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The Business Of Content

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Content is King. It’s a saying you’ve heard countless times… long before Social Media empowered individuals to create and distribute their own content.

Content is the new marketing. Whether Marketers are thinking like publishers or whether brands are hiring/working with community managers to help them get results. If you can think about consumer engagement at that level, things begin to become slightly less foggy. The idea that you don’t have to wrap your messages and blast them out around the original content, but instead you can create and produce the actual content and keep people engaged and connected as you see fit is – in a way – a whole new dimension to the media and marketing business.

It’s something that the traditional media people are still tinkering with as well.

While attending this year’s Google Zeitgeist conference this past September in Phoenix, I had the pleasure of watching Ari Emanuel (fans of the TV show, Entourage, should know that the character, Ari Gold – played by Jeremy Piven – is based on Emanuel) and Patrick Whitesell, the co-CEOs of WME Entertainment, discuss the state of the entertainment business. It’s fascinating to hear from these super-agents to the stars (movie, TV, books and beyond). There is a truly amazing subtext to the conversation (which you don’t really have to read too deep between the lines to uncover) in this presentation, as they discuss the value of content and the distribution channels around them… and how they are changing.

This is 27 minutes well-worth your time…

15 comments

  2. Content, distribution channels, cross promotion and product placement. This has got me thinking about how to apply it to business. Crowd funded training modules? Where else could we use product placement? hmm..
    Great video, thanks Joel.

  3. We’ve been talking about distribution channels and integration for years and to paraphrase Bob Dylan, the times will always be a-changin’.
    In its purest sense, it would be fantastic to have everyone at the table during creation stage to fully integrate all the needs of all involved and create something pure and monetized and we all hold hands and sing.
    We talk ad nauseam in the online social channels about the purity of our content and full disclosure with affiliate links if we endorse something from a client and how we shouldn’t push our messages through the thin veil of objectivity. As long as there’s a buck to be made the struggle will continue but it’s certainly nice to think about how we can do it better.
    Patrick mentioned a few times here about social gaming and if we look at entertainment content on a larger scale with that scope – and I include great marketing and advertising as entertainment content – it is all social and it is all gaming.
    The properties that include the audience and seamless integration in the experience will win. Where things get all pear-shaped is when the content is compromised to accommodate for our good friends at [sponsor].
    And the cycle continues…

  4. From an agency perspective, the pressure to be able to deliver entertainment will only grow as advertisers will need to compete with celebrities to get attention. When a smaller brand that can’t afford Lady Gaga needs to compete, they’ll have to be even more creative and resourceful.
    The agency structure would have to evolve to accommodate the need to play and experiment in order to generate truly original and impactful ideas. Social measures will become a more important KPI than web analytics. The demonstration of understanding and reach within target verticals will have to move to the agency level versus leaving it to media companies who still see consumers as audiences.
    Thanks for the fascinating post, Mitch!

  8. … yet they still grapple with trying to equalize the dollar amount. Charlize Theron can’t make the same amount when she appears in movie or in a web series. The models are different and they act different. It’s that diversity that’s going to continue to cause the disruption.

  9. It’s going to get even more complicated as each, unique, platform will be driven by different analytics and results as well. Just look at the recent data on Facebook use vs. Twitter use. They’re both Social Media, but they’re both completely different in terms of community usage.

  12. Hi Mitch!
    I picked up a copy of your new book “Six Pixels of Separation” at the airport this weekend while on a business trip. I can’t put it down…it’s just what I’ve been looking for to take my static website up a notch to the next level. I’m now contemplating resurrecting my blog – which I created some time ago, but lost my nerve to post to it. I am now re-focusing my efforts by starting with reading and posting to another blog (yours – as per your book’s suggestion. Thank you for sharing these valuable insights.

  14. I love the line “the challenge is to monetize their relationship with the consumer through distribution”. That’s the food for thought for anyone who has something to sell. Thanks for posting this Mitch.

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