Brenner on: hero content, villain banners

Brenner on: hero content, villain banners

November 7, 2016

 

November 7, 2016

 

Brenner on: hero content, villain banners

WRITTEN BY

Tony Hallett
Managing director

Tony set up Collective Content in 2011 so brands can more easily become publishers and tell stories. This built on 15 years in media, from reporter to publishing director at Silicon Media Group, CNET Networks and CBS Interactive.

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If great content is the hero, then banners are the villain.”

Michael Brenner, Head of Strategy at NewsCred

We really rate Brenner, who first came to our attention when at SAP and then joined NewsCred, where he remains a major thought leader in content marketing. But what is he getting at here?

Although he mentions banner ads specifically, he sounds down on ads. We can’t disagree with him on that. Previously in this series we heard Craig Davis talk negatively about interruption marketing, and this is partly about that problem.

But this kind of stance is also about how ineffective traditional advertising is. In our recently reposted piece ‘Death of display ads? Never say never’, we set out five major reasons at that time why the whole online ad ecosystem faces major challenges.

Since its first publication just over a year ago we could have talked more about rates of ad consumption over time-shifted TV (anyone ever watch ads on Netflix?), and how the whole ad tech ecosystem isn’t so hot anymore, which is telling.

What’s the answer? Consumers and business still want to know options before they make purchases. But in B2C they are gravitating towards brands that fund and create entertaining content.

In B2B, decision-makers will trust brands that help them over a long-period of time, especially as the buying cycle in B2B is often 18 months or longer. You can’t do that in a three-month campaign (as we’ll talk about soon in this series). Remember our Hippocratic oath of B2B content marketing: first, be useful.

Great content will continue to be the hero and bad ads like banners the villain. CMOs will increasingly feel that way because buyers feel that way.

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