"Content" is in the Eye of the Beholder

Interesting column by Burst Media's CEO and President Jarvis Coffin on the impact of ads when placed with relevant content. Burst Media is an online ad network that serves the "Long Tail-type" publishers -- the smaller, niched sites that tend to attract more passionate followers. Full disclosure, my site, Pure Contemporary has been part of the Burst network for several years. Coffin was citing a recent Conde Nast study (reported in MediaPost) that highlighted that people remember ads better if they are in viewed in conjunction with contextually-related content. And thus, Coffin states, content is king.

The study also revealed that people seemingly tend to tire of ads more quickly online than in print -- that is if they even notice them at all. (Which is a particularly nice piece of by-the-way-information to know if you have print space that you are trying to peddle!) In fact, the numbers were really not friendly to online: According to data released earlier in the year by Condé Nast and McPheters & Co., 63 percent -- of banner ads were not seen by Web users: Respondents' eyes "passed over" 37 percent of the Internet ads and "stopped" on slightly less than a third, McPheters found. The recall rate was much higher for print and tv.

Since most studies can be looked at from different angles, Coffin had an interesting theory, which I buy. He surmised that perhaps the online world is a victim of its own success: the fact that we so highly target ads that those same dang ads seem to follow us from site to site because those ads have been so tied to us as individuals and our behaviors!

I had two other thoughts as well. 1) Aside from Apple's page-dominating advertising banners, online ads are beyond ho-hum. Back in the day, ad agencies made their money creating creative -- the :30 spot and the full-color ads got the ka-chings going. Very little of those creative juices seem to be spent online. And, 2) content is king!!! But i don't take such a narrow view on what content is.




Since there is plenty of research that supports contextually relevant content increases recall, why are marketers limited to only a banner ad to market their wares? For years, the conventional wisdom has been that only media companies can produce content -- since they are the producers of news. And everyone know that news is content. But, news is not the only form of content. And this is where I drag out my soapbox and remind everyone that: If you have a website that attracts more than your mom, spouse and kids, then guess what? You are a content producer.

Not convinced? Well how about this. If a person is looking for work, the jobs listings are content. If they are looking to go out, restaurant directories -- and proximity to the reader, are now content. Looking for a flat screen tv that will fit not stick out more than 3" -- than guess what, BestBuy or Amazon are now content. All of these examples are types of content that would be traditionally categorized as ads.

Media sites and marketers need to put their chocolate and peanut butter together and make some yummy new content than can be contextually relevant to the media site's news -- and now give readers some recall that has a punch! On Pure Contemporary we offer product catalog pages -- controlled by our marketers -- that are contextually tied to real legit stories. Both the "legit stories" and the catalog pages are both considered content to our readers!!

Content may be king, in fact context may be even more kingly -- but contextually relevant content is, to some degree, in the eye of the beholder.

So Look Who's a Publisher Now

Content marketing guru Joe Pulizzi joined me on a webcast I hosted for Nstein in early month on a burgeoning marketing sector: content marketing aka custom publishing. The webcast was part of the monthly Double-Down on Digital series Nstein is offering this Spring on how publishers can tap into new revenue streams -- providing they have an agile digital content supply chain.

Content marketing is a subject that fits this blog so perfectly as it answers the question of "so just who is a publisher?" The answer is: anyone. Anyone with a story to tell and a means to tell a story. Case in point, the uproarious viral video series by JetBlue targeted at corporate big wigs whose wings have been - ahem -- clipped. The series is clever, timely and positions the company beautifully.

More conventionally, brand advertisers rely on print for custom -- which has now extended to newsletters and the Web. Some do it up big, like Proctor & Gamble's teen site Being Girl. The site is loaded with frank, age-appropriate content geared to girls entering puberty and through their teens. Launched in 2000, the site receives more than 3 million monthly visitors from around the globe and is customized for 44 different countries.

I spoke with Bob Arnold, the global being girl digital marketing manager for BeingGirl, and asked him about the site, his audience and the content. Arnold said the site seemed like a natural fit, given the company's depth of knowledge on FemCare. The entire site is produced in-house by P&G staffers and the "editor-in-chief" role seems to fall on the shoulders of Iris Pregger, PhD in women's health studies. She and her team scope and write the age-appropriate content for girl. Indeed Pregger has a column "Ask Iris" that Arnold says "receives a couple hundred questions a week."

The articles are informative, although obviously tilted toward product. I asked Arnold how hard it was to navigate the balance of information versus corporate stewarship. "For us, we wanted to make sure we provided a value -- and shape business behind that," he said. "If you make consumers first, ultimately they will reward you." The real eye-opener for Arnold, who does not portend to be a publisher, was that this market was so under-served. The other issue was dealing with a seemingly day-to-day morph of his audience. "In this day and age [teens] attitudes and tastes change rapidly, and it challenging to keep up with that," he said.

BeingGirl's success doesn't surprise Pulizzi who sharpened his teeth in custom publishing when he was head of that division at Penton Media. His mission was to corral the advertisers who wanted to communicate directly with its customers through entertaining or informative content and bring them into the Penton Content Supply Chain.

According to Pulizzi, most companies don't take the P&G route of creating this content inhouse. "They really don't want to be pubishers, they don't have the will, the expertise or the knowledge," he explained. Advertisers are looking for help, and publishers are uniquely positioned to provide it. "At Penton, we were really good at telling a story and we wanted to grab a slice of that content marketing pie," he explained. At Penton custom publishing brought in about 20 percent of annual revenues. "Advertisers are going to get this done -- the question is who will get they turn to?"