Is Culture Eating Your Content Strategy for Breakfast?

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And that’s a wrap of the week ending Oct. 4, 2019

This week I’m thinking about how a tech snafu ate my interview. I also explore the need to create a new corporate culture club rather than fixing what exists. I offer a fresh take on a news piece that asks whether the days of TV advertising are finally over. And I point you to an article that explains why the content technology process is failing you.

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Here’s what we’re talking about this week.

One deep thought (2:58): If culture eats strategy for breakfast, maybe we should plan to do lunch. That’s because, when it comes to culture, Raydio sang it best: “You can’t change that, no no.”

Attempts to establish content as a strategic business function are a struggle because you’re trying to work within the existing culture with its existing processes and resources. That culture likely wasn’t designed to support the new approaches and ideas. Does that mean your content team will ultimately fail? No. But it often means it’s time to create something completely new. I explain how some of my clients did exactly this.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

A fresh take on the news (7:38): Coming on the heels of Adweek, this article – Why Amazon Is About to Upend the $70 Billion TV Ad Market – really got me thinking. The article opens with a prediction Marc Pritchard, chief brand officer of Procter & Gamble, offered earlier this year at the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show: “… the days of advertising as we know it today are numbered. We need to start thinking about a world with no ads.” Or, at least, this article argues, no TV ads.

Following the author’s logic, Amazon will move in to fill that void with measurable, contextual ads based on the purchase histories Amazon knows so well. I say … maybe. Listen to find out why I remain skeptical that Amazon will kill TV ads and create a nirvana for marketers.

Will @Amazon kill TV ads and create nirvana for marketers? @Robert_Rose #WeeklyWrap Click To Tweet

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Ads Are Killing the Web: Are You Part of the Problem?

One content marketing idea you can use (12:35): If you haven’t read 5 Things to Consider Before Investing in Content Technology, take a look before making any more content tech buys. In it, Kathy Baughman says that before you even look at technology, you have to nail other aspects of content operations, such as:
Understanding the needs of everyone who influences the buying process in your organization
Defining clearly your publishing processes, developing the necessary skills, and instituting governance
Architecting your content to be sourced, targeted, distributed, and reused

That’s really good advice I could have used this week – I hope it’s helpful to you, too.

Before you buy more #content tech, nail other aspects of content operations, advises @COMBLU. #WeeklyWrap Click To Tweet

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Love for this week’s sponsor: The Content Advisory

The Content Advisory was founded in 2010 by Robert Rose as the strategic education, consulting, and research group of The Content Marketing Institute. Over the last decade, we’ve built a series of frameworks and approaches to help implement intelligent content strategies. We combine independent and pragmatic thinking across a group of independent thinking analysts, data scientists, journalists, and creative artists. The Content Advisory assembles agile teams to address specific challenges and help businesses to understand and meet the challenge of transforming their marketing into customer experiences.

Since launching in 2010, we’ve worked with more than 200 organizations, including 15 of the Fortune 100. We’ve consulted directly with organizations such as Petco, UPS, McCormick Spices, Capital One, Dell, Caterpillar, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and 3M. Learn more at tca.inc.

The wrap-up

Tune in next week for one thought we thought to think, one news item we knew you’d want to know, one content star who’s burning bright, and one practical practice you can bring to your practical content program. And it’s all delivered in a little less time than it takes for someone at a marketing conference to bring up AI.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

Author: Robert Rose

Robert is the founder and chief strategy officer of The Content Advisory, the education and consulting group for The Content Marketing Institute. Robert has worked with more than 500 companies, including 15 of the Fortune 100. He’s provided content marketing and strategy advice for global brands such as Capital One, NASA, Dell, McCormick Spices, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Robert’s third book – Killing Marketing, with co-author Joe Pulizzi has been called the “book that rewrites the rules of marketing”. His second book – Experiences: The Seventh Era of Marketing is a top seller and has been called a “treatise, and a call to arms for marketers to lead business innovation in the 21st century.” Robert’s first book, Managing Content Marketing, spent two weeks as a top ten marketing book on Amazon.com and is generally considered to be the “owners manual” of the Content Marketing process. You can catch up with Robert weekly on his popular podcast – The Weekly Wrap. Follow him on Twitter @Robert_Rose.