The new BK commercials are annoying and fun. Which got me thinking… where have I seen that formula before? Oh right, from the other lovable curly-haired singing nerd. Ads are very similar. Different category, same concept.
First BK:
Compared to:
However, BK, this ad is still less annoying than the McDonald’s coffee guy. I hate him the most.
Recently, I have been have discussing timeless content. Often it is in the context of online, print, and the new world that opens up when print moves to easy-to-read digital versions. I am loving referring it is as: The Budget Travel Theory.
The reason is simple. I have a stack of Budget Travel magazines sitting in a corner in my living room. I can’t bring myself to throw them out, they each have cities, restaurants, tips, ideas for places I want to travel (or might travel). The articles are still relevant 9+ months later, even if they were originally meant to have the shelf life of one month.
Enter digital… it is now easy to link to ‘old’ content. Websites have been doing this for years. They offer links on the side under ‘similar stories.’ What puts digital magazines in a unique differentiating position is the fact that when they offer relevant links (or even re-serve ‘old’ content as main stories) the rabbit hole that internet users love to go down is self-contained within the walled content of the magazine. Keeping users within the ‘pages’ of the magazine equals longer engagement and providing more (enjoyable) value to readers (and marketers alike). One thing that is true about the corner of my living room- the content is timeless, the ads are old and irrelevant. Imagine being able to change out the ads by the content, offering deals, videos, updated reviews while I am reading the stories.
As digital magazines gain scale and marketers (and publishers) put time and resources into linking content and creating a 3rd dimension to previously flat content, this will only benefit readers and give magazines and newspapers new life. This works when you know your content. When you have all of your content in a CMS that is tagged, sorted, easily found- and when a human can access it and link it in times a computer can’t. At times, you need to react quickly and pay attention to what is being talked about (many times trends are things you can’t prepare for or predict) and deliver it.
One very timely example of the potential of this came tonight – on opening night of the 2010-11 NFL season from America’s Finest News Source (The Onion).
The facts:
1. People will be watching the NFL tonight – Saints vs. Vikings will draw a crowd
2. DMB band is playing the pregame (and if you know me at all, you know this does not make me happy. I am not a DMB fan).
3. NFL, Vikings, Saints will trend on Twitter
4. The Onion has mocked DMB throughout the years.
Tonight, during the pregame, while DMB was playing The Onion tweeted an article from 2005. One that is still funny and relevant today with the hashtags: #NFL, #SAINTS, #VIKINGS: Dave Matthews Not That Into Himself Anymore
In part 2 of this post, I will introduce the notion of a Content Trustee. By definition a trustee is a person (or institution) to whom property is entrusted to use for another’s benefit. Imagine what that means for a brand and/or agency that has a lot of content. Someone to not only put the right content in the right place, but also reuse the same content in previously unrealized places or heaven forbid, breathing new life into content that already exists instead of always creating new content.
Now, back to the game… I have the Saints Defense starting tonight.
the world according to schmogel. 