• by George Simpson , Featured Contributor, February 2, 2017

A Havas Media Group study spanning 33 countries, 300,000 people and 1,500 brands found that "people wouldn’t care if 74% of the brands they use just disappeared." And that "60% of content produced by brands is declared as poor, irrelevant or failing to deliver...because it doesn't inspire, entertain, educate, inform, help and reward."

Among the "content" that fails to "inspire, entertain, educate, inform, help and reward" are video games, F2F games, spectator events, sport events, live-stream events, physical activities, parties, home events, fundraising events, VIP experiences, celebrities collaborations and interviews, Web series, short movies, documentaries, trade fairs, virtual experiences, driving tests, catwalks, red carpet events, craftsmanship events, co-creation, social media sharing, peer reviews, customized products, lifestyle experiences, contests, expert advice, lifestyle apps and monitoring apps.

And to continue: brands' own publications, in-store events, beauty consultancy, fashion trends, personal shopper, customer support, lifestyle apps, monitoring apps, online purchasing, nutrition advice, free WiFi, ratings, health advice, medical units, discounts, special sales, educational platforms, master classes, educational material, personal content, infographics, tastings, guided visits, food composition, craftsmanship events, feature demos, and device demos.

That is about as comprehensive a list of brand-driven content opportunities that I have ever seen (and I am sure that some offerings are highly popular, such as free WiFi, peer reviews and discounts), but that 60% of these efforts are judged by consumers to be poor, irrelevant or failing to deliver makes one wonder if the ROI on these investments is worth the costs to produce and distribute them.

For scores of decades, brands have produced ways to encourage consumers to use more of their products — from recipes to sweepstakes, from in-store demos to celebrity endorsements to local "educational events" — but the Internet has taken a cottage industry and turned it into a gargantuan business.

At the heart is the notion that brands somehow must communicate one-to-one through terms preferred by each consumer -- not necessarily because this will build brand loyalty or increase consumption, but because with the megaphone of the Internet, every unhappy consumer is a potentially serious danger to the brand. Much of this collateral content is meant to show that brands "care" beyond simply delivering products that do what they claim they will at a fair price.

But this strategy doesn’t seem to be making much impact, since consumers don't care if 74% of the brands they use just disappear.