Thanks (re our blog) and I agree, still a long way to go. We have a new one launching in a few weeks and its going to raise some eyebrows .
Re UK/US custom publishers – I can only speak for us and we're still here 14 years on, so is Redwood and Future. John Brown's arrogance didn't work here – or maybe they were just unlucky. In any case I think you may be right in general: UK contract publishers may well be better poised to thrive in the post advertising age (I hope so we have a major presence in London). I would add though that there are plenty of custom publishing pioneers here that really et it. Joe's one of them, I think we are, so is ex Hammock and then you have the EatMedias of the world who are also thriving. I would argue that if done well, a custom publishing background applied to post advertising marketing challenges (whether it be social media, mobile, video or just plain old web content) would trump most if not all Digital Agencies. I know this because I've talked to many of them and in their words 'we can't do what you do'. Sadly too few custom publishers realize this and when they do it'll be too late.

I think a variation on Joe’s final point is that media is media and we’re agnostic to what tactic is used. Perhaps in future, the majority of our work at Imagination will be in monitoring and engaging through digital media customer passions and interests on behalf of firms and organizations that support those passions and interests. Call it custom or call it service, we just want it to work for the participants.

Here's the point…all content has an agenda (even “unbiased” content). The content that is truly valuable to its readers, whether done by brands or media companies, is what's important here.

Craig…I personally get just as much quality information that solves my “pain points” or challenges from brands as I do media companies. Brands must become their own publishers and custom publishers help them get this done.

Now and into the future, custom publishing/content marketing – well, it's just going to be plain old marketing. Brands will continue to market their products and services by showing customers they have something valuable to give beyond the product or service. That creates trust, and a long-term relationship is possible.

Look at custom projects such as willitblend.com. That's all the marketing Blendtec does and they are now the blender kings of the world (because of their fans). Look at P&G's Homemadesimple.com. A wonderful place to get “home-on-the-go” content. Over 1 million happy users have signed up, and it serves P&G at the same time. Mutual benefit.

In wrapping this up, I guess I would agree with you Craig that some don't get it. But they will because they have to. If they don't they won't be around. I also agree with Andrew – there is a lot of really great custom content out there that works for both sides. We'll continue to see more of it (because brands don't have a choice if they want to develop relationships with their customers).

Now how's that for a political answer. Good conversation guys.

As for the rest, well, I'm afraid we just disagree. I’m not making the case against self-interest in custom media or any kind of media, for that matter. I’m making the case for participation and engagement and service to customers, not brands. Custom publishers say they have customers top of mind, but in my experience, most are busy promoting brands through the privilege of being able to own their own press. That’s not a customer focused, customer service business, that’s the business of customizing your own bespoke brand editorial. In some strictly B2B contexts, where there are few mainstream sources to be found on abstruse subjects such as chemical engineering, that business model kinda makes sense, and that may be the ace in the hole for B2B custom publishers such as Imagination. But it makes less and less sense as more and more people have that once-elite privilege of being able to publish what they want how they want.

In any event, I’m not debating custom’s credibility or lack thereof. My point is that custom's legacy as the arm of promotionally oriented brand editorial is inimical both to the spirit and technology of the distributive web, of feed-driven, networked and metagged XML. Mock the term “distributed brand intelligence” all you want—ok it does sound silly and pretentious—guilty AGAIN!—but it lies at the center of a revolution. You say it sounds like it means something but really doesn’t; I say Google proves you wrong a billion times every day.

And that brings me to the crux of it. Custom publishing is now playing in a very different strategic sandbox than it has throughout its history, but you’d never know it to look at most of the offerings. If you’re not propagating your data through XML and metatags to the network, you’re not competing. This isn’t about publishing new custom web destinations or finding new forms of multimedia storhytelling. Torch that money somewhere else; the smoke's getting in my eyes. it’s understanding the value of the data brands own and figuring out new ways of helping customers tell that story whatever way they want to across the search ecosystem.

My take is that custom just can’t do that. Its entire history is about publishing the hierarchically ordained story of brands. Sure there are good custom mags that do more. But the entire culture is just culturally, technologically, and emotionally out of touch with the needs of users operating the randomized search ecosystem today and tomorrow. By all means, call yourself a content marketer instead of a custom publisher if it makes you happy, but unless and until your brands let their data fly free of their own control, changing your name will not help. It's still the same address.

I'd love to hear about the CPC thing just for prurient reasons! But to restate what I wrote above (below?) to Simon, this isn't about quality but rather about history and about how the paradigmatic shift from brand monologue and the technologies that gird it to brand narratives that are aleatory, random, and conversational. As I said in the piece, your tent is big enough (and should be) to hold both these things. I'm just less convinced that custom—at least US custom–can make the shift to the new paradigm. I suspect it's a lost cause, and that folks who are custom publishers are bailing water as fast as they can…but are finding few takers (and when they do are making a mess of it.)

So much of content marketing is promotional sludge, a step backwards even from custom. But I don't think the fancy pedigree of custom publishers will make the sludge run any clearer in the Google engine. Quite the contrary because the control issue is so deeply embedded in custom's DNA. It's all fine and well to say we are beyond control, but when you look at custom products in this country, it's clear that's not the case. I agree with you when you say that control was lost a long time ago however. But the consequence of that is that custom has long seemed fusty and irrelevant and as failed to create real customer gains. For that to change, custom would have to lose its history.

And then it wouldn't be custom anymore:-)

Let's talk!

A few years ago, I would certainly have agreed with you about custom's increasing relevance in the relatively random universe of networked XML. I'm less sure today. I'm particularly less sure given the state of custom publishing in the US–as opposed to contract publishing in the UK. I actually had a paragraph in this piece saying that the UK contract scene might have more ability to swim in these new currents than the US scene but pulled it because so few American custom publishers seem to know or care. As I noted, they don't want to compete and can't. And now they're falling behind the Gawkers/Daily Candy/Urban Daddy's of the world —not to mention pureplay digital agencies from Digitas (which does the Openforum for Amex) to Barbarian (which just designed Cookstr, for ex.)

UK contract publishers are guns for hire, and they are used to competing for every reader. As I'm sure you know, until just a recently, 10 of the top 20 bestselling magazines in the UK were contract published. In the US, one of the few custom mags to go consumer—Hallmark—was recently defenestrated. (You know that best of all since Hallmark started in your offices.)

I love your blog and am struck by how many of my postings and Story's seem parallel. But I also know you're a Brit, and I've seen that the history of folks importing the UK model here is spotty (remember John Brown Citrus's play a few years back?) The US model may be waning—I hope it is—but the point of my post in a way was to wonder outloud whether American custom's history—its long service of big boring brand monologues by the world's biggest companies—hasn't irrevocably damaged it, particularly relative to the competitive prospects of entrepreneurs with pureplay digital backgrounds.

I don't know the answer of course. But it does seem to me that something new has to evolve here. Pulizzi's model is one way, and a good one (at least for him). So too though are Crayon's and Shel Israel's and Chris Brogan's—all of them pure web based consultancies that have utterly divorced themselves from custom's legacy.

Let's talk!

I think Simon stole my thunder with his statement below. Custom publishing, content marketing, branded content…heck, even content strategy…it's all the same thing to me, and it mostly means the same for marketers (actually, most don't know what it means). We will continue to see bad custom publishing and even bad conversational marketing. Yes, that whole “control” thing is a big deal to custom publishers and brands that produce custom magazines. But they pretty much all know those days are over, and if you ask them, they'd like to keep time in a bottle and not give that control up that worked so well 20 years ago. I think all custom publishers are aware of this, some are just having difficulty in figuring out how to do it.

Great content marketing (to Simon's point below) must be all about the creation of content that helps develop a real relationship with customers. Great content – develop trust – customers want to be involved with you – you sell more products and services.

Custom publishing (the custom publishing of today) has to do this. The custom publishing of the past doesn't really exist anymore. Control was lost a long time ago, if it ever was there in the first place.

Looking forward to continuing the conversation with you Craig.

'But that’s not custom publishing. The competitive essence of custom publishing is its ability to write and publish in the style of popular journalism—mimicking the real thing in look and feel—but wholly disassociated from the credibility and competence of newsgathering.'

I disagree – at least when custom publishing is done well. Overall I think you make some very pertinent and valid points, yet my contention would be that smart custom publishers should be able to make the leap to help steer brands become publishers and that they are better positioned than any other type of marketing organization to do it. The sad truth is that few will however. Either through poverty of imagination, balls or both. The reason they're best suited? Because they do follow the editorial discipline of newsgathering and understanding reader needs. They also understand how to creative editorial platforms (the brand equivalent of which would be story platforms) that are based on the truth of the brand/channel and the perceptions of their audience.

As the founder of the CPC I understand what Custom publishers have to offer in the content strategy era. We left the CPC a year ago because our view of the changing brand/content world was evolving much more quickly than that of most of the CPC members and it was time to move on. Joe is one of the few from the world of custom publishing that understands this too.

I (and I'd bet Joe) think you nail it with:

'I’m not saying companies shouldn’t have brand publishing initiatives, or websites, or that they not undertake marketing initiatives via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the rest. Go for it. But if you do, try to make such initiatives be an invitation to active participation, to dialogue, to content that enjoins and extends a company content into a shared customer ecosystem of connection, conversation, and collaboration that is inherently uncontrollable—and highly prone to influence.'

In the meantime to see some examples check out storyworldwide.com and our blog postadvertising.com and then lets have a conversation