A quick Google of”Chief Content Officer” finds millions of entries, a wikipedia page and links to passionate blogs about the need for enterprises to have a CCO who can be the “corporate executive responsible for the digital media creation and multi-channel publication of the organization’s content (text, video, audio, animation, etc.)” . Of course, these results pale in comparison to the results for “Content Marketing”, which along with it’s first cousin “Inbound Marketing” is the strategy of the decade among today’s marketing cognoscenti. And while I have no beef with the jobs or the value of Content Marketing, there is one big challenge.
In EVERY market, content has become a commodity. The best content management systems, marketing automation systems and processes, and multi-channel leverage can’t change that fact. Internet search, social media, and real-time news have moved us from a world of content scarcity and editorial to a world of content overload and abundance. This has put everyone from Dads to analysts to sales reps under pressure to continue to be valuable. “Go ask Dad” and “Go ask Gartner” has been replaced in large by “Go ask Google”. Sales cycles have morphed into self directed processes, versus managed one.
My pre-teen girls have a politically incorrect saying they taunt their brother with which is, “Girls Rule, Boys Drool”. Winners in today’s markets not only produce great context, but they OWN and DRIVE the context of the market conversation. He who controls context, wins. So with credit to the schoolyard, “Context Rules, Content Drools”. I’ve built a whole Viewpoint framework around this idea.
Traditionally, the CEO or other C-level executives are the ones who are articulate and captivate listener when opining about industry, customer and market context, they have to be. But capturing and integrating that context into the marketing and positioning of the company, brand and product value proposition and ALL OF THE CONTENT you create needs to be job one of any content marketing strategy and organization. That’s why I say forget the Chief Content Officer, who’s your Chief Context Officer?