Who’s Coining All this Lame Marketing Terminology?

Gary Slack provided today's post. He is chief experience officer of Slack and Company, LLC, a leading global b2b marketing strategy and services provider based in Chicago.

It must either be technology vendors or some mysterious cabal laughing up a storm as we compliantly adopt their subpar terms.

Do you ever wonder who coins all the imprecise and often confusing marketing jargon and industry terms we toss around like stationary lemmings every day?

I'm referring to terms like “account-based marketing,” “programmatic advertising,” “native advertising,” “content marketing,” “big data” and more.

A few years ago, at BMA15, the seventh of seven consecutive annual global conferences I organized for the Business Marketing Association, we had Second City actors do a hilarious sketch about a very secretive “Committee on Marketing Terminology,” whose job was to coin such terms and then laugh uproariously when they somehow caught on with their victims—us.

In so many cases, the new terms being promulgated by software vendors, marketing consultants, academics and who knows who else are just new fancy-pants names for existing and well-understood and widely used techniques.

Account-based marketing

For starters, take “account-based marketing.” Marketers in the b2b space have been doing ABM for decades, if not longer. We certainly have been—for virtually all of our 30 years. Better known as “key account marketing” or as “whale hunting” by the politically incorrect among us, ABM simply means sales and marketing working extremely closely together to target and land often very large prospects through individualized efforts.

ABM is the antithesis of mass b2b marketing, where you’re targeting hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands or, if your target is small businesses, millions of business buyers—at generally a very low cost per impression. In contrast, a company could spend thousands—even tens of thousand—of dollars via ABM-style targeting of single prospects.

Yes, ABM is account-based, but targeting down to audiences of one or 10 or 20 is the key to the technique. “Account-based marketing,” as a term, is sloppy, imprecise and confusing. “Key account marketing” is much better.

Programmatic advertising

A newbie term within the past five years, “programmatic advertising” is a problematic term because no one really knows what “programmatic” means.

Here again, what’s at the heart of the term—and the capability it describes—is targeting. As in, “targeted messaging.” Of course, because technology is behind it, what is even more definitive is “targeted one-to-one messaging.”

“Programmatic,” in conjunction with the term “advertising,” is a relatively new marketing capability that lets us b2b marketers target messaging to just the 1,952 or 345 or 672 decision-makers and influencers that we want to reach through advertising instead of just, for example, email.

Maybe “programmatic advertising” ought to be called “no-waste advertising.”

Content marketing

Well, you may regret you got this far with me, because my biggest peeve is with this term, for which even Joe Pulizzi, popularizer of the term and founder of the Content Marketing Institute, denies any paternity.

Of course, as with the above capabilities and a few more to follow, we’ve all been doing “content marketing” for years. It’s just that it used to be called “marketing” or “marketing communications.” Putting high-quality, value-drenched, captivating information in front of buying audiences at every major stage of the buy cycle is most definitely nothing new.

Unfortunately, “content marketing” does not conjure up quality. It conjures up, at least for me, an image of just plain stuff ... or stuffing. As in what goes into a sofa, a turkey or even a landfill. Content can be good, bad or indifferent—a thought that led me two years ago to do some coining of my own: “brandfill,” for boring, bland or bad content marketing.

Native advertising

Native advertising is just “whored media,” the replacement term the Second City actors behind the Committee on Marketing Terminology coined in their BMA15 sketch.

More seriously, it’s just a newfangled term for “advertorial,” a long-lived term for advertiser-sponsored material pretending to look, feel and read like independent news content.

Damn, there I go using that word “content” indiscriminately.

Big data

We’ll end today’s rant or diatribe with “big data.”

The Second City players coined a replacement term—“obese data”—and, yes, it got guffaws. In reaction to the term, I actually had another BMA15 speaker give a presentation about “little data.”

Just as “preventative” is not a word (but “preventive” is) and “very” is used way too often as a modifier, why don’t we just call data by its real and best name—“data”?

How new marketing terminology and jargon come to be—first use, spreading to others and then adopted by all of us, no questions asked—is a great puzzle to me. When I figure it out and have a plan to “sunset” the coiner cabal, I’ll let you know.

Collateral Damage

Until the autopsy results come in, we can only guess why Steve the Security Robot drowned this week in Washington, DC.

May he Rust in Peace.

Automation—including marketing automation—is only as good as the weakest link in the process.

The weak link in marketing automation is content.

Marketers go to all lengths to create pretty logos, websites, blogs, banner ads, brochures and tradeshow booths, but allow marketing automation to sully their brands.

They program Mark the Marketing Robot to:

Annoy prospects. They program Mark to assume a form-fill means the prospect welcomes one or two cloying emails every single day for 20 days. Trust me, she doesn't.

Confuse prospects. They program him to send long-winded, self-absorbed emails that spew largely irrelevant product features. They never bother to communicate a core—or convincing—value proposition; only a lot of sales-talk.

Offend prospects. They program Mark to send emails with click-bait Subject lines, unproven or exaggerated claims, typos, grammatical errors, and pointless and presumptive closes.

It's no wonder so many CMOs struggle with marketing automation.

It's the content, stupid.

Getting Inside Attendees' Heads

B2B CMOs have struggled to measure events with the same precision they measure digital.

Mobile apps could change that.

Not only do they let exhibit marketers engage attendees and personalize events for them, many mobile apps can be used to track face-to-face engagement, and further nurture customers and prospects.

One example: Showcase XD.

This simple iPad app lets tradeshow attendees explore an exhibiting company's products—through videos, demos, photos, drawings, and other content—while visiting the company's booth.

Meantime, the app is gathering and sending the company "digital brain scans" of the attendee that reveal his or her actual interest in the products.

The company can use the analytics after the show to decide, among other things, what marketing automation score to assign the attendee.

One company isn't waiting for the show to end.

IBM uses mobile apps to track attendees' interests and harnesses Watson to make product and activity recommendations—such as downloading a trial code—on the spot, by comparing attendees' pre-show interests with the products they engage with at the exhibit.

While no one can guarantee a CMO ROI before an event, keeping tabs on attendees' interactions though a mobile app—and using the analytics to feed the company's marketing automation or CRM system—can produce real results.

Ashley is Done with Your Stinking Personas

Human beings are too important to be treated
as mere symptoms of the past.

― Lytton Strachey

Persona-based marketing―marketing automation's linchpin―is kaput, says Ernan Roman in CMO.com.

In 2016 his research firm witnessed "a surge in the number of companies disappointed by the lack of a significant increase in response and engagement from their traditional persona-based segmentation."

Customers are knottier than marketers allow―which comes as no surprise.

Roman quotes a Fortune 1000 CMO: “We are using new CRM technology to automate old bad behaviors. The result is irritating and brand-damaging spray and pray.”

Persona-based marketing is flawed, Roman says, in large part because it ignores customers' opinions about competitors' offerings.

Marketers' crude attempts to apply personas to personalize communications irritate customers, waste marketing dollars, and tarnish brands.

It's time for them to nix their trite imaginings and "establish human partnerships and relationships" with customers, Roman says.

"Consumer relationships require authentic and relevant communications and interactions.”

The Marketing of Tomorrow

What's ahead for marketing tomorrow?

Writing for Forbes.com, Kimberly Whitler, a professor at the University of Virginia, asked CMOs for their predictions. 

She discovered:

• "B2B influencer marketing" will become all the rage. CMOs will turn to popular business authors, speakers, podcasters, and executives with large followings and pay them to hawk their products.

• CMOs will also begin to rely more on employees to spread brand messages through social, knowing they can speak more effectively than ads. And, because buyers hang out on many social platforms, CMOs will begin to think "multichannel first."

• B2B CMOs will embrace "account-based marketing," but not without a struggle, because it's hard to influence every decision-maker on every buying committee. To that end, CMOs will begin to use a "recommendation engine" like the one used by Netflix.

• Design will become the key brand differentiator, because big data is now just a "commodity." And educational content will become king. Unfortunately, CMOs will produce too much of it for buyers to absorb.

• CMOs will quit focusing on new martech (although thousands of new martech products will flood the marketplace). CMOs will focus instead on cybersecurity. They're spending up to 25% of their budgets on social, and have made their companies targets for cybercriminals.

• 30% of CMOs will be fired next year, because they lack the ability to drive results. Polish that resume!

The One-Minute Millionaire

A corner has been turned.

I for one am pleased.

Content creators have begun to recognize their art is as old as Methuselah; that it's less about hoodwinking Google and automating posts, and more about intriguing readers.

The rules for generating good content are, in fact, the very same ones Associated Press reporters used in 1846, when the organization was founded.

I'm soon to reach my 10th anniversary as a blogger. The blogosphere 10 years ago was a trash heap of get-rich-quick schemers bent on selling stuff.

A few pioneers—Chris Brogan was one—proclaimed at the time content marketing was a permutation of PR; that it was all about educating customers, connecting with them, and earning their trust.

But that was the view of outliers.

The herd chased fads and went in for cheap and tawdry tricks.

My gut told me the outliers were right and that the rest of the crazy world would catch on one day.

It took 3,650 days.

"In a world of zero marginal cost, being trusted is the single most urgent way to build a business," Seth Godin says. "You don’t get trusted if you’re constantly measuring and tweaking and manipulating so that someone will buy from you.

"The challenge that we have when we industrialize content is we are asking people who don’t care to work their way through a bunch of checklists to make a number go up, as opposed to being human beings connecting with other human beings."

If you create content and haven't caught on yet, you still have time.

A little, anyway.

The Funnel of Uncertainty

As a hurricane barrels up the Eastern seaboard, my local TV weather lady keeps blabbing about the "Funnel of Uncertainty" between Florida and New Jersey, as she gestures at the cartoon conoid on her screen.

Management theorists talk about the "Tunnel of Uncertainty," the corridor on the road to results where "project dampeners" resist "project amplifiers" at every step.

And software developers talk about the "Cone of Uncertainty," the passage of time from when every cost-estimate is a sheer, wild-ass guess to when costs are nailed tighter than a drum.

But I'd never heard anyone talk about the "Funnel of Uncertainty," until my weather lady brought it up.

It's an apt phrase to describe the hell hole prospective customers tumble into, once they surrender their email addresses to marketers.

"Funnel" because that's where marketers shove you as you begin—wittingly or not—your "buyer's journey."

"Uncertainty" because you never know what treatment you might receive along the way. 

In most cases, first you get an email from someone named Kyle, who insists you need a demo. Then you get an email with a link to some goofy infographic. Then, another with a link to an inscrutable slide show. Then, another containing a newsletter you wouldn't read under penalty of death. And then another email with a threat to remove you from the list, should you fail to respond.

There's nothing wrong with funnels; there's nothing wrong with uncertainty.

There's something very wrong with most marketers' graceless treatment of prospects.

Entertaining and educating prospects in the funnel is the corrective to the "buy now or go away forever" vibes you're sending.

Try them out.

The New New Age

Were he to examine some of Facebook's users, Freud would have a field day.

The good doctor said children, primitives and neurotics all shared an "animistic" view of the universe. Every object has a will that "magical thoughts" can command.

This self-loving "omnipotence" forms the very root of narcissism, Freud believed.

So it's no surprise today's selfie-obsessed customers are embracing magical thinking, as a new report from JWT Intelligence asserts.

New-age accoutrements like crystals, gongs, incense and magic creams are hot, the report says.

"As we navigate through the stress and mundanity of our everyday existence and parallel online lives, we are increasingly turning to unreality as a form of escape and a way to search for other kinds of freedom, truth and meaning.

"What emerges is an appreciation for magic and spirituality, the knowingly unreal, and the intangible aspects of our lives that defy big data and the ultratransparency of the web."

And it's not just Trustafarians who are into magical thinking.

According to Pew Research Center, while the percentage of Americans who attend church declined between 2007 and 2014, the percentage who say they routinely "feel a deep sense of spiritual peace and well-being” increased.

"This is being played out via a third-wave New Age for a post-digital generation, which is seeking spirituality through crystals, astrology, sound baths, tarot and tapping. What differentiates this new New Age from its previous incarnations is that the alternative beliefs and practices are now considered serious, irony-free, credible, millennial friendly and cool."

How to Choose the Right Email Marketing Consultant (Infographic)

Been-around blogger Matt Banner contributed today's post. Matt teaches techniques for better blogging at OnBlastBlog.

Email marketing offers an immensely high return on your investment, but in most cases you will need a consultant to help you master today’s top strategies. 

The right email marketing consultant:

• Understands today’s underlying strategies and tools. 

• Understands your brand and of the voice you use when speaking to your users.

• Can build a list of people interested in your product or service.

• Sweats the details, because everything about your emails matters, from the length of the subject line to the content within. 

The latter is where a skilled copywriter comes into play. The copy within your emails must be compelling and properly written to ensure that it grabs readers' attention immediately and keeps them engaged throughout. The ability to write strong sales copy is also a must, as the call-to-action is massively important. 

In order to properly choose a consultant, you will first need a basic knowledge of what makes any email marketing campaign successful.

Take a look at the infographic below to find out more about what defines a strong email marketing strategy. Using this information, you can better choose a consultant.

5 Big Tips for Better Mobile Marketing

Sophorn Chhay contributed today's post. He is the inbound marketer at Trumpia, a mobile content delivery service that lets users customize their one-to-one marketing.

Sure, you might have a mobile marketing plan. But is it innovative?

In 2016, run-of-the-mill approaches won't take you very far; and, although most mobile marketers follow year-long plans, the fact is effective mobile marketing requires constant innovation.

If you want to stay ahead, check out the following tips, guaranteed to boost your results.

Tip One: Get Tight with Video Ads

Today, 80 percent of Internet users carry smartphones, and buyers are responding to video ads at alarming rates. You can benefit massively from video advertising.

Tip Two: Get Automated with SMS

Did you know you can automate your own SMS campaigns? Better yet, you can segment your audience and shoot out customized text messages. To get automated with SMS, contact a trustworthy provider. Textpedite, among others, streamlines the process.

Tip Three: Distribute an App

Americans currently spend more time using mobile apps than they do watching television. By incorporating an app into your plans, you'll give your brand greater meaning. Marketers are already reworking their entire strategies around apps (airlines, for example, are offering “nearby eatery” apps to frequent flyers). But make your app count, if you want to see it used.

Tip Four: Gain Data from SMS Surveys

Feedback means a lot to customers, and it's easy to conduct business when you know your customers' wants, needs and buying habits. SMS surveys procure a wealth of data and can garner otherwise unobtainable feedback.

Tip Five: Create a Social Campaign

In today’s mobile world, antisocial companies drop like flies, while companies like Starbucks win big. The brand’s “Race Together” and “Create Jobs for the USA” campaigns proved that promoting altruistic causes works. Sure, goodwill is a byproduct of powerful business practices; but it’s also a byproduct of social outreach.

Marketers Using More Agencies Less

Today's marketer farms out projects, not accounts, according to a survey by RSW/US.

RSW/US found that 74% use more than two agencies; and 17%, more than five.

They're also keeping project-work in house, hiring specialists galore.

And 40% of marketers expect project-work to increase this year.

While agencies may cringe, RSW/US sees an upside.

Marketers can no longer brush them off with "We already have an agency."

"With more marketers potentially using multiple agencies in the coming year, that objection becomes less of a hurdle, even potentially advantageous," says Lee McKnight, vice president of sales.

Marketers say they're wearied by agencies that claim they're full-service, but aren't, the survey reveals.

Marketers also say they're troubled by agencies "defaulting to digital." Too many have abandoned creativity, customer insight, and expertise in traditional media.

With more opportunities before them, agencies can win business by pitching novel projects, deep category knowledge, or know-how in a particular channel.

Transparency Can Improve Targeted Ads

A new study shows customers alter their self-labels when served an ad they think targets them because of their web browsing, provided the ad matches their aspirations.

More importantly, they also increase brand consideration.

To reach this conclusion, the researchers conducted four experiments:

• They served web-browsing college students an ad for a restaurant with “Refreshingly Sophisticated American Classics.” They told one group the ad was served because of their web browsing; they told another, because of their demographics. The first group was more likely to label themselves as having "sophisticated food preferences," and was more likely to dine at the restaurant, than the second.

• They served students an ad for a luxury watch, telling one group the ad was based on their web browsing; another, the ad was not. The first group of students was more likely to label themselves as "sophisticated" than the other group.

• They served students an ad for a pro-environment speaker. Students told the ad was served because of their web browsing were more likely to label themselves “green” and donate to an environmental charity, than students who thought the ad wasn't targeted.

• They served students an ad for an "outdoorsy" hot chocolate. Students with an interest in the outdoors were swayed by the ad; students without an interest in the outdoors weren't. The experiment proved, unless they already aspire to something, people wont alter their self-labels because of an ad.

The upshot? 

Web advertisers should be more transparent, because targeted ads with statements like "This is recommended based on your browsing history" can increase brand consideration.

Love Story

I remember little of my first formal date, except that I took the girl to see the schmaltzy blockbuster, Love Story.

The film's tagline perfectly states what every B2B marketer wants skeptical buyers to believe.

Love means never having to say you're sorry… you bought from us.

That's why B2B marketers adore case studies.

They're the ideal way to spread customers' love.

You're nuts if you're not dishing them out repeatedly.

Case studies are like movie reviews, except your customers are the stars and every movie's a love story.

And buyers can't get enough of them, because people love to compare themselves to others.

Here are seven case-study do's and don'ts. Keep them near and dear:

• Case studies adhere to a classic construct—a three-point story arc: problem, solution, results. Don't stray from that. 

• Make your customer the headliner. Keep you company off the marquee.

• Interview your customer in a knowledgable, but laid-back manner. Don't put her on edge with tough questions, or prompt her to say things she wouldn't say naturally.

• Use a lot of customer quotes for color and credibility.

• Illustrate your case studies with photographs and charts.

• Ask your customer to sign a release.

• Besides publishing the case study on your website, create a PDF version customers (and your salespeople) can download and share.

Events, One. Robots, Nothing.

Robots will ruin content marketing in coming years and make events the top channel for B2B content sharing.

With 71% of B2B executives already down on marketers' content, it won't be long before 99% of them shut their eyes to it.

Marketing automation users are to blame. 

In their frenzied efforts to target personas, they've forgotten persons.

The persons least targeted are, in fact, the folks who share the content that most influences buyers.

As salespeople know, sales result from speaking and sharing the right content with the worker bees who forage at trade shows.

That's why the event industry has been forever able to tout its channel as B2B's Number 1 "sales accelerator;" and why events have perennially been B2B companies' Number 1 choice among media for lead generation and relationship management.

The demise of content marketing will soon make events the top medium for content sharing, too.

DISCLOSURE: My employer serves the event industry.

To Gate or Not to Gate, That Is the B2B Content Marketing Question

Customer acquisition and retention expert Ruth P. Stevens contributed today's post. Named one of the "100 Most Influential People in B2B Marketing" by B2B Magazine, Ruth consults to large and small businesses and teaches at business schools around the world. Her latest book, co-authored with Theresa Kushner, is B2B Data-Driven Marketing.

There’s a spirited debate in B2B marketing about whether it’s best to give away information (aka “content,” like white papers and research reports) to all comers, versus requiring web visitors to provide some information in exchange for a content download. In other words, to gate your content or not to gate. The debate involves aspects of both ROI and philosophy. Myself, I lean toward the “gate it” camp, and here’s why.

I know that plenty of very smart and well-respected Internet marketing experts argue that free—unimpeded—distribution of content encourages both trust and, perhaps more importantly, wide dispersal and sharing of information. You’ll get to a much bigger audience, who will be educated on the solutions to their business problems, will be grateful for the free info and, one hopes, will think of you when they’re ready to buy.

The problem is that this model leaves marketers in a serious quandary. We don’t have any way of knowing who is reading our informative, educational and helpful content. We are left sitting on our thumbs, unable to take any proactive steps toward building relationships with these potential prospects. All we can do is wait for them to contact us and, we hope, ask us to participate in an RFP process, or, more likely, give them more info and more answers to their questions. Is that any way to sustain and grow a business relationship—not to mention meet a revenue target? In my view, it leaves too much to chance.

Myself, I grew up as a marketer in the world of measurable direct and database marketing. So it’s no surprise that I favor the gating side of the fence. I like marketing campaigns that provide predictable results. Where I can stand up in court and show a history of my campaign response rates, conversion rates, and cost-per-lead numbers. And most important, where I can reasonably expect to deliver a steady stream of qualified leads to my sales counterparts, who are relying on me to help them meet their quotas.

That’s my argument for gating content in B2B marketing. I understand the logic of the other side. And I see clearly situations where it makes sense to let the information run free—as a teaser, for example, to persuade prospects to come and get the richer information that is so useful that they’ll be falling all over themselves to give me their name, title, company name and email address. But what about you? Where do you sit in this debate? It’s a biggie.

The Coming Content Arms Race

Marketing strategist Mark Schaefer coined the dystopian term "content shock" to describe audiences' adverse reaction to content marketers' handiwork.

If you've felt a little content shock now and then, seek shelter now.

A "content arms race" is about to commence, Schaefer says.

By 2018, we'll be awash in content, as marketers' annual spend on web ads catches up with their $215 billion spend on TV ads.

Besides flooding the web with content, the spending shift will usher in an arms race, whose victors will be deep-pocket companies.

Small-time players, who until now have considered content their secret weapon against major advertisers, will be buried.

"Those with more money generally are in the best position to create more and better content, as well as pay to have it promoted and distributed," Schaefer says. "Will they always win? No. All things be equal, will they usually kill off the smaller guys? Yes. History bears this out."

Schaefer points to Chipotle's content marketing efforts as proof. "That kind of multi-million-dollar quality is not sustainable for most businesses and will hasten the exit of marginal content producers."

All Hat, No Cattle

The world is filled with big, stupid companies.

When it comes to the customer experience, they're "all hat, no cattle."

A story to illustrate.

I encountered a bug in the software from one of today's top 10 providers. The bug is so serious, it prevents any use of the product. 

My first plea for help spawned this canned email:

Thank you for submitting your case. My name is Henjie from Support. I have taken ownership of your Case number 12483149. I understand that you need some assistance. I won't be able to call you. For now, I will need to have your case endorsed to a team to make sure that we will be able to assist you further with your concern. Thank you for choosing [name withheld].

Four weeks, hours of my time, and 31 comparably inane messages later, no remedial action has been taken.

Disney likes to say, "no employee ever 'owns the customer,' but one employee always 'owns the moment.'"

At stupid companies, employees own neither customers nor moments. The only "owners" are the legal ones, who spend all their moments minding the share price, while buzz-talking auto-responders are left minding the store.

Entrepreneurs can take heart.

The Top 2 Mistakes Millennial Exhibitors Make

Ask 100 Millennials if they think trade shows are worth their time and money, and 98 will say "Yes," according to the Center for Exhibition Industry Research.

But, like their Boomer forebears, Millennials continue to botch their participation.

Millennial exhibitors' Number 1 mistake?

Presuming the sale.

Like many Boomers, Millennial exhibitors pose questions only as a pretext to presenting.

Rushing to close, they impress attendees as pushy; and attendees flee the booth as quickly as they can.

Young exhibitors who close presumptively leave the show each night complaining about the "terrible traffic."

Millennial exhibitors' Number 2 mistake?

Bantering.

Like many Boomers, Millennial exhibitors idly chat—a lot. But, while banter beats aggression, it doesn't do much for sales. Attendees learn plenty from exhibitors who love banter—but only about football scores, the weather, and the price of food in the convention center.
 
Young exhibitors who act like social butterflies leave the show each night complaining attendees "only came for the tchotchkes."

What's the answer?

Quit presuming the sale, nix the small talk, and ask good questions.

In other words, try a little progressive qualifying.

And be sure to ask attendees questions they might actually answer:

• How did you reach this point in your career?
• Whose idea was it to shop—the boss's or yours?
• What happens if you don’t find a solution?
• Do you have a favorite vendor?

The Return of Mad Men?

Once upon a time, people believed corporations weren't crooks.

The Great Recession changed that.

It was Corporate America's Watergate.

In today's Post-Recession period, corporations look no longer to Mad Men to tell their stories, but to brand journalists, who pride themselves on eschewing '60s-style corporate hokum.

"I've been a reporter, and I've also been a marcom writer," says David B. Thomas, posting on LinkedIn. "There's a big difference."

The marcom writer, according to Thomas, produces only "buzzwords and grandiose claims."

The brand journalist tells a story. 

"The people who read [the story] appreciate it because it gives a straightforward, unbiased analysis of the situation," he says.

Above all, the brand journalist strives to be informative. 

"Before she starts writing, she asks, 'What's important here for my audience? How will this help them solve their business problems? How can I make this interesting, informative and fun so that people will remember it and share it?'"

A practitioner myself, I appreciate the difference between a marcom writer and a brand journalist, too.

But then I remember how the Original Mad Man, David Ogilvy, once insisted, "The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be."

Ogilvy also scolded contemporaries who relied too heavily on buzzwords. 

"Our business is infested with idiots who try to impress by using pretentious jargon," Ogilvy wrote.

What's old, it seems, is new again.

Shoddy Content Can Only Fail

Introduced in 1813, shoddy is a cheap woolen cloth made from recycled rags. Victorian-era manufacturers used it to make low-end clothing.

Civil War soldiers—whose shoddy uniforms would disintegrate after only days—are responsible for our use of the word to mean cheap workmanship.

By flocking to shoddy content, today's marketers are trying to pull the wool over our eyes.

But it won't work, says Jeff Rosenblum, a columnist for Ad Age.

A marketing movement is underway to deluge customers with shoddy content—a movement that gives Rosenblum deja vu.

"I'm getting nasty flashbacks to the early days of banner ads," he writes. 

"When banner ads first came out, the marketing industry treated them like rebranded laundry detergent—'new and improved!' So, we shifted a bunch of dollars online and used half-baked data to prove it worked. Until, of course, we realized it didn't."

Banner ads bombed because marketers didn't grasp their value.

"The same will be true of content if we don't apply the lessons we learned. If we simply develop content because we think it's new, improved, quicker and easier than previous tactics, we're doomed to get the same disappointing results that we got from banner ads."

Content works, Rosenblum says, when it's understood:

• Content improves brand perceptions. "Great content shows customers why a brand is different and better than the competition. It creates evangelists that carry the brand message more effectively than paid media ever could," Rosenblum says.

• Content empowers customers. The premise is straightforward: customers give you their time; you give them useful information. "It's easy to create a social post with a cute kitten and generate a bunch of social shares, but that doesn't do anything for the brand in the long run."

• Content is more than clicks. Marketers need to measure more than likes and shares. "You need to understand how well the audience understands what makes the brand different and better. You need to understand what, specifically, shifts them down the sales funnel and generates revenue."

• Content isn't cheap. "Too often, brands spend countless hours talking about the power of social media, but spend an infinitesimal amount of their overall budget creating content."

"Unlike banner ads, content marketing can fundamentally alter the future of a brand. But it won't be quick and it won't be easy," Rosenblum concludes.

As F. Scott Fitzgerald once told a would-be writer, "Nothing any good isn't hard."