Skating On Canals

Posted by Robert Rose on Feb 16, 2012

I’m just back from a whirlwind trip to Amsterdam where I was honored to be invited to speak at Hippo’s Client Day as one of the key speakers.  My talk was on how context is such an important part of the content marketing process.   But two things happened during my trip (well I also fell of a loaned bicycle and bruised a rib but that’s another story for different beverages) that I found particularly interesting as it relates to us as marketers and storytellers.

So, the picture above is apparently a rare treat.  I took it on my last day in the city.   See, the ability for the citizens of Amsterdam to actually skate on their city’s canals (something that they love to do) actually happens very infrequently.  In fact, I was told it’s been about 10 years since the last time they were able to skate in the city center.

It’s hard to capture the mood in a single picture – but for Americans reading this just think about the best tailgating experience you’ve had.   In the center left of the picture – that’s actually a bonfire in the middle of the canal.  There is a DJ playing popular music, the kids are laughing and screaming and it’s like a festival just organically broke out in the middle of the city.   You just can’t help but smile and feel really good.

Setting A Mood With Content

Interestingly, I experienced that mood twice on this trip; and the skating on the canals was the second time.

The first time was at the Hippo Client Day itself.  It’s amazing, actually, how much more of the ambiance of a conference you take in when you don’t understand a word of it.    You see,  I was the only English speaker of the day – and ironically this really let me focus on the “mood” and “feeling” of the crowd as the various speakers gave their talks.

It certainly wasn’t lost on the attendees of the conference that the event – in which my talk was on content marketing was – in and of itself content marketing.   Hippo was generating value for its customers that had really nothing to do with its software by delivering an experience.

First you had the environment, a relaxed and cool artistic space (kind of like Hippo) and the wonderful host – Hippo CEO Jeroen Verberg who set the mood and introduced the day.  Then came yours truly – talking about Content Marketing – and how context plays such an important role in that (you’ve heard that song before so I won’t belabor it here).

But then I was able to sit back and really take in the feeling.  Next up was the head of technology for the Dutch Police – telling the story of his project with Hippo.  Quick side note – the Dutch word for “police” sounds exactly like Joe Pulizzi’s last name – and I couldn’t help giggling a bit at that.

Anyway, as I said I didn’t understand a word of what he said – but this audience was engaged!  They laughed at his jokes – they listened as he detailed his story and they asked him tough (and wonderful) questions about the product and his experience.

Then, next was Arje Cahn – the CTO of Hippo.  And, instead of a boring, dry demo of all the new software features – he again put the technology into context and gave a vision of what the future of digital content looked like from Hippo’s perspective.   Again, while I didn’t understand a word of it – you could literally feel that the audience was truly interested in this.

By the end of the day – when the drinks and appetizers were served – you had a group of people that you could tell was walking away feeling good about the time they’d spent.   And that’s the incredibly important lesson to us.  As content marketers it’s so much more important that we deliver a great feeling than detailed information.

Remember: You can always follow up with more detailed info.  But you can’t follow up with more feeling!

Hopefully – it’s not only every ten years that you can generate that “skating on the canals” feeling for your customers.   But when you do – as the Hippo team did – it’s really a special kind of feeling – and the best content marketing.