Fragmentation.
This is the best word to describe today’s entertainment and information consumption landscape.
According to statistics, two years ago, user-generated content accounted for 39% of time spent on social media Research from the Consumer Technology Association. last year, Time to watch online videos For the first time in history, it has surpassed television. This year, if you thought Netflix was the top streaming platform, think again. YouTube wins 8.6% of streaming TV consumption That’s more than Netflix’s 7.9% share.
All this fragmentation of content consumption disconnects people from shared media and cultural experiences and places them in echo chambers that make it difficult New content experience breakthrough. Nearly every viral, popular, or culturally resonant breakthrough seems to be an accident—a lightning bolt of content in a bottle.
Successful marketers follow the same memo. They understand the impact of fragmentation on paid advertising, search marketing, social media and owned media.
So, how to innovate on a fragmented terrain?
In a world where reaching consumers feels a bit like playing Dungeons and Dragons, where do you focus your hard-earned marketing budget? You know, when you wake up in the morning with the remnants of a competitor’s failed content marketing campaign. You have content to create. What’s your job?
We posed this question to CMI Chief Strategist Robert Ross. Read on or watch what he had to say:
Check out the full content experience from Progressive and Lenovo
Over the past few months, I’ve talked a lot about moving the content experience to the edge. in this article In the subsequent webinar, I discussed the trend in content and marketing to provide a complete valuable content experience beyond the website.
Even though I find this annoying, I say it’s the oxygen in the room. You have to focus more on designing the “rental land” experience. That’s fringe content. It puts increasing pressure on your media experience to make the media experience you have more valuable, like creating FAQs with special content that you can’t get anywhere but here.
This week, digital day This was pointed out in a discussion about the fragmentation of marketing and media consumption: “Brand marketers are becoming increasingly receptive to alternative advertising options for reaching consumers.”
While Digiday calls these options “non-traditional formats,” you better know them as content marketing efforts.
This article quotes “Are We Going to Be Parents?” Progressive movement.
Its fictional brilliant counselor Dr. Rick (played by Bill Glass) takes on the role of a Guests of “Hot Ones”, Popular YouTube series where hosts interview celebrities as they eat increasingly spicy wings.
Digiday also talked about pie bowl, The College Football Bowl, which originated last season and returns on December 28, is a great example of a differentiated owned media approach.
I would point out things like Autodesk’s design and manufacturing status report, This is the primary focus of the company’s go-to-market strategy, and Lenovo Late Night IT The series on YouTube is a great example.
Create greater value when you rush for the fences
Back to the Digiday article. The most interesting to me are two quotes from Evan Giordano, a strategist at the creative and advertising agency Mother New York. “You can no longer rely on advertising around a certain culture and expect anyone and everyone to see it,” he said.
Eric then suggested that the alternative format approach “is quite freeing because your creative team and strategists have to think like product people; they have to conceptualize the outside of the traditional format.
Yes, this has long been the focus of how content marketers create value in today’s world. In my content marketing strategy course, I specifically include a module on thinking like a product manager.
Regardless, at their core, these alternative format trends involve delivering fun, out-of-the-box experiences and delivering them on purpose-designed platforms at the edge and in the media you own.
Let me ask you a question: In your plans for 2025, can you plan some adventurous, content-driven experiential products? You can design them for YouTube, other social media, media you own, or all of the above.
Think about what you could do instead of spending another year incrementally improving your search rankings, lowering your cost per lead by 5%, or testing a hundred button shapes and colors to increase your conversion rate by 2% .
There is no doubt that these expectations are important. But maybe in a fragmented world you could try something less fragmented.
Featured related content:
Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
