Content Marketing: when kibitzers strike!

When kibitzers strike, the challenge is content consensus

By Robert Celaschi

When it comes to content marketing, the worst kibitzers are people with imposing titles from other departments.

When Robert Townsend was CEO of the Avis rental car chain, he hired an ad agency to come up with a new campaign. (Yes, I know advertising and marketing aren’t identical, but bear with me on this one.

Part of the agreement was that the agency would submit only the ads it could recommend, and not “see what Avis thinks of that one.” For its part, Avis promised to either approve or disapprove the ads, but not tinker with them other than to point out any factual errors.

After doing their research, the ad agency folks felt a bit dejected. It turned out that there wasn’t anything special they could honestly say about Avis other than the fact that it was the second largest car rental company at the time, and its people were trying harder. At first it didn’t sound like much to work with, but the “We Try Harder” campaign is still shaping the Avis identity more than 40 years later.*

Townsend’s moral:

“Don’t hire a master to paint you a masterpiece and then assign a roomful of schoolboy artists to look over his shoulder and suggest improvements.”

My take: The surest way to muddy up a marketing effort is to give too many people the authority to demand changes. The worst kibitzers are people with imposing titles from other departments.

For sure, you should gather information from all the stakeholders. But make sure only one person in charge, with the right to accept or reject ideas and shape them into a unified approach.

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* Townsend tells the story in “Up the Organization: How To Stop Management from Stifling People and Strangling Productivity,” an old — er, classic — book on business management. Originally published in 1970, it was expanded in 1984 as “Further Up the Organization.” A commemorative edition came out in 2007. Get  a copy (Amazon has used copies for $1.23). A few of his observations have been overtaken by technology and a changing world economy, but the core ideas still hold up.

Robert has been a business journalist for 22 years, both as a reporter and an editor. He joined Business Communications Group in 2005.

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