What Jodie Foster at the Golden Globes Taught Me About Content Marketing

So many fishtail dresses (too many, really). Tina and Amy’s schtick (could have been funnier, right?). All those big-headed hunks in tuxes. Yes, we’re talking the 2013 Golden Globes! Bottom line: the right things mostly won this year: Argo, Silver Linings Playbook, Girls, Homeland, and the one I am dying (almost literally, given the subject matter) to see next, Amour.

But you know what I can’t stop thinking about? Jodie Foster. Her performance stole the show.

Jodie cut through the celebrity clutter. Jodie got real. When it really works, great content marketing does too. What Jodie did is a lesson for all of us who lovingly toil in this field, newly flooded by well-meaning arrivistes now that content marketing has been crowned as the content trend to tout by brand CMOs.

When content marketing transcends and rises to the levels of idea-defining journalism that grabs an audience by the throat, inspires them to believe, and most important, forces them to take action, it does what Jodie did. She was brave, creative, broke the rules, and ruled. 

Be Like Jodie in Your Content

Every brand is different, of course, but if we’re honest, most content-marketing RFPs seem similar at the outset. Emphasis on “seem.” The way you win is to look past the expected and change the game.

Typically, a big brand asks for a proposal that helps it tell stories across platforms that further its goals, are measurable, and display its logo nice and big everywhere. It’s a perfectly reasonable request and a smart way to connect with users. If we deliver exactly what they expect, talented content marketers can deliver a powerful, beautiful content campaign that makes a difference in brand fans’ lives and drives action in all the right ways.

But why not disrupt things a bit? Why not be like Jodie? The child star was honored at this year’s Golden Globes with the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement. She could have gone rote: thanked her handlers, sent shoutouts to her acting “family” and kids, grabbed her award and exited stage left.

But she didn’t.

She got real. She got weird. And we couldn’t stop watching. She delivered a rambling, odd, and gorgeously poignant speech about the difficulty of growing up before the cameras when you don’t know who you are yet, and joked about coming out … as single.

Jodie delivered a death-defying live performance that was more real than reality TV.

That’s game-changing content: it explodes the conversation and cuts through the cliches. You can’t look away. And it worked: her words transfixed the seen-it-all audience in the ballroom and viewers at home. Twitter blew up. Did you see the Golden Globe attendees’ faces when the cameras panned over? They stopped slapping each others’ backs and sat still: transfixed, worried, and ultimately impressed. They were unsure of where she was going, but they were rooting for her and gave her a huge show of support when she was done.

When it was all over, Jodie had told her truth with humor and honesty and pretty much owned the conversation about what happened at the Globes.

I don’t know about you, but I didn’t expect to be thinking about Jodie on the day after Argo and Lena Dunham’s Girls swept big, did you?

Content marketers, take note: Yes, you put on the dress and storm the podium to deliver your speech, but present the content your way, break the rules just enough to disrupt the format and overdeliver on audience experience. When you measure the results, as Jodie surely did when she went home and checked her Twitter feed, you’ll find that you won the night.

[Image: Source]