• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, July 21, 2015

That’s what Steve Bender, partner and executive vice president of strategy at Greenlight Media and Marketing, seemed to be suggesting on the “content” panel at OMMA Art & Science in Los Angeles this afternoon.

“I think the term content is seductively broad,” Bender asserted, adding, “There’s an awful lot of advertising parading as content right now, because it’s longer form.”

Bender didn’t actually say the ad industry is conning anyone in its pursuit of content marketing, but he more or less implied it might be conning itself, and suggested a good step toward self-awareness might be to call things what they are.

“If it’s an ad-like object, that’s great,” he said. “Let it be an ad-like object and measure it as such.”

The measurement part is important, because it’s all about managing expectations -- and performance models. Bender said you wouldn’t measure an “ad-like object” piece of content the same way you would measure the performance of a bona fide piece of “entertainment” content.