Digital Indecency

I imagined the web as a platform that would allow everyone, everywhere
to share information, access opportunities, and collaborate.

— Tim Berners-Lee

Starfleet General Order 1, you'll recall, was the Prime Directive: all personnel should refrain from interfering with the natural development of communities.

Marketers, by cravenly ignoring the web's Prime Directive—to help users share and collaborate—are destroying the medium, says Kirk Chayfitz this month in Chief Content Officer.

Marketers "have failed to see that digital requires a creative approach that is diametrically opposed to the blunt-instrument sales messages of traditional ads," he writes.

As a result, users are demonstrating their "exponentially growing disgust with an industry that has admitted showing little or no regard for people's needs and desires."

They're blocking ads.

Chayfitz prescribes these six rules for restoring "digital decency" to web advertising:

Take responsibility. Marketers must stop blaming agencies; they write the checks.

Do no harm. Ads shouldn't fan users' frustrations. Keep data loads light, don't block content, and don't distract with needless video and animation.

Bust silos. Integrate all digital advertising under one officer.

White-list the sites you want to support. Don't fund fraudsters, charlatans and extremists by running ads on their sites.

Audit. Put the right to audit ad buys in your contracts with agencies. Insist on accountability.

Be useful. Provide users valuable experiences, not repetitive sales pitches. "The dream of digital was always to democratize communication and help make a better world," Chayfitz writes. "Take that to heart."

Did You Know Phyllis Diller was Once a Copywriter?

In the mid-1950s, Phyllis Diller worked as a copywriter for a radio station in Oakland, California, KSFO.

She needed the meager money to help support five kids and a ne'er-do-well husband she fondly called "Fang."

"He was a talker," Diller told a biographer. "He sounded like he would rule the world, but he couldn't hold a job. He just sat there and drank beer all  day. He didn't even do that well."

Although the station's low man on the totem pole ("I was an Office girl to them. They couldn't see me at all."), Diller caught people's attention.

"Early on, she was one of the funniest dames, marvelously brittle," said Terrence O'Flaherty, a critic for The San Francisco Chronicle who always picked up her copy verbatim. "She writes some of the best and most delightful commercials in the broadcasting business."

For a fancy Oakland restaurant named Sea Wolf, Diller wrote, "The chefs are so temperamental, the wolf has a psychiatrist in attendance at all times."

Evenings, she would rehearse her stand-up act in front of a mirror after making dinner and putting the kids to bed.

Diller's show-biz break came—and her copywriting career ended—in March 1955, when she was asked to perform at The Purple Onion, one of the Bay Area's hottest comedy clubs. The invitation followed Diller's appearance as a contestant on Groucho Marx's game show, You Bet Your Life.



NOTE: This post is the 6th in a series of 5 (what, you never heard of inflation?)

How 3 Brands Found Their Content Niche

Kara Whittaker contributed today's post. She is a content marketer with Ghergich & Co.

When you think of Red Bull, what do you think of?

You probably associate the brand with its energy drinks, of course. But Red Bull has an interesting backstory that provides key lessons for content marketers looking to make more of their brands.

Red Bull actually got its start in Europe, where extreme physical challenges—biking, hiking, mountain climbing, and sky diving—are already an established part of the culture.

When the company realized it was in the sports, not the beverage, business, it decided to capitalize on that heritage, creating a series of extreme sports events that challenged the stamina of participants.

The events were so successful, the company created an entire division dedicated solely to producing edge-of-the-world content.

It's worked, which is why Red Bull is one of the globe's leading brands—and one of its foremost content marketers.

Content has been part of marketing for more than a century.

When Michelin realized it was in the travel, not the tire, business, it published travel guides; and they gave rise to a what has become a worldwide cultural phenomenon: the Michelin Star rating system for restaurants.

And when GoPro realized it was in the user-generated content, not the camera, business, it leveraged UGC to build a fanatical fan base—and a world-class brand.

You can emulate brands like these by asking, "What business are we really in?"

And, yes, it takes time, testing and chutzpah to find your content niche.

But once you do, the sky's the limit.

Thought Leadership: It's Not What You Think

Content marketing agency Grist asked 200 execs to assess thought leadership. Their responses will surprise you:

• 84% say thought leadership adds value to their roles as executives, and 66% say they count on it to stay ahead of trends. Only 36% say they use thought leadership to gauge the expertise of an author; but 40% will contact an author, if they find a piece worthwhile.
  
  
• 46% want thought leadership that offers fresh perspectives; only 26% want content that's action-oriented. 63% say thought leadership fails when it's conventional; and 58%, when it's unoriginal. Only 31% ever read all the thought leadership they uncover; and only 28% say it actually influences their decisions.
  
  
• 63% prefer short (800-word) articles; and 57% prefer short (300- to 500-word ) blog posts. Only 45% will read 1,200-word pieces; and only 28%, 4,000-word pieces. Only 26% will devote attention to videos; and only 25%, to podcasts.

So how can you please executives?

• Create thought leadership content that's provocative, original, forward-looking, and issue-oriented. Execs don't need one more post on "10 Ways to Modernize Your [Fill in the Blank]."
  
  
• Avoid not only stale, but fluffy topics; and shun sales-talk. Create content your industry's leading media outlets would reprint.
  
  
• Don't just record (as in videos and podcasts). Write. And write short.

Stuck inside of Mobile with the Email Blues Again

B2B marketers, why—when your email has a snowball's chance in hell of getting attention—do so many of you reduce the chance?

I see it every day: emails designed for desktop email clients, instead of mobile ones.

Seven in 10 prospects immediately delete mobile-unfriendly emails.

So stop sending them:

• Use a 300 pixel-wide template. Mobile screens are small and many smartphones don't automatically resize big emails.
  
  
• Use images sparingly. Mobile devices load slowly. The overall file size of your email should not exceed 70k.
  
  
• The top 250 pixels are prime real estate. Don't waste them on some gargantuan masthead. State your offer here in plain-text words.
  
  
• Use a clear call-to-action button near the top. Also include a text call-to-action linked to the same landing page (visible when images are disabled).
  
  
• Include a one-line pre-header to state your offer. Include as well the URL for the mobile-friendly version of your email you host on line.
  
  
• Avoid weird fonts, big fonts, reverse type, and red type. That stuff doesn't render and can trigger spam filters.
  
  
• Code short (basic HTML with tables).
  
  
• Write short (Anglo-Saxon words, and few of them).

Four in ten B2B marketers say designing mobile-friendly emails will automatically lift results.

So shake those email blues. Design for mobile.