Make Marketing History

The views of a marketing deviant.

Friday, November 29, 2013

Marketers Aren't The Only Content Creators.


Marketing departments and advertising agencies are hypnotised by the lure of the shiny and new. All too often,  they pursue the unproven at the expense of the tried and trusted and do so in the hope of appearing modern and relevant. Relevant to whom is a question that often hangs unanswered.

Personally, I prefer to search out the new that's already proven. One of the best ways of doing this  is to uncover what works in other spheres and industries, learn why it works and identify ways in which it can be adapted to meet your own goals. Adapted, not copied.
 
Since you're drawing on the combined inventiveness of the rest of the world,  it's no surprise that there is a mass of ideas to be discovered. A case in point is a ten minute video I chanced upon at an exhibition about dancing some months ago. According to the exhibition guide

"A layered mass of projected images and footage will showcase the research processes of cognitive scientist David Kirsh, exploring the patterns of behavior and modes of communication occurring continuously between choreographer and dancers working together in the rehearsal studio. The installation, compiled by Kirsh and film-maker David Bickerstaff, combines interview and rehearsal documentation, providing a fascinating account of Kirsh’s work on distributed cognition with the company: the interplay of memory, knowledge and environment that underwrites dancers' physical grammar of gestures, including marking and sketching, in the generation of dance phrases and the organization of choreographic structures."

but what it was really about was methods of working and the creation of content (the scientist's words, not mine). And it was far more insightful than any marketing conference talk on that subject that you'll have to endure in the coming year. But, on the upside, marketing conferences are really easy to find.