I was on a Continental Airlines flight yesterday and starting leafing through their in-flight magazine, Continental. I may be the one person out there that actually seeks out and reads advertorials (ad placement in the form of content).
That's when I came to an advertorial from Valenti International, the upscale professional matchmaking service. First off, I have nothing against Valenti, but this was one of the best examples I've seen in a while of bad branded content.
Here is the first two sentences of the Valenti's advertorial story Ending the Endless Search.
Irene Valenti, the founder of professional matchmaking service Valenti International, is overflowing with insight about the ways of the world. A visionary and creative thinker, she is blessed with an amazing intuition that led her to found Valenti International nearly two decades ago.
To be honest, I stopped reading at that point. Unless the reader was Valenti's parents or husband, I'm not sure why you would read much further. This is the kind of branded content that gives branded content a bad name.
The lesson: all content, even paid advertorial, needs to focus on the needs and wants of the reader in order to be effective. It's that simple.
Agreed: showy writing isn't sales writing. Words used merely to sound impressive have little benefit to offer other than to flatter the subject's sense of self importance. Readers motivated by their own goals in life will simply turn the page and move on.
Posted by: Matt Ambrose | March 26, 2009 at 07:26 AM