Sentences Uttered at the Content Marketing Conference that I Can’t Unhear. (But I’ll Try.)

Earlier this month I attended the Custom Content Council conference in Chicago. It was my first CCC show, and I got a lot out of it.

Some of it, I wish I hadn’t gotten.

In among all the gleaming case studies, between the commonsense tips and around the novel ideas were some utterances so obviously crazy that I’m compelled to conceal their authors.

“The line between helpful and creepy is thin, gray and curvy.”

This is true for the content marketer who’s trying to follow consumers to the threshold of the bathroom door. But the consumer knows exactly when helpful turns into creepy, and doesn’t often give creepy a chance to be helpful again.

“It’s a dog licking a computer screen! It’s genius!”

In the context of content marketing, a viral video—whatever its ability to fascinate hundreds of thousands of bored imbeciles—is not genius. And we’ll know content marketing has matured when such a video is not shown by one speaker (let alone two, in Chicago) at a content marketing conference.

“Organic is fantastic, but …”

No, this is not a line from When Harry Met Sally. It’s a caveat by a marketer who doesn’t have confidence in her ability to create content that’s truly relevant enough to garner good Google results. To paraphrase a content marketer who knew something about staying power: Organic isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.

“The world is full of amazing brands.”

First of all, marketers are talking about “amazing” before they’ve even reached “amusing.”

More importantly: There is no such thing as an “amazing brand.” There are amazing products. There is amazing advertising. There are even amazing companies. But a big part of a content marketer’s job is to convince clients that “amazing” is for Joe Consumer to judge. And Joe Consumer will never turn to Jane Doe at a cocktail party and ask her if she’s familiar with some company’s “amazing brand.”

So we shouldn’t talk in such terms either.

“What’s hard is getting people to be passionate about catheters and medical equipment.”

And another speaker said, “It’s harder to get people passionate around insurance.”

When we say things at a content marketing conference that would get us laughed out of our own bedroom, we should consider that maybe something has gone wrong in our head.

It’s not hard to get sane human beings to be “passionate” about catheters, medical equipment or insurance—or credit cards or tires or bottled water. It is impossible, and anyone who would actually set out to do it is at least as crazy as the imagined target audience.

I believe there are ways to do smart, tasteful, meaningful and sustainable content marketing for every brand.

And that is exactly what we have to do.

Or, as a speaker at the conference put it, “You guys have to figure out how to be amazing in your own way.”

[Image: Flickr]