Insights from Nebo

Imagine this: You get on your laptop or mobile device and Google “bike brand reviews.” Normally, you don’t go past the first few results, and you almost never click to the next page. But this time you do. Eventually you reach the tenth results page, and once there, a fresh set of ten more pages populates, then ten more after that, and so on (mind you, this is just for bike reviews!).

What does this mean? Your search journey is essentially a microcosm of the age we find ourselves in as consumers, with access to incredible amounts of information for just about everything — the Information Age.

As far as the marketing world is concerned, this has incredible implications. The Information Age is altering the way marketers devise their strategies, most notably when it comes to positioning.

Five years ago I lived in an anarchist commune, and to say I hated marketing would be an understatement. I thought capitalism was rigged, McDonald's used subliminal messaging to prey upon babies, and CEOs were puppeteers of the American sheeple. To avoid giving our money to The System, we dumpster-dived for food, collected our own rainwater, grew our own gardens, and — I’m ashamed to admit — many of us shoplifted.

Let me pause to say that stealing things is not cool, ever. No matter how many employees between a company’s CEO and the product on the shelf, shoplifting robs people of their hard-earned money. My point is that refusal to support big companies is an integral part of anarchism, and yet, there is something deeply ironic about the whole subculture:

Anarchists are brand-loyal snobs.

The email went out Monday a week ago:

“As some of you may have heard, we will be switching it up this year and celebrating the start of summer not with a pagan sacrifice to an ancient, profane god, but with Yacht Rock Friday aka ‘Smooth Grooves and Booze’ aka ‘Adult Contemporary Christmas’ aka ‘Johnny’s Ramadan’.”

The advertising world has a problem. It’s ads like this:

“Content marketing” in the digital sphere has been around since the Internet became a household staple, when users slowly started to grasp how they could leverage the World Wide Web to share information. In the 2000s, blogs rose through the ranks to become the go-to resource for anything you needed to know, whether it was personal style tips or how to remodel your house on your own. Fast-forward to 2016, and content marketing is at the top of everyone’s to-do list, from Fortune 500 companies to Aunt Jane with her handmade soaps.

Imagine yourself immersed in a tropical paradise, almost 100 feet underwater off the coast of Cozumel, Mexico. The water is clear as you swim by endless colors of coral reefs on top of sandy valleys. It’s the most extraordinary dive you have ever performed… until you realize your tank is low and you didn’t pack your spare air.

With scuba diving, it’s all about preparation. After all, great preparation leads to a greater dive. The same can be said for preparing for an internship.