WTF Even is "Content"?

January 28, 2025

I’ve been wanting to write about “content” for a while now, as it seems to be of a bit of a controversial subject in our game. A bit Marmite (and how brilliant is it that we use a brand’s name in this way?).

There’s no doubt that in recent years we’re seen the rise of content marketing, content marketing experts and indeed content marketing professionals. But we've also seen a backlash from the old(er) school marketers against the use of the use of the term “content marketing”.

And being the awkward swine I am, I see it from both sides. Ish.

I think part of the backlash is the speed with which digital has made it possible for many people to come into marketing, as channel or subject specialists, without any prior training in marketing. Naturally many of them don’t yet have knowledge of the fundamentals of marketing, and so whilst learning and practicing their specialty -  say social media, SEO, or yes content marketing – they might discover things that to them are new, which may have been around for a while and may even be one of the foundational principles of marketing.

Famously, the positively lovely Joe Glover – The Marketing Meetup founder – thought he’d invented the marketing funnel. We all live and learn.

I think perhaps this is the case with “content”. Maybe it's not.

Maybe content is actually something different.

I've heard people say that content is just advertising, in other words, and I fundamentally disagree with that.

If you consider it in all forms, content covers a wide range of things. Whilst considering this article, I asked Perplexity AI to list all types of content that were used in content marketing campaigns. It gave me 60 different types of content, and they ranged from what you might consider advertising to PR to classic communications. There was sales-based content, event management, customer service, broadcast to name but a few.

All of these come under the guise of content. And whilst I think many probably could come under the guise of communication, not all of them do.

I would argue that there's an important factor where the platforms, the channels, the media that we're now using to distribute brand messaging has changed the nature in which some of it is created, and in some ways for the better.

Recent research led by Andrew Tindall at System 1 has outlined how consistency enhances creative quality, strengthens brand perception and drives better business outcomes.

I’m sure we can all look back at brands big and small, where there actually isn't a great deal of consistency.

Lots of things are kind of created in a silo, whether individual campaigns or simply rolling out per channel.

Now, one of the things that “content”, as a bucket term (which is all it is, let's be honest) has done is it's enabled people to immediately plan and think about distribution across multiple channels.

For example, I'm sat here now editing the transcript from a video I ostensibly recorded in front of the bins (because you can't see the green screen) talking to camera to make a written piece for my newsletter and a LinkedIn article.

This is content.

Of course it is. The initial video is broadcast. Of course it is. It's communications because it is, it's also going to be turned into short form video clips, an email newsletter, a website blog piece and a LinkedIn article.

All these things are content.

Are all those things communications? Um, well yes they are.

But if I were to do a Bin Juice live event, other than the fact that nobody in their right mind would want to come, would that be content, or would that be an event?

Would it be communications?

It would certainly count as a content driver. You'd certainly consider it as part of content planning and event planning, but not necessarily communications.

If you look at some of the other forms that content can take, you have events, you've got experiential, you've got interactive, you've got apps, you've got branded games. All of these are different types of content that I think genuinely fall outside of traditional communications.

And so whilst I understand, and in many ways agree in other situations, with this kind of reinventing of terminology, of things that already existed, I believe that content is a valuable term, and it's a catch all term.

I'm also convinced that, as an industry, we are far too caught up in semantics.

We spend so much time, picking the fluff out of an argument whilst we naval gaze over what we should call something. I mean, loyalty is a great example. Should it be called loyalty? Or should it be called repeat purchase? Or should it be called A, B and C?

It doesn't matter. Nobody cares. How you refer to it is not going to change the job you're doing, and I believe the same goes for “content”.

What you call it isn’t going to change the fundamentals of the job.

So if you have people that have come into the industry from a digital background calling it content, fine.

It's content.

If you want to call it communications and can find a way of shoehorning In the things that clearly aren't communications, call it communications.

Call it whatever you want to call it. Let's get on and do it, and let's do it well, because we really should be focusing on the outcomes of our work.

We should be focusing on improving the levels of knowledge in our industry. So rather than poo-pooing on youngster or newer professionals who are coming up with fantastic new phrases for things that we've been doing for 60 years, let's have a look at the fact that there's not enough education in marketing, and for that reason, we can't expect people to know these things, because they're being told there are ways into the industry which don't require a traditional marketing education.

And here’s my confession. I wasn't educated in marketing. I got six years through the required seven years of training as an architect before falling into marketing like Del Boy at the bar.

I've learned along the way though. I've studied classic marketing. I've learned a lot of the fundamentals. I’ve put the time, sweat and tears in over twenty plus years.

And yet, even now, I speak to senior marketers who aren't practicing and are dismissive of some of the absolute fundamentals.

So let's take it a little bit easier and focus on the business outcomes.

There are some fantastic content marketers out there, they've got a better understanding of how people engage with content on different platforms. Are they all experts on every platform? No, typically not, but they have an understanding of how to deliver the best results, they have an understanding of how people respond in different scenarios.

How many of those poo-pooing on this really get Tik Tok?

Oh, by the way there's going to be little clipped versions of this on Tik Tok, because I'm down with the kids, yeh. 😬

Finally, if you disagree, if you think that content is made up bullshit, comment on my LinkedIn post And  if you think that content is more than just communication, add your comments too.

What I'd really dearly like to see is a big pile-on, from both sides, scrapping it out in my comments.

So then I could talk about how this content has created amplification. That'd be marvellous.

Cheers.