A few years ago, Mark Schaefer mapped the supply-and-demand of content marketing and predicted diminishing returns as the volume of content grows.
He called this concept “Content Shock“: “the emerging marketing epoch when exponentially increasing volumes of content intersect our limited human capacity to consume it.”
Since then, the volume level has only increased. TrackMaven reported that content output per brand increased 35% in 2015 and content engagement decreased by 17%. Many marketers are responding to this noisier landscape by amping up the volume even further.
I like how P&G CMO Marc Pritchard diagnoses the situation of producing exponentially increasing volumes of content: “we fell into the content crap trap.” He went on to describe a dichotomy between “crap” and “craft” in marketing communication. He urged his company’s marketers to focus on “craft” and raise the bar on creativity.
This is an interesting inflection point for marketers everywhere to do the same – evaluate what they’re communicating and where their communication falls on the “crap” versus “craft” continuum. I think that “craft” in all forms of marketing will become increasingly more important.
Marketers can’t break through the clutter by adding to it.
Here are a couple more cartoons I’ve drawn on content marketing over the years.
“Branded Content“, September 2013
“Marketing Echo Chamber“, July 2016
Dane Hartzell says
March 13, 2017 at 7:20 amLove Mark Schaefer’s insights.
Allen Roberts says
March 13, 2017 at 1:41 pmMark was proven too be prescient when he wrote ‘Content Shock’ but it has not stopped the rubbish being generated, daily, and now exponentially with the march of technology.
The marketing challenge is now even more clearly what it has always been, be relevant, be different and deliver real value.
There is no alternative in a homogenised world.
Richard Warland says
March 13, 2017 at 3:23 pmI am a DM dinosaur apparently, but way back in the last century “Content” used to be called “copy”.
Copy was written by trained copywriters. Their job was to write interesting persuasive copy that sold products or services.
The ability to write compelling copy is a skill that marketers do not necessarily have. Few in fact!
Who ever told them that they should be “Content Marketers”?
Mark Schaefer says
March 14, 2017 at 7:45 amThank you Tom. Being immortalized in a Marketoon is probably the greatest highlight of my career! Sending this to my mom.
Ted Simon says
March 14, 2017 at 5:18 pmBrilliant, as usual. Your “content marketing” is amongst the few that I always look forward to, Tom.