something new—whether it’s a You Tube or a Kindle or a Twitter—appears, there is a momentary aberration while we all have collective amnesia and marvel at the technology—as cuddly kittens, remaindered books and Ashton Kutcher become our touchstones. Then the universe re-rights itself, the providers of great content adapt and adopt, and new ones appear—inspired by the reach and democracy of the medium—to create their own message.

For the word “content” you could substitute the word “creativity”—the point is the same—great communications needs great communicators. In our business, while we absolutely need to be aware of new platforms as they emerge and know where our clients’ customers are consuming their media; our focus remains on providing great content with great creativity. Long live the King!

Posted By: Craig Waller