It stands for a chief content officer.

Google this three-letter acronym*, though, and you soon leave the world of content.

Chief Communications Officer, Chief Compliance Officer, even Cisco Connection Online (“an interactive customer support website”) and – get this – Cosmetics Company Outlet rank higher.

That’ll change.

We’ve come across one or two media companies that have a CCO. (Patch, anyone?) Why, we don’t know. If you have reporters, editors and publishers, why would you introduce a job title like CCO? But I digress.

CCO is becoming common at large companies that are publishing their own content. Call it brand publishing, corporate journalism or any number of other names.

It is happening in a big way now and companies realise it is a unique, often new role. The CCO still usually reports in to someone in a marketing function, perhaps a CMO, perhaps someone else.

But having a CCO as opposed to an editor-in-chief (good enough for Facebook, Tumblr and countless others), implies a level of seriousness about corporate content.

It certainly implies there is a content team and strategy in place. One of our favourite reference points on this remains Boeing, whose in-house team was until recently headed up by an ex Bloomberg reporter.

We predict the phrase will become more popular. We’ll also be blogging about the idea of companies who look to outsource some kind of CCO expertise.

As ever, drop us a line if you want to know more.

*Don’t you just love ‘TLA’ – a three-letter acronym for three-letter acronym? (Which we felt we couldn’t use, given our frequent anti-jargon rants.)
**photo credit: __DODO via photopin cc
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