This was the topic of the day at the extremely plush, and rather fun, Raconteur event at the Ivy Club. Event aside, and it is a great venue, I was struck by the comments from the panel.

"The problem" is clear - too much rubbishy advertising-led content. The solution was short and punchy content, more relevant, more appropriate. Content is far too spray and pray - a phrase I rather liked. But the solution suggested was "great journalism".

Nice idea but I really can not see how a brand can, in a B2B context, have a journalist on-hand with the intricate market & technical expertise to create timely, relevant and insightful content (see below).

I know this because we tried it at my last company. We had an ex-FT journalist writing our content. It was well written but to an insider in the industry (debit & credit card marketing), it came across as glib and phony. And certainly of no value to the CMO in Amex or Chase that we were trying to talk to.

Card marketing is a remarkably nuanced world (as they all are) and you need to know all of those layers of complexity to talk succinctly to your C-suite peers.