Tag Archives: social media

World’s longest infographic uses fake facts to prove infographics don’t work…

06 Friday Dec 2019

Posted by in Content Marketing, Copywriting, Digital, Digital marketing, Marketing, Social Media, social selling, Thought Leadership

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Well folks, another week and another bunch of fake facts and virtue signalling designed to create FOMO and con marketers into using the self-interested marketing miracle being touted.

And what is this week’s con? It’s an infographic promoting the virtues of video marketing (previously known as television advertising) but as advertisements produced on video now also run on digital channels, they must have a new name. Hence, video marketing.

Ironically, the promoters of video marketing, use an infographic to promote video marketing. They don’t use video to promote video marketing. Go figure?

But wait there’s more…

The video marketing infographic is roughly 21 feet long – that’s 6.5 metres – on my PC. And that’s before I ‘click to enlarge’ the screen. According to Digivizer we each scroll on average, 110 metres every day. So on its own, the world’s longest infographic is about 6% of your daily scrolling activity.

world’s longest infographic is at least 6.5 metres long…

But get this: one of the fake facts printed on the world’s longest infographic claims: “59% of executives prefer watching a video than reading the text content”.

So you have to ask the question: If the majority of the target audience allegedly doesn’t like reading, why publish the world’s longest infographic in the hope they’ll read it??

Another fake fact that will really amaze you – as it reveals human DNA has completely changed and the education problems of the world will now be easily solved. It’s this gem tucked away about one metre down the page:

“viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it through video”

Who knew? Certainly not the TV industry, as it would never have the audacity to make such a false claim. But hallelujah, the solution to modern education and the future of the planet is video marketing.

Here we are criticising our teenagers for spending too much time watching videos on small screens. How wrong are we? Apparently, teens are learning at levels beyond the capacity of any humans in history. Homo Sapiens have evolved.

After all, according to the world’s longest infographic, our kids are retaining 95% of what they watch on video! Education problems solved! The future of the human population is assured.

Thank goodness for video marketers.

Teenagers enjoy retaining 95% of every video they view…

Fake facts are dotted throughout the world’s longest infographic. Take this amazing claim: “video consumption through mobile devices rises by 100% every year.” That’s a lot of percentages – every year…

Or this one: “72% of customers prefer learning about a product or service through a video.”

I’m not sure what to believe, as according to The Word Of Mouth Association: “77% of consumers are more likely to buy a new product when learning about it from friends or family.”

This must be what’s known as the WOM-Video Marketing Conundrum.

If you have a spare hour you can read the world’s longest infographic here.

But on a serious note…

I know video works – always has and always will – when designed well and when it reaches the right audience in the right channel.

But on all trust measurement surveys in the western world, marketing and advertising executives are the least or second-least trusted people on the planet.

Who do you trust – not advertising executives…

So if the marketing industry continues to lie to itself with self-interested promotions like the world’s longest infographic, what hope do we have of consumers ever trusting any messages we create?

These promoters of fake facts need to be removed from the industry, or at least their peers need to call them out and stop them from ruining the marketing industry’s already fragile reputation.

So I urge you, my fellow marketers, take action.

Marketers, take action…

Though I’m not holding my breath. A number of seemingly smart marketers ‘liked’ the world’s longest infographic when it was posted on social channels. Obviously, they are in the special 59% of the target audience and didn’t read it.

I’m off to change my data plan, I need more scrolling metres on my account…

FOMO, not social channel preference, drives social media usage on mobiles…

18 Friday Oct 2019

Posted by in Advertising, Digital, Digital marketing, Mobile marketing, Social Media

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Life used to be simpler. In the not-so-distant past you awoke, by whatever means, and depending upon your relationship might have had a cuddle or more intimate moment. Then you got out of bed and showered or had breakfast and prepared for the day.

Some of us were woken by radio, so we could listen to the news before, or as we started our day. Some even switched on a TV to catch the news – to see if any terrorist acts, wars, floods or famine occurred while you slept. It was a simple start to the day.

But things have become more complicated. Now it appears for many, the first thing we do when we awaken is “check our phones” – partners come a distant second on the priority list. And we’re not checking for missed phone calls, voicemail or even news.

No, we’re checking content on social media. Because as we all know, it’s the central repository for all things important. I’ve been fascinated by this behaviour and over the last four semesters teaching at university, I’ve discussed it with my students – tomorrow’s advertising and marketing legends.

We run a session in which we track ‘a day in the life of a consumer‘ in terms of the media they are exposed to throughout the day and how they interact (or ignore) with the various media channels. I’ve asked all my students “what is the first thing you do when you wake in the morning?”

Almost 100% answer “check our phones“. Some will even do so before they relieve their full and bursting bladders.

But being the curious bugger I am – I probe deeper. “What do you check on your phones” I ask? “Social media” choruses the answer.

And deeper – “what channel do you check first“, I inquire?

And this is where it gets interesting. Many don’t know what channel they check. If that sounds strange, it’s not when you think about it.

Because they are not checking channels. They are checking ‘notifications‘ – and they check the channel with the most notifications first – after all, that’s the most activity they missed while asleep. Their FOMO drives the channel they check first.

wakey, wakey, rise n shine, get out of bed it’s FOMO time…

So, if a post on Instagram has lots of activity that triggers notifications, they check that channel first. Or if they are tagged in a Facebook exchange resulting in lots of notifications, Facebook is the first port of call.

Their choice of a channel has nothing to do with the preference for the channel and everything to do with their Fear Of Missing Out on something, such as their name being tagged in a photo. After all, this is way more important than any terrorist acts, wars, floods or famine – or intimacy with their partner.

You see, notifications present a dilemma. The more notifications they have, the further behind the social curve they are – and other people might notice. OMG! Emoji. Emoji. Emoji. Emoji. #hashtag

The implication of course, though not scientific, is they ignore any ads that appear in their feed, as they rush to get back to the head of their social position. It also means marketers cannot assume people scroll through their feeds in a linear fashion, taking in all the messages that appear from friends and marketers, casually accommodating notifications.

If the consumer you are trying to reach is highly popular, they may never see your advertising – as they have no interest in anything but processing their notifications. But there is an easy way to know – test.

I suspect a few of you wise readers have occasionally been guilty of FOMO created by your phone? It’s not really a good reflection on human nature, is it? But I’m not trying to make you feel guilty – rather, reflect.

It also appears from a marketing point of view, the more you can get your customers tagging and hashtagging your message, the more chance you have of maybe, possibly, being noticed on a social channel on a mobile – maybe.

Then again, you could just call customers on their phone – that’s such a rarity these days you’re bound to beat the FOMO barrier.

Gotta go – my phone just pinged and it’s obviously vitally important that I drop everything. WOW, it’s a meeting notification. Maybe I should screenshot it and share for everyone to see…

There’s a reason the first three letters of ‘content marketing’ are ‘con’…

25 Thursday Oct 2018

Posted by in B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing

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Marketers are a weird lot. We love to over-complicate things. We also have a strange penchant for renaming existing tactics and marketing techniques that have worked sometimes for more than 100 years, just because a new media channel has been invented.

Take social media. Please, take it. I mean, is there any media channel that isn’t social? By their very nature, media and the messages published/broadcast in them are social. After all, we don’t have anti-social media channels do we?

As you know dear reader, since the introduction of digital channels, the resurgence of the emperor’s new clothes is complete. Cyber-hustlers everywhere have claimed new things exist where they don’t. Fake thought leaders try to convince gullible marketers that human DNA has changed forever, particularly when it comes to consumption of marketing messages and buying stuff.

the resurgence of the emperor’s new clothes is complete

And of course there’s the great content con. Apparently until the internet, there was no such thing as content for marketing purposes. I ask you, what do the content zealots believe has been filling every advertisement, brochure, video, billboard, sales presentation, media release, article, etc since year dot, but content?

To clarify the content situation I have created two lists:

“Content marketing” before the internet

“Content marketing” after the internet

As you can see, apart from a handful of new channels, marketers are still creating exactly the same content they always have – they’re just distributing it in these new channels as well as the traditional ones.

So why rename what has always been done just because we have digital distribution of traditional analogue content?

The illiterates are creating the content

But there is a bigger problem at play. Prior to the internet, content was in the most part written by professional copywriters and journalists. Art directors designed how the words were displayed.

In todays content-filled world, every unqualified executive who can type creates content. They operate under the mantra of “I type therefore I am…a content marketer“. In fact, many marketers avoid using trained and experienced writers and do their best to get Josephine Junior, or a mate’s son to write their content, manage their social posts, create their online ads…

If you weren’t aware, the OECD Adult Literacy Study revealed at least 82.5% of the population struggles to read and write competently. Yet it’s these illiterates who are creating the marketing content.

The mind boggles as to how marketers justify their folly. It’s one reason why I created www.thecontentbrewery.com a couple of years ago – it’s an anti-content marketing, content marketing website.

So if you’re looking to create content…..

 

Here’s some more content about content marketing:

Why there’s really no reason to ever use the term “content marketing”…

The 3 essential questions for content marketing success

How the content paradox and your A.S.S. Time ruin content marketing performance

Shell’s content marketing turns 40 and still sells

Good manners will always trump marketing content

Why most shared content has almost no impact on your brand

The silence of the fake influencers and lack-of-thought leaders is deafening…

19 Wednesday Sep 2018

Posted by in Advertising, Content Marketing, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Social Media, social selling, Thought Leadership

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Those who have read my missives or attended my seminars, are aware I’ve been calling out the online zealots and their snake-oil since the invention of the information superhighway. So here’s today’s polite rant.

The internet and all it brings, is one of the most positive developments in the marketing industry. Yet the industry has been infested with dodgy, dishonest and downright diabolical deceivers, the likes of which have never been seen before.

Though it’s been quite comforting to have a number of industry heavyweights step into the fray these last couple of years and join the cause for honesty and integrity in digital marketing.

But something struck me recently. Given the public revelation about the major players in the digital media landscape, and their lack of ethics around privacy, data usage and the real number of users, something was missing. To recap:

  • Facecrook – data dishonesty, deletion of almost 20% of all accounts as they were fake, lies about video viewership, the list goes on…
  • Google – preferential treatment of advertisers in search results, placement of ads on fake accounts through programmatic channels…
  • Instagram – fake accounts, fake followers, fake likes, fake comments, fake influencers…
  • TripAdviser – fake reatsurant becomes number one eatery in London via fake reviews…
  • Twitter – fake news, fake accounts, fake followers, minimal brand success…

And that’s just scratching the surface. I suggest Bob Hoffman’s book BadMen should be compulsory reading for all young graduates considering a career in marketing.

Despite all the overwhelming evidence about the lack of credibility in these channels and the ingrained dishonesty in the DNA of digital marketers, those who’ve arguably made the most money from naive punters – the alleged influencers and thought leaders – have been deathly silent in their condemnation.

To quote The Adventures of file clerk Ralph Mellish, “nothing happened“.

None have come forth to apologise for their false opinionations unsupported by facts. There has been no admittance of guilt by these cyber-hustlers who stole budgets from unsuspecting marketers and entrepreneurs.

Where is the mea culpa? Where is the “content marketing” repealing the dishonest deeds via blogs, newsletters, social posts and videos?

Have you heard any apologies? “ah sorry, the truth is out, I lied” or “yep, you caught me, I was a bandwagon jumper looking to make a fast buck“, or “sorry, I made fake claims, but hey there was too much money to be made on the back of your FOMO” or “don’t blame me, I believed Facecrook, after all it was online so it must be true.”

It seems the only marketers making noise about the problems are those who have always criticised the opinionators, then suffered the trolls and backlash for having the gall to do so.

So if you’ve subscribed to an alleged influencer’s “content” now is the time to unsubscribe. Stop listening to them, unless they apologise and share the honest facts with you. But don’t hold your breath.

Interestingly, I’ve noticed some are no longer sharing secret social sauce. Rather they’re discussing “purpose” (the latest way to make money from FOMO) or giving advice on management tips, or workplace wellbeing – anything but the digital baloney they’ve been hustling for the last few years.

The truth is, there is only one way to get rich online. It is to run a business telling suckers how to get rich online.

Otherwise the real way to get rich online, is to do what those who get rich offline always do. They make sure their marketing activity does at least one or all of the following – nothing else:

  • Create new customers
  • Get those customers spending more money with you more often
  • Keep those customers spending money with you for as long as possible

It doesn’t matter what tactics or channels you use, as long as they are profitable. Many won’t be. You’ll have to test and learn. Nothing new here. And if you don’t invest in your brand, well that’s another story…

Ignore the fake influencers and lack-of-thought leaders – even call them out publically. Ask for your money back if you feel you’ve been taken for a ride. If they are legitimate they’ll return it to you.

Then remember this simple fact – technology changes, people don’t. Certainly not in the short life of new marketing channels. People buy emotionally and justify their purchase rationally – regardless of the media or shopping channels involved. Always have, always will.

Gotta go now, I’m downloading this super-awesome definitive guide by a technology company. It’s tells the 63 mind-blowing money-making social media headlines and content secrets, used by ninja unicorn mega-marketers to help you retire early as a thought-leading power Linkfluencer and best-selling author…

When will marketers and agencies call ‘transparency’ for what it really is…

08 Friday Dec 2017

Posted by in Advertising, Digital, Digital marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Media, Social Media, social selling, Thought Leadership

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There is no other industry in the world more hooked on the drug of jargon, than the marketing industry.

We are constantly inventing meaningless new terms for the same old thing. For example, earned media = publicity. Omni-channel = multi-channel. And so on…

One reason for this, is that people new to marketing (digital marketers) believe marketing was only invented five days ago and everything new to them is new to the world. My friend Drayton Bird demonstrated this in NZ recently.

Another example of our jargon-based mentality is the word the industry has recently manufactured for “dishonesty“. Its use reflects appallingly on the whole marketing industry. Rather than admitting that the industry, particularly the digital marketing segment, is chock-full of cyber-hustlers, liars and money-grabbing spivs, we’ve avoided stating the truth and instead, created a buzzword.

In the marketing industry “dishonesty” is now known as “transparency“. And this buzzword is being flogged to death in talkfests as the amazing solution to dishonesty, even though dishonesty is never mentioned.

In his weekly newsletter, Bob Hoffman recently wrote that Transparency is the phoney flavour of the month. He highlighted how talking about transparency, rather than transparency itself, is all that the industry is doing, giving these examples:

As Bob asked – Was there a parade? Did you have a Transparency Eve party?

As we all now know folks, the major publisher platforms and sellers of digital advertising have been lying for years. And now they’ve been caught with their hands in the till. But instead of admitting they are dishonest, conducting mass sackings of the people involved and cleaning up the system, they’ve created a buzzword – transparency.

Now everyone in the industry must worship at the altar of transparency, using the George Costanza belief system- it’s not a lie if you believe it.

And the industry prophets deem we must have even more transparency. A whole transparency industry is spawning. An Institute of Transparency will be created. Seminars, white papers, thought leadership and books will be published about transparency.

Explainer videos and transparency personas will abound. And like the cyber-hustlers who call themselves Linkfluencers or Socialfluencers, there will now be Transparinfluencers to guide you on your transparency journey.

Once enough noise is made to completely blur the truth, transparency will transform into the goddess of honesty. All the negative publicity will disappear. (or should that be, all negative earned media will disappear?).

Reminds me of the mindless followers of The Holy Gourd of Jerusalem in The Life of Brian.

Hallelujah – it’s a transparency miracle!

Transparency – it’s a miracle…

And like many things digital, nothing will change. The industry will continue to remain dishonest, sorry, I mean transparent. And the digital publishers and sellers will go back to what they do best, making money at the expense of their advertisers.

I think I’ll go watch Brian again, just to cheer me up – where’s my VCR?

Transparently connect to me: www.linkedin.com/in/malcolmauld

Simple mathematics reveals Facebook engagement is less than letterbox leaflets…

08 Wednesday Nov 2017

Posted by in Digital, Digital marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Social Media, social selling

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For a couple of years now dear reader, I have been presenting the mathematics of Facebook at marketing events. Each time I invite members of the audience to challenge them and put me straight, to make sure the numbers are correct. But nobody questions the numbers. They just nod in agreement.

Recently I’ve also replied to sales pitches from alleged Facebook experts in my inbox, and replied by inviting their assistance – with no response. But as you know, marketing automation doesn’t allow you to fake sincerity. So I don’t know if my messages have been received and ignored, or not received at all, due to the weaknesses prevalent in most marketing automation systems. That is, when you reply to a message, it gets lost in cyber-space because humans do not monitor the computers.

One issue I have with the numbers, is that I have to rely on Facebook – take it at Facevalue so to speak – when it comes to statistics. And as one of the most dishonest brands when it comes to user statistics, the numbers given out by Facebook always feel dodgy. After all FB regularly claims to have more users in an age demographic, than the living population of that demographic.

Last week folks, Facebook announced its fake accounts to be 270 million – way more than it alleged only a week earlier. Many suspect the real number of fake accounts to be much higher. It’s why so many marketers refer to FB as:

The figure for inactive accounts appears to be unknown. I have at least 3 inactive accounts that are still sitting idle and get the occasional view – according the the FB bots that notify me.

Interestingly, every teenager I know – mates of my kids – has at least one fake FB account. They use the account to log-in to games and other sites that force you to use FB to log-in. The kids don’t post to the account. The account names are fictitious. They only use the accounts for log-ins. So they are active accounts, just not socially active. Who knows how many millions of these false accounts exist around the planet? One can only assume they are included in FB’s statistics of active accounts?

So here’s the maths for you – all numbers are alleged, and taken from reputable online sources:

Total monthly active accounts = 2,000,000,000

Less fake accounts = 270,000,000

Less business accounts = 100,000,000

Less ad blockers (the single biggest consumer protest in history) = 700,000,000

Leaves alleged active accounts = 930,000,000

Percentage of users an ad on FB can reach is way less than 5%, but say 10%.

Advertising Reach = 93,000,000

Maximum engagement (Forrester and others) = 0.7%, but say 1%

Active engagement = 930,000

930,000/2,000,000,000 = 0.00465

So average active engagement = less than half of one percent!!!

This is less than an unaddressed letterbox leaflet.

That’s not so say FB won’t pay for itself, but it’s not viable for all brands or categories.

I have a number of clients who find it pays and others that don’t – it’s horses for courses. And FB is rarely the primary media channel for doing business. It’s just another channel you test and learn, then use if it works profitably.

I welcome any input into the numbers please. Also suggest you read the Ad Contrarian, Bob Hoffman for some more facts and revelations.

Gotta go – need to post this blog to reach the handful of humans who will actively engage with it on FB…

Looks like content is no longer king…

26 Thursday Oct 2017

Posted by in Content Marketing, Digital marketing, Marketing, Social Media, social selling

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Republished at the request of nervous marketers…

One of the most common conversations in marketing circles over the last couple of years, has been how to replicate the King Content hustle and flog a fledgling content marketing agency for an outrageous amount of money, making oneself filthy rich.

Hardly a marketer I’ve spoken with could believe Isentia paid $48 million for this unproven content marketing business. “Where is the value” everyone asked? Well it looks like there wasn’t much – value that is.

Recently, as most of you are probably aware, Isentia announced it was shutting down the King Content brand after a $4.4 million loss in the previous financial year. Mumbrella reported Isentia wrote down $37.8 million and close offices around the world.

And as reported in Mumbrella today, Isenta has now written off the purchase price as part of a profit downgrade, which it advised in a statement to the ASX. It has also decided to get out of content marketing. It certainly didn’t get anything out of content marketing, so to speak.

It reminds me of the first dot.con when big ad agencies rushed around like headless chooks overpaying for website production studios that had fancy names. I sat in one meeting where a young kid with a very small company, but building websites for some well known brands, turned down a $1,000,000 cheque. He wanted more, despite the cheque being more than twice his annual revenue.

Suffice to say, after the dot.con collapsed, nobody knocked on his door and his business is still about the size if was 17 years ago and he’s still just making websites and apps.

But content marketing is an industry in itself, though Gartner’s Hype Cycle already has the alleged industry on the slide into the trough of disillusionment.

Which brings me to a speech I delivered last month at the NZ Direct Marketing Conference. As I’m curious by nature I asked the audience (about 200 marketers and agency types) the following questions:

  • Who wants every brand they come in contact with to deliver more advertising and an increasing volume of content to them at every opportunity possible?
  • Who wants more email in their inbox?
  • Who wants more notifications on their mobile?
  • Who woke this morning craving relationships with consumer brands? Can’t wait to read the thought leadership on toilet roll brands?
  • Who has walked out of a retail store or café because you didn’t get served?

The answers were fascinating.

  • Not one marketer in the room wanted more content delivered to them by marketers.
  • Not one marketer in the room wanted more email.
  • Not one marketer in the room wanted more notifications.
  • Not one marketer in the room woke up thinking about brands, let alone wanting relationships with them.
  • Every marketer in the room had walked out of a store because a salesperson hadn’t tried to sell them something.

This is fascinating stuff folks. After all, if marketers and advertisers don’t want what the content marketers and the cyber-hustlers are flogging, why do they believe their customers want it?

Taking their answers once step further, the whole audience believed the premise of content marketing – that brands should deliver content at every opportunity possible to anybody who remotely comes in to contact with the brand, but should not try to sell anything – is complete and utter bullshit.

Not one executive in that audience believed, by show of hand, that marketers should be doing content marketing. As consumers, marketers hate content marketing.

So if the industry doesn’t believe in content marketing, why are marketers wasting shareholder’s precious investment on it??? It appears that content marketing has rapidly become a punch-line to marketing jokes.

But one has to wonder, why didn’t the management at Isentia ask these questions to protect their shareholder’s funds???

And why do I have images of the emperor’s new clothes, and lemmings jumping off cliffs???

Gotta go. I have an idea for an anti-content marketing, content marketing business. You can check it out here: www.thecontentbrewery.com

The 3 essential questions you must ask for content marketing success…

17 Tuesday Oct 2017

Posted by in Content Marketing, Copywriting, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Remarketing, Social Media, social selling, Thought Leadership

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“Any fool can create lousy content… sadly many do”

Like many of you, I am extremely suspicious of the claims of the content marketing zealots. I cannot count the number of times marketers have asked me what they should do when it comes to content marketing. They don’t understand its purpose or why they should bother – and they suspect they are being sold digital snake oil. The “emperor’s new clothes” is quoted regularly.

wanna buy some content marketing?

So to help marketers and business owners with their content marketing, I have created the 3 essential questions you must ask before embarking on your content marketing journey. Do you like how I was able to get the word “journey” into my sentence, to make me sound more digi-credible?

So here they are – answer these honestly and you’ll be able to solve your content marketing conundrum.

The 3 Essential Questions…

Question 1:
Do you as a consumer want every brand you buy or consider buying, to deliver an ever-increasing amount of content to you at every touchpoint you have with those brands?

Like 100% of consumers, your answer is probably a resounding “no” – so why do you want to do it to your customers and prospects?

Question 2:
What facts, research or data do you have, to prove your customers and prospects are demanding you increase the amount of content you disseminate to them?

Where is your evidence? Where are the facts? Or are you just following marketing fashion and the FOMO created by cyber-hustlers?

Question 3:
What will your time-poor, infobesity-ridden customers and prospects give up in their daily lives, so they can consume your increased volume of content?

They already have extremely busy, content-filled lives – why should they consume yours?

Now, if you can answer these questions in such a way as to demand you immediately start mass production of content for marketing purposes, please contact an alleged content marketing expert. They’ll know how to make money out of you, rather than for you.

But if you are not sure what to do, but are serious about producing content that persuades, really sells your brand and grows your bottom line, go to the website I’ve created to help you – www.thecontentbrewery.com

It’s an anti-content marketing, content marketing website – if you get my drift…

(To learn how to create content that persuades and sells, get a ticket to www.draytonslasthurrah.com)

Looks like content is no longer king…

17 Sunday Sep 2017

Posted by in Content Marketing, Digital marketing, Marketing, Social Media, social selling

≈ 9 Comments

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One of the most common conversations in marketing circles over the last couple of years, has been how to replicate the King Content hustle and flog a fledgling content marketing agency for an outrageous amount of money, making oneself filthy rich.

Hardly a marketer I’ve spoken with could believe Isentia paid $48 million for this unproven content marketing business. “Where is the value” everyone asked? Well it looks like there wasn’t much – value that is.

Recently, as most of you are probably aware, Isentia announced it was shutting down the King Content brand after a $4.4 million loss in the previous financial year.

And as reported in Mumbrella today Isenta has now written off the purchase price as part of a profit downgrade, which it advised in a statement to the ASX. It has also decided to get out of content marketing. It certainly didn’t get anything out of content marketing in the first place, so to speak.

It reminds me of the first dot.con when big ad agencies rushed around like headless chooks overpaying for website production studios that had fancy names. I sat in one meeting where a young kid with a very small company, but building websites for some well known brands, turned down a $1,000,000 cheque. He wanted more, despite the cheque being more than twice his annual revenue.

Suffice to say, after the dot.con collapsed, nobody knocked on his door and his business is still about the size if was 17 years ago and he’s still just making websites and apps.

But content marketing is an industry in itself, though Gartner’s Hype Cycle already has the alleged industry on the slide into the trough of disillusionment.

Which brings me to a speech I delivered last month at the NZ Direct Marketing Conference. As I’m curious by nature I asked the audience (about 200 marketers and agency types) the following questions:

  • Who wants every brand they come in contact with to deliver more advertising and an increasing volume of content to them at every opportunity possible?
  • Who wants more email in their inbox?
  • Who wants more notifications on their mobile?
  • Who woke this morning craving relationships with consumer brands? Can’t wait to read the thought leadership on toilet roll brands?
  • Who has walked out of a retail store or café because you didn’t get served?

The answers were fascinating.

  • Not one marketer in the room wanted more content delivered to them by marketers.
  • Not one marketer in the room wanted more email.
  • Not one marketer in the room wanted more notifications.
  • Not one marketer in the room woke up thinking about brands, let alone wanting relationships with them.
  • Every marketer in the room had walked out of a store because a salesperson hadn’t tried to sell them something.

This is fascinating stuff folks. After all, if marketers and advertisers don’t want what the content marketers and the cyber-hustlers are flogging, why do they believe their customers want it?

Taking their answers once step further, the whole audience believed the premise of content marketing – that brands should deliver content at every opportunity possible to anybody who remotely comes in to contact with the brand, but should not try to sell anything – is complete and utter bullshit.

Not one executive in that audience believed, by show of hand, that marketers should be doing content marketing. As consumers, marketers hate content marketing.

So if the industry doesn’t believe in content marketing, why are marketers wasting shareholder’s precious investment on it???

It appears that content marketing has rapidly become a punch-line to marketing jokes.

But one has to wonder, why didn’t the management at Isentia ask these questions to protect their shareholder’s funds???

And why do I have images of the emperor’s new clothes, and lemmings jumping off cliffs???

Gotta go. I have an idea for an anti-content marketing, content marketing business and I need to write some content about it…

Ad agencies and marketers continue to live in a parallel universe…

09 Friday Jun 2017

Posted by in Advertising, B2B Marketing, Branding, Marketing, Social Media, Thought Leadership

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Research released this week by ThinkTV claimed “people working for advertising agencies are out of touch, childless, share-housing, farmers’ market-loving, workaholic gym junkies, who overestimate the impact of social media and the internet on normal Australians.”

Me thinks it’s a pretty accurate persona, to use the modern vernacular.

Of course, the consequence of the frame of reference from which agency types view the world, is how it influences their creative and media decisions in quite biased and dangerous ways.

I was on the end of this type of thinking when talking with a marketer in charge of selling “enterprise solutions” for a telco. In layman’s terms this means she flogs large phone systems to big companies through consultative selling. The reason she was asking my advice was the fact her sales were tanking and she couldn’t get leads from her digital marketing in LinkedIn and banner ads on other sites. True dear reader.

I was showing her some interactive 3D mail examples from US telcos that worked really well to generate qualified leads, particularly when supported with telephone follow-up. She stared at me bug-eyed and said “mail and telephone for B2B marketing are just not on my radar, everything’s digital these days and the agency would never go for it“.

I was taken aback, because as she spoke, I saw something flapping outside her window.

Everything’s just digital these days

The real problem with this advertising agency parallel universe is that it’s not new. The industry has lived in it for decades and not learned from its mistakes. I remember a survey in the 1980’s that demonstrated how out of touch the people who worked in advertising agencies really were.

One revelation was that agency people assumed everyone leased cars and bought their groceries on their fuel card in Shell Shops and 7/Eleven stores. Why go to Woolies?

I also had a marketing assistant at that time, who eventually became a partner in an ad agency (must have been the training). She lived in Sydney’s eastern suburbs and abjectly refused to travel west of George Street in the city. “the only time I go west is to get to the polo and then someone drives me“, she proudly exclaimed.

So here is the latest parallel universe of Adland – it goes part of the way to explaining the massive amounts of money being wasted in digital marketing channels.

The key is as follows – view the charts and weep:

  • Adland = Yellow
  • Adland’s estimate of public use = Dark blue
  • The public’s real use = Light blue

This article in yesterday’s press let the facts speak for themselves. For example, when asked to estimate how many people watch Netflix weekly, Adland said 80%. Yet apparently only 28% of “normal” people use Netflix weekly.

Gotta go now and do my weekly mentoring of young agency talent. Where’s my Tardis?