You could create a content strategy as you “fly” it — but here’s a better way [Rose-Colored Glasses]

Are you trying to build your plane while flying it?

I don’t know where that phrase came from, but a 22-year-old ad campaign by Fallon for digital consultancy EDS helped popularize it. The hilarious TV and print ad showed people assembling an airliner in mid-air and testifying how much they love their job.

The ad’s tagline made the point – that EDS could help you “build your digital business, even as you go live.”

Fallon created the ad as part of an integrated campaign with two other fun videos: “Cat Herders,” about tackling the complexities of digital business, and “Running With the Squirrels,” which claimed EDS could help older businesses, like disruptive startups to compete.

But the “build the plane and fly it at the same time” metaphor holds true in digital strategy and is typically invoked when established processes or procedures change.

Nowadays it feels like companies are building a whole lot of airplanes.

A version of this phrase appears in almost every company I see developing a new content program. Redefining roles and responsibilities, adapting editorial approaches, defining new workflows and implementing new technologies are inevitably on the to-do list of the content strategy meeting.

That’s where frustration sets in.

The teams realize they can’t turn off anything while they work to implement all the new ideas. They still need to publish articles and blog posts, write programmatic materials, launch campaigns, and inject content into existing channels using the technologies currently in place.

The real frustration doesn’t come from the challenge of building the plane while flying it. It comes from the inability to build new planes because they are too busy flying the old ones.

Building the plane while it flies is an (overused) metaphor for dealing with #ContentMarketing change. But it doesn’t address the real fight, says @Robert_Rose via @CMIContent. Click here to tweet

My advice? Don’t try.

Whenever I hear someone cite the airplane cliché at the end of a content strategy process, I suggest flipping the metaphor. Don’t try to build another plane while flying the existing one. Instead, fly your existing planes while building an airplane factory.

I recently worked with a client in the B2B financial services space. To say that content marketing is hot in this industry is an understatement. Stripe and JP Morgan have made acquisitions, and crypto giant Coinbase announced it will launch its own media operation.

The company I worked with originally planned to use their digital and PR teams to modify existing PR newsrooms on their website to create new content marketing platforms. But neither the newsroom nor the website itself matched the content marketing strategy. Everything from the site hierarchy to the audiences it attracted to the technology platform it operated would stand in the way of the new content goals.

But the company’s existing governance processes and values ​​were designed to focus all digital efforts (and paid and earned media) on its website — and executives were initially reluctant to expand on that view.

It was as if the company were saying, “We look to you to lead us into the jet airliner age.” But that’s only possible if we fix and upgrade our prop plane while it’s in the air.”

Eventually, those responsible realized how pointless it was to reconstruct the plane in mid-flight. They agreed to create a new content innovation team with new resources, processes and technical platforms. And as soon as they did that, the content project took off.

The existing PR team continued to update and manage the existing content tier (the website and newsroom). And the company built a new “factory” (a content marketing strategy) to support additional content platforms.

They didn’t try to change the existing strategy. They built a new one.

Don’t try to change an existing #ContentStrategy to support a new #ContentMarketing program. Create a new one instead, says @Robert_Rose via @CMIContent. Click here to tweet

Sustainable vs. disruptive innovation

The idea for my airplane factory metaphor came from Meeting The Challenge of Disruptive Change by Clayton M. Christensen and Michael Overdorf. This article (one of my absolute favorites) explores the difference between maintain and disruptive innovations.

Constant innovation improves on something already seen as valuable (e.g. the decision to switch to original images instead of stock photos for new blog posts).

Disruptive innovations create something entirely new (e.g. deciding to start an online university instead of continuing with your blog).

The implementation of a new content strategy is always a disruptive innovation.

A new #ContentStrategy is a disruptive innovation, says @Robert_Rose of @CMIContent. Click here to tweet

The article suggests that you shouldn’t approach this type of disruptive innovation as if you were changing something that already exists. Instead, you should approach it by building something within a new organizational space.

That’s what my financial services client did. And I’ve found it particularly helpful when advising a company looking to develop a content marketing platform and content strategy.

I know content practitioners are a rowdy, imaginative, and innovative crew. Requests to build the content equivalent of new planes are coming in all the time, and many content teams can hack planes together and manage some sustained in-flight repairs and changes.

But when it comes to launching a content strategy, it’s more productive to create a new space for it. In the article, Christensen and Overdorf outline three ways to create this new organizational space:

1. You can create a new team within the existing organizational structure.
2. A new and independent organization can be spun off from the structure.
3. You can acquire another organization that becomes a new part of your existing structure.

Creating space for a new content strategy

Every successful new content strategy follows one of these three options. Here are some examples of each approach.

1. A new content team. When a new content team is formalized, named, and documented, the chances of success in content marketing improve immediately. Red Hat provides a great example. Laura Hamlyn (2019 B2B Content Marketer of the Year) has assembled a new strategic team to handle all of the organization’s content. The team has grown to more than 50 people (from the original six).
2. A new organization. When content becomes a distinct function within an organization, it can grow into a powerful new business model. At the Cleveland Clinic, for example, what started as an embedded team within marketing has now become a separate, independent function. It operates its Health Essentials and Health Library as individual products that drive revenue and support the organization’s marketing needs.
3. A newly acquired group. I’ve already mentioned a few acquisitions in the financial services space. Another example is HubSpot’s acquisition of newsletter The Hustle, one of several content-related purchases the software maker has made.

The key word in all of these ideas is “new”. You’re building a new organizational structure – an airplane factory, if you will – to design, manufacture and bring new things to market. You need to work on training, socialization and market acceptance. But that’s different than trying to fly an existing plane while you’re building it.

Trying to build a plane while it’s flying is a good problem – it means you’re already flying. But if you expect to stay airborne, you’ll occasionally need to come back to earth and build something new from the ground up.

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Cover photo by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute