Media services and content provider platforms that have recently entered our lives are far beyond being mediums. All-cause and effect relationships are shaped according to the user/viewer. It is not easy to discover the journeys consisting of moments with millions of combinations and to open windows that can find a place in these journeys. It is clear that this orchestration leads to rapid maneuvers also in the communication world. The definitions of the generated concepts take their share of these maneuvers. For example “content marketing”.
First, a window to strengthen the link before coming to Black Mirror
In the first years that I was determined to be a content professional, I used to try to find simple examples while trying to explain content marketing to people who had nothing to do with the topic, and finally, media came to my aid.
Content and Marketing… Most people use these two words as a template in sentences, but which of the following does “content marketing” cover?
- “Content for marketing”
- “marketing through content”
- “marketing of content”
- “marketing with content”
Can we have every topic that mentions marketing and content under the same title? If you want to listen to the answer to this question you can reach out to me because the subject of this article is different.
In the above chaos which is quite similar to the “chicken or egg paradox”, the most relaxing clarity can be found in the content providing media companies. They do marketing with the content they create or provide or even sell directly with content. Although the traditional TV channels support this idea, Netflix -for now- is a pretty good example. Netflix and similar platforms provide content according to the user data, but of course, there is also some content that is used as “filling”. On the contrary, they have large and all-embracing therefore high budget content as well. These flagships are the heroes of marketing and sales. Today, even if the best salespeople of the world come together, they can not make someone watch bad content (I am talking about minutes), but the good content is easy to market and taking a reverse path, the content you are marketing is now your most loyal salesperson. Then why are these flagships being risked? I wish they weren’t, but more viewers mean clearer data and this data directs the strategy. Unfortunately, I cannot put aside the assumptions and I ask, is it an interaction attempt in Black Mirror Bandersnatch 2018 Special or is it an additional income source attempt?
Interaction in a full fiction content reminds the user/consumer/viewer that the world they believe is not the reality and brings up questions.
I will not give details to avoid spoilers, but all the “alleged” interaction moments in the legendary Black Mirror support the possibility that an episode that makes us say “this was not well done” might be broadcasted. One can’t keep from asking “where do they fool me?” or looking for mistakes in the scenario. It would have been possible for this type of interaction to be successful only with a story before and after this episode that the audience would be involved in, which is what I expect in an episode. It wouldn’t be bad to have a teaser as a phone message or an e-mail. With its shape, however, the purpose of this episode sounds like “We also have access to concurrent user behavior data” which can be evaluated in 2019 sales presentations.
If the necessary data has been accessed with this special episode, Black Mirror please return to mystery now and nail us to our chairs again!
