I’ve seen Jim Stengel speak many times and always enjoyed it. For the past five+ years, the global marketing chief from Procter & Gamble seemed a regular on the advertising and marketing speaking circuit. Now we know why.
Mr. Stengel has formed his own marketing consulting company called (appropriately) Jim Stengel LLC. Stengel states in this Wall Street Journal article that “marketing is in need of a major overhaul…trust in brands is at an all-time low.”
Stengel’s “new way” of selling is called “purpose-based marketing,” which, according to the article, is “about defining what a company does – beyond making money – and how it can make its customers’ lives better.”
Although this is nothing new, it’s nice to see this picked up in the Journal, and that a well-followed and successful marketing executive is carrying the banner of what we call content marketing.
Yes, Stengel’s “purpose-based marketing” is “content marketing”.
Here is what I wrote back in January on this topic:
Content marketing is not easy because you actually have to listen to your customers and know what their challenges are. You cannot solve your marketing woes through buying advertising space. You must make a connection to your customers, and get new customers, by focusing on their true pain points and healing them with information.
In the WSJ article, Stengel discussed how Pampers found its higher purpose: helping moms develop healthy, happy babies. From that, P&G offered parenting advice (relevant content) and recruited experts on a variety of parenting topics (yep, that’s content marketing).
The Results: the brand won market share. Pampers became not just a product, but a trusted resource through their use of content marketing. They did it by telling a meaningful, relevant and compelling story.
Look, nothing against Mr. Stengel here, but this “new idea” has been the basis of the custom publishing (what I call content marketing) movement for over 100 years (since John Deere launched the first recognized custom publication called The Furrow in the late 1800s – and still in publication by the way – bless you John Deere).
Stengel’s book release that expands on his idea (currently titled “Packaged Good”) is currently in production. While you wait for that one to hit bookstores, here’s the original.
