Did advertising create Content Marketing (and, perhaps more importantly, should horses wear hats)?

Back in colonial America, business owners had to rely on advertising (mail-order catalogs and newspaper ads, mainly) to pitch their products and services. But, as department store owner John Wannamaker is often credited with saying, no one knew for sure what was working:

“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.”

Promotional products became the solution

Searching for a way to measure effectiveness, companies started creating promotional items they could offer as an incentive to measure response. And, as you can imagine, some of these early giveaways were pretty bad.

While the traditional promotional product standbys like rulers and hand-held paper fans with printed messages were great (and are still popular today), some companies thought that hats for horses were a good idea.

Yes, hats for horses.

Okay, let’s place the blame where it really belongs

It’s more likely that printers of the day, who created the fledgling promotional products business to utilize their presses when they weren’t printing newspapers, came up with some of the more questionable ideas. It all started innocently enough with burlap book bags for students. That escalated to bags for marbles, card cases, calendars and the aforementioned horse hats.

Taking an idea and making it bigger (and better)

While horses everywhere shuddered, some innovative companies took the idea of creating something to measure response and elevated it — creating things that actually did more. Heard of John Deere’s Furrow magazine? Or the Michelin Guide? Or Jell-O recipe books? These companies went beyond horse hats (the 1880s version of click bait) and decided to create something that was actually useful.

So did advertising create Content Marketing? Maybe. But, now that technology has enabled Content Marketing to come into its own, the time is right to look for the next challenge.

What’s next for Content Marketing?

If we, as content marketers, think of ourselves as similar to those first companies that made a conscious choice to elevate promotional products to a more ‘useful’ status — shouldn't that cause us to think more broadly about the content we're creating today? (That's rhetorical...yes, it should).

The next time you have the opportunity to create content, think of those trailblazers who chose to elevate their content (even though they didn't call it that). Don't settle for something your audience will merely click on or subscribe to -- help them solve a problem.

In other words, create great content. People will thank you with their business.

Photo credit: roundstable.com