The Word I’m Growing Tired Of
This morning I watched a TED Talk titled What Will Happen to Marketing in the Age of AI by Jessica Apotheker, and the first comment under it said exactly what I’ve been feeling: I’m growing tired of the word “content”.
Not angry. Not sarcastic. Just weary.
It was the kind of remark you imagine being muttered by someone who’s spent too many years in marketing meetings, nodding along as everyone says “we need more content” like it’s the secret to world peace.
I laughed, not because it was wrong, but because it was the most honest summary of our industry’s mood I’ve seen in a while.
And they’re right. Somewhere between 2010 and now, “content” became the magic word people throw around to sound plugged-in. Creators use it to validate their hustle. Agencies use it to pad proposals. Platforms use it to justify algorithmic chaos. And clients? Clients nod along because everyone else is saying it.
We’ve taken one of the most useful, powerful tools in our marketing arsenal and reduced it to a buzzword so overused it’s losing all meaning.
Here’s the problem: content is not the whole game. It never has been. It’s just one tactical tool inside marketing communications, which itself is only one part of marketing. Yet the industry talks about “content” as if it is the marketing plan. That’s not just lazy thinking, it’s strategically dangerous.
How We Got Here
Back in the early 2000s, the marketing conversation was still dominated by campaigns. Campaigns had a start date, an end date, and a clear role within a larger brand strategy. Content existed, but it was mostly supporting collateral.
hen two things happened: social media made the cost of distribution essentially zero, and the smartphone put a global broadcast tool in every pocket. Suddenly, brands could post daily, hourly, or by the minute. The campaign became “always on.”
This shift wasn’t inherently bad. Red Bull built a media empire. GoPro made their customers the stars. Old Spice rewrote the rules of FMCG personality in real time. But here’s the strategic leak: in chasing constant output, brands began confusing the means with the mission.
The Ecosystem: Marketing > Marketing communications > Content
To reset the record:
Marketing Communications (MarComms). The part of marketing that focuses on how brands speak to audiences: campaigns → channels → creative assets → messaging, and the media that delivers them: advertising, PR, social, sponsorships, events, and more.
Content is just one tactic inside MarComms. It’s the stories, videos, articles, posts, memes, infographics, podcasts, and experiences created to deliver a brand’s message. It’s the how of delivering a message, not the why.
Think of MarComms like a football team: the game plan is the campaign strategy, the formation is your media plan, and content is the individual passes and shots. You can have beautiful plays, but without a strategy, you’re just running around burning energy.
The hierarchy matters. You don’t build a marketing strategy around “content” any more than you’d build a military strategy around “banners.” Content only has value when it’s plugged into the right communications strategy which itself must serve the broader marketing plan.
To see how fuzzy thinking has become, ask ten marketers to define content. You’ll get twelve answers, ranging from “Instagram posts” to “everything we put online.”
Here’s the reality: content is not the whole game. It’s a subset; a player on the team, not the team itself.
The Larger Marketing Ecosystem. Step back even further, and you see that marketing itself is bigger than communications. It’s the business function that drives demand, shapes perception, and grows market share. It includes product design, pricing, distribution, promotion, and more.
Content sits within promotion. Promotion sits within communications. Communications sit within marketing.
If you’re making content without aligning it to the other Ps | product, price, place, (distribution), you’re playing a tiny part of the game and wondering why you’re not winning.
What Happens When You Forget the Ladder
When content is treated as the strategy, you get noise without direction. Brands post more often but say less. Campaigns turn into disconnected stunts. Measurement collapses into vanity metrics — likes, shares, and impressions that don’t connect to market outcomes.
Take Bud Light’s 2023 social misstep. One influencer post spiraled into a cultural backlash because it wasn’t anchored in a coherent, pre-aligned brand narrative. It was “content” without strategic insulation.
Now contrast that with Nike’s Colin Kaepernick campaign. The initial creative was just a piece of content — a still image and a line of copy — but it was reinforced by years of brand positioning, market research, and a clear understanding of its audience’s values. The content worked because the ladder above it — the brand and business strategy — was solid.
AI Changes the Supply, Not the Fundamentals
Enter AI. Suddenly, anyone with a laptop can generate ten blog posts, five ad scripts, and a month of Instagram captions before lunch.
The cost of creation has plummeted to near zero. And when supply is infinite, the scarce resources are:
- Meaning — Does it say something worth hearing?
- Distinctiveness — Could anyone else have made this?
- Market Fit — Does it serve the brand’s actual business objectives?
AI hasn’t made content irrelevant. It’s made bad, unstrategic content irrelevant as the role of content shifts from “producing more” to “producing with precision.” Every piece must map to a clear brand or business objective.
Jessica Apotheker’s TED Talk makes a point that’s hard to ignore: AI will explode the volume of content. Creative output is no longer bound by human production limits. An AI can write 100 ad variations in an afternoon, generate 50 product images overnight, and cut a thousand videos for every microsegment you target.
That’s a supply chain revolution. But more content doesn’t fix bad strategy. It makes bad strategy more expensive, because you burn media dollars distributing things that never had a market role to begin with.
AI is most powerful in the hands of strategists who know exactly where a piece of content fits on the marketing ladder. For example:
- Coca-Cola’s “Create Real Magic” invited fans to make AI art using Coke iconography — part of a brand refresh tied to their “Real Magic” positioning.
- L’Oréal’s AI skin diagnosis tool produces personalised recommendations (content as utility) to move customers deeper into the purchase funnel.
In both cases, AI didn’t replace strategy — it accelerated it.
More Case Studies on Content That Works (and Why)
The best way to understand content’s true role is to look at brands that use it as part of a system, not as a one-off tactic.
Heineken – “Worlds Apart”
At first glance, this was just a social experiment video — strangers with opposing political views building a bar together before realising their differences.
But it wasn’t just a “piece of content.” It was the sharp tip of a bigger spear: Heineken’s positioning on openness and human connection.
- Integration: PR, experiential activations in bars, influencer discussions.
- Impact: Lifted brand favourability and sales in multiple markets.
- Lesson: The content was emotionally strong because it was strategically anchored.
Liquid Death Social Shockwaves
Liquid Death sells water in tallboy cans with punk-metal branding. Their social media content is absurd, provocative, and impossible to ignore.
But it’s not random. It’s built on a core insight: water is boring unless you make it rebellious.
- Integration: Direct-to-consumer sales, retail expansion, merch.
- Lesson: Content tone is a business decision, not just a creative one.
Barbie (2023) – The Pink Storm
Pink billboards with no text. Global stunts. Meme takeovers. Every execution screamed confidence and cultural dominance.
- Integration: Perfect timing with product (film release), merchandise, and partnerships.
- Lesson: Content can create cultural heat, but only when the product is ready to convert attention into sales.
What Admen and Content creators Must Relearn
If you’re in advertising, marketing, or the creator economy, here’s the uncomfortable truth: content on its own is not the job. Your job is to deliver business outcomes through marketing. That means knowing the difference between:
- Awareness content — drives reach.
- Consideration content — builds preference.
- Conversion content — triggers action.
- Retention content — sustains loyalty.
Without that map, you’re just filling feeds. And no one ever became a market leader by filling feeds.
Key principles:
- Start with objectives, not output — Who’s the audience? What’s the goal? How will success be measured?
- Content is a means, not the mission — The job is to drive action, not rack up likes.
- Think in systems, not singles — One great video doesn’t build a brand; integrated campaigns do. The most effective work connects content with PR, retail, partnerships, and experiences.
- In the age of AI, precision beats production — If everyone can make more, the advantage goes to those who make it matter. Strategic clarity and creative distinctiveness become the real competitive moats.
Stop Worshipping Content
Treating content as the center of marketing leads to short-termism. It trains teams to chase moments instead of building equity.
And now that the cost of content is near zero, that’s a race to the bottom.
We’ve seen this before. The early programmatic era promised hyper-targeted ads at scale but delivered a flood of low-quality banners that taught users to ignore them. The tech wasn’t the problem; the lack of strategic intent was.
Content will keep evolving. AI will make it faster, cheaper, and more personalised. Platforms will keep rewriting the rules. But the fundamentals of marketing don’t change.
Content is not the goal. It’s not the whole plan. It’s one lever in the machine; powerful when pulled with intent, pointless when pulled at random.
If you want to win, stop treating content as the answer. Treat it like the instrument it is and play the whole symphony.
Content Isn’t King — Strategy Is
Back to that TED Talk line: “I’m growing tired of the word ‘content’.”
They’re not wrong. The term’s been overused to the point of emptiness. But the craft itself? Still essential.
Content is not king. Strategy is king. Content is the crown. Without the crown, the king looks unfinished. Without the king, the crown is just a shiny object with no power.
And in today’s AI-saturated market — where anyone can grab a crown from a template — the brands that stand out will be the ones that know the game they’re playing and exactly where every piece belongs.
Franklin Ozekhome is a Pop Culture Expert, and the EVP, Strategy & Innovation at Chain Reactions Africa.
