Before this week’s cartoon, I want to quickly thank you for your patience (and good humor) last week when there was a technology glitch with this newsletter (the service I use to send it had a software update that made some of the fonts GIGANTIC). I’ve been publishing this cartoon newsletter for nearly 23 years, and I’m always grateful for how gracious this audience is. If you missed last week’s newsletter and cartoon because of the wonky layout, you can read it here.

Content, Content, Content

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I’ve never been that comfortable with the term “content,” even though I use it like everyone else. Ad exec Dave Trott once gave voice to some of what bugs me about calling it “content”:

“Content (noun): everything that is inside a container; the contents of a box.”

“So there it is: we’re in the shipping business. That’s what happened to what we used to call ‘the idea.’ The idea has become whatever goes into the box: just content. It could be anything, it’s not important… Content is seen as just stuff. The stuff that goes into the space that’s there to be filled…

“And there’s my problem with the word ‘content.’ It doesn’t matter what the content is. The content is now just something to fill up the space.”

Dave made that observation in 2015, even before the rise of AI-generated tools made content scalable and personalized and at the volume of a firehose.

But there are watch-outs to that approach. A new study from ad network Raptive is the first I’ve come across on perceptions of AI-generated content. They found that trust in content dropped nearly 50% when participants suspected it was generated by AI.

That perception also led to a 14% decrease in purchase consideration and willingness to pay for the associated brands (those sponsoring the content or advertising near it). The term used for this phenomenon is “AI stink.”

What’s particularly interesting is the drag occurs if the content is suspected of using AI, even if it wasn’t. Even before AI tools, many brands were guilty of churning out high volumes of low-quality content. Proctor & Gamble CMO Marc Pritchard described this as the “content crap trap” and encouraged brands to avoid falling into it.

AI tools are only as good as how they’re used. The path of least resistance is a race to the bottom. There’s an opportunity to raise the bar.

We can’t break through the clutter by adding to it.

Speaking in NYC and London next month

I’m speaking in two cities next month for Opticon25: September 10 in NYC and September 30 in London. Hosted by Optimizely, Opticon25 is a free event for marketing and product teams. I hope to see some of you there.

And as always, please let me know if you’d like to talk about any events you’re planning (or know of) that you think could be a good fit.

Cartoon From The Archives

And here’s a related cartoon I drew in 2017:

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Thank you for all of your support (and cartoon material)!

-Tom

P.S. If you like these marketoons, here are a few ways to help:

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About Marketoonist

Marketoonist is the thought bubble of me, Tom Fishburne. I first started drawing cartoons as a student in the Harvard Business School newspaper (not quite as well-known for humor as the Lampoon) and later started this newsletter from a General Mills cubicle in 2002. The cartoons have followed my career ever since. I poke fun at the ever-changing world of marketing and business because I believe that laughing at ourselves can help us do our best work.