Predicting the death of anything is the easiest way to find yourself in a difficult situation.
The second simplest solution is to cling to once-disruptive concepts after they have in turn been disrupted.
For example, let’s go back to February 1995. Newsweek, then a national print weekly, published a article in which astronomer and author Clifford Stoll wrote these bold words:
“Visionaries see a future of remote workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They talk about electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will move from offices and shopping centers to networks and modems. And free digital networks will make government more democratic.
Nonsense. Do our IT experts lack common sense? The truth is that no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can replace a competent teacher, and no computer network will change the way government works.
Today, this statement seems incredibly naive – and online articles ridicule the author not to see what transformative power the Internet would bring.
But later in that same article, Stoll writes:
“[W]What the Internet hucksters won’t tell you is that the Internet is a vast ocean of unedited data, with no pretense of completeness. Without editors, reviewers or reviewers, the Internet has become a wasteland of unfiltered data. »
He then concludes his article by saying:
“It is a poor substitute, this virtual reality where frustration is legion and where – in the sacred name of Education and Progress – important aspects of human interaction are relentlessly devalued. »
Stoll was wrong about the plot. But I think he nailed the story. One could rightly argue that the modern web is a vast “unfiltered data desert” and that human connection is increasingly devalued.
Don’t confuse plot and story
In any moment of innovation, people cling to the familiar. Author and philosopher Marshall McLuhan called this the “rearview mirror:“
“We always tend to attach ourselves to objects, to the flavor of the most recent past. We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We are walking backwards into the future.
Yet, looking backward into the future often gives us a good understanding (consciously or not) of how the past influences the future.
In other words, we might get the future plot (events) wrong, but get the story correct.
Consider the apocryphal story of Netflix’s triumph over Blockbuster. It’s too simplistic to say that Blockbuster failed because it ignored the rise of streaming. Blockbuster recognized the change in consumer preferences and behaviors (the story), but the constraints of existing systems and shareholder expectations slowed its response to the change (the plot).
The company’s leaders were not wrong about the difference between digital and physical: they were wrong about the speed and format of the transformation.
Consider the Total Story
Today, marketers face a similar challenge. We are on the cusp of an internet-wide revolution in how we reach, engage, convert and serve audiences and customers. And that raises a lot of questions about how to do this. Here are some of them:
Will AI completely disrupt the content creation process? Which pieces of content should we entrust to generative AI and which deserve human writers? Should we finally abandon PDF files as a delivery mechanism for lead generation content? Can we predict which format will replace it? Are websites still necessary? Will AI-generated answers and other no-click search results be removed owned media (including websites and blogs)? Is there a future for e-commerce, or is it just a matter of time before all businesses are “Amazonized”?
One of my favorite books on marketing theory is The Marketing Imagination by Professor Theodore Levitt of Harvard Business School. In it, Levitt describes his concept of the “total product,” which offers a practical perspective for balancing marketing predictions of plot with our understanding of the story.
The concept of the “total product” is based on the fact that consumers do not buy a product or a format: they choose the complete experience that best suits their current needs and context.
Apply this concept to cars, for example. Car features are important to the consumer, as is the overall ownership experience (a nearby service center, an excellent warranty, and even digital content and ownership tools).
What does this have to do with content or marketing?
Think about aging formats like PDFs or PowerPoint presentations. They have been the standard in digital marketing for years.
Are they still effective with your audience? Content needs to be integrated, interactive and engaging today. Do these formats meet these expectations?
But how can we predict a better format when one may not yet exist?
One answer (but not the only one) is to view the digital experiences and marketing content you create as a total product – or a total story if you prefer.
For example, consider these options:
Don’t give up on PDF files altogether. Instead, try to understand and respond to all contexts that apply to your audience. You can create centers of structured content to answer questions and provide thought leadership. Next, add a PDF as a downloadable adjacent element that provides a more visual layout or the functional interactivity of a form or template. Don’t worry about whether to delete your website or blog. Find out how to evolve your website into something else. For example, perhaps your business website is evolving from a thousand-page online bulletin board to a simple hub designed to direct customers to apps, social networks, or other media content brands detained. You can see this in action on Coca-Cola corporate website.
Take on multiple iterations of where your website could live. For example, you may decide that an e-commerce partner for your products/services on third-party stores makes sense. They may be less profitable than your own store, but customers may appreciate the more relevant context. For example, the entire purchasing journey for a Red Hat Linux product complete education platform can take place on the Amazon Web Services site. Instead of thinking of generative AI as a way to create more efficiency in the tasks you already do, think about how it could spark even more wisdom and creativity within a human team.
Back to the future
Content and marketing professionals are in exactly the same situation as Clifford Stoll was in 1995: no more and no less competent, talented or prescient.
Focus on the story and let the plot unfold uncertainly. This is how you will prosper.
Learn to see the past and use it to understand the story of the future without dwelling on plot details.
You will always walk backwards into the future. It’s inevitable. But you can use what you know to help you understand what you don’t know and prepare for what’s next.
It’s your story. Say it well.
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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
