Content Marketing Today

Forbes Mag CEO Misses the Point about Content Marketing

He thinks a rising Tide lifts all brand advertising, but ignores how content marketing works for P&G on the web.

Jim Spanfeller, Forbes CEO, was quoted in the Media Post Raw blog on why traditional brand advertising will not be displaced by Internet efforts.

“Brand advertising is the most efficient allocation of big marketer dollars…The Internet has not fundamentally altered how consumers respond to advertising.”

Spanfeller chose Proctor & Gamble’s Tide as his example. “There aren’t enough clicks on the planet to move 500 million boxes of tide.” Finally, as the blog framed it, ‘he proclaimed hopefully’: “The biggest irony that will come from the Internet is it will restore the luster of brand marketing.” 

Clearly, Spanfeller is missing the point.  The real power of the Internet for Procter & Gamble–and for the rest of us–lies in our ability to create compelling content online.

At a minimum it extends consumer branding efforts for companies like P&G.  At a maximum, it replaces traditional branding efforts for small to medium-sized organizations.

Procter & Gamble is still the biggest advertiser in the US, spending more than $900 million in the first quarter of 2008.  That’s 80% more than number two, General Motors.  But three years ago, they announced that they were going to be shifting a significant amount of their marketing effort to the Internet.  A quick review of Tide’s website shows that P&G has created a natural extension to their television and in the store advertising programs.

Here’s what you get when you go to the Tide site:

• Great visual imagery
• You can shift easily through  big, compelling images and text that relate to Tide products and services
• You can watch the latest episode of their online’ soap opera,’ Crescent Heights.
• You get detailed advice on how to get rid of all kinds of stains on all kinds of fabrics from the’ Fabric Advisor.’
• Cleverly, the Fabric Advisor directs visitors to other P&G brands as appropriate.
• You can head off toward lots of other P&G brand websites, each of which has  unique content.

Everything that P&G is doing on the web reinforces everything that they do on television and in stores to sell more soap, fabric softener, toothpaste, razor blades, and on and on and on.  It’s not about’ clicks’ as Jim Spanfeller supposes.  Rather, it’s about creating a unique experience through compelling content that targets the well understood needs of its customers.

For P&G, what they do on the web is a reinforcement of the rest of its marketing.  For many smaller organization what you do on the web can be a complete replacement for traditional marketing efforts. 

Can a consumer products company with 100 employees replicate everything that P&G does on the web?  Of course not!  However, they could certainly replicate the’ Fabric Advisor’ concept with specific advice about how to use your products to solve your customers’ problems.  That is an easy but powerful way to provide relevant content online.  It is also the obvious starting point for word-of-mouth marketing when your users tell other users how valuable your website is in helping them find solutions to everyday problems.

Summing up: TV advertising, the Internet, and Content Marketing

TV advertising is still important to Procter & Gamble, but their online marketing efforts are playing an increasingly important role.  For them, and for the thousands of smaller companies, it’s all about content marketing on the Web.  When Jim Spanfeller suggests that the Internet has not changed the way that consumers respond advertising, he is dead wrong.  In fact, it is increasingly true that television advertising is designed specifically to derive consumers to the web.  And,as we know, content marketing takes over on the web.