There’s a blatant shift in “media models” happening right now.
Everyone sees it, but no one is talking about it.
Except for Liquid Death VP Andy Pearson who understands it best:
Let that sink in for a second.
The feed = attention
Attention = sales
Now let’s look at a real example using two other companies: Barstool Sports (media company) and Cisco (software company).
Since Barstool has the attention, they can drive sales. In fact, that’s their entire business.
A company like Cisco buys ads on Barstool to acquire customers.
This is the traditional ad model.
Traditional Model: Cisco buys attention to get sales
1) Cisco buys Barstool ads -💰💰
2) Cisco drives sales from ads +💰💰💰
But now there is a new SHIFT.
Not only is it more expensive to buy ads, but attention is more distributed.
Aka people watch other people (TikTok, YouTube, IG, etc) not just big network shows.
But Cisco still needs to sell Webex licenses… so what do they do?
Create it themselves! (or at least try to)
New Model: Cisco CREATES attention to drive sales
1) Cisco makes content -💰
2) Cisco drives sales from content +💰💰💰
Here is the Cisco headline that went viral:
But there’s a key catch…
Imagine if this were reversed and Barstool tried to create B2B software.
NO WAY it would work. (Barstool is a media company, not a software company.)
Same is true with Cisco. They are a B2B software company (not content creators or masters of attention).
So sure this was good for Cisco’s marketing and recruiting. But not for actually creating and capturing attention. This is not easy to do.
Many companies right now are trying, but few can actually pull it off.
For example, VC firms creating content (using attention to generate deal flow).
I rarely follow a brand’s social media account. (People follow people, not brands). But Redpoint Ventures is one of the exceptions.
Because they have GREAT (and hilarious) content.
How? From having great content creators.
They get good distribution as well on most of their channels too.
But the Redpoint YouTube channel would get way more eyeballs if they repackaged it (removing the Redpoint company label).
Compare this to the “Good Work” channel by Morning Brew.
This channel has only a third of the videos as Redpoint, but 294x the subscribers (and views).
Crazy part?
The Good Work channel, used to be the Morning Brew Channel!
Here’s a quick explanation:
Dan mentioned a key point, “I want to make something a YouTuber could make so people on YouTube connect with it.”
People on YouTube don’t connect with brands, they connect with people.
For any content to work, it must:
1) Be great content (most don’t do this)
2) Be packaged correctly for people to connect to
This is why Morning Brew creates shows and brands around PEOPLE.
Such as The Money with Katie Show and other people.
Rewind back to the early 1900s when TV shows began, they started out more like scripted plays. They later evolved into the reality TV obsession we see everywhere today.
But social media is the opposite.
Social media started as reality and has evolved to include more storytelling. But it’s “packaged” and delivered from people (not brands).
People have the attention more today than ever before.
Where the attention goes, money flows. 💸