There's a lot of buzz these days about B2B publishers offering more “marketing services” and thereby competing with agencies (including Godfrey) who are also traditional partners in planning and delivering marketing communications for mutual clients. A recent report by Sean Callahan in the online edition of BtoB quotes publishing executives who participated in a panel discussion at the Business Marketing Association 2011 Annual Conference.

In particular, I noticed a comment attributed to Mitch Rouda, president-e-media at Farm Journal Media, which is reportedly developing microsites and performing other marketing services for advertisers: “We are on each [others] toes, for sure,” Rouda said. “We [publishers] are never going to be as creative as agencies. And you guys are never going to be as good at content creation as we are.”

I’m not going to suggest that publishers can’t be more creative.  And I think Mr. Rouda and his peers ought not to assume they have a lock on content creation.  Here’s why:

• Agencies have broader and deeper working relationships with client companies and those companies possess a great deal of the intellectual property that publishers need to create valuable content
• Agencies are in the business of helping clients articulate messages and develop content derived from knowledge, experience and insight … and we are often the brokers of that content, provided to publishers in the form of contributed articles, case studies, expert commentary and other news- and noteworthy items
• As their traditional financial model has faltered, publishers have downsized editorial staffs
• Many of those folks have found new positions as “brand journalists” within client companies as well as agencies
• Clients and agencies alike are developing and investing in new content strategies that will largely by-pass publishers

I think the best B2B agencies are better at content creation than most publishers, if not yet as prolific.  We are closer to many of the expert sources.  We dive deeper into technologies and applications.  We are more strategic in message development.  Those messages are more relevant than ever because we have multiple avenues (besides publisher data and vehicles) to develop audience insight and engage customers.

Ultimately, it’s really our clients’ customers, the end users of the content, who are calling the shots.  In the old paradigm, publishers aggregated the audience and controlled the first two out of three media channels – paid, earned and owned.  The worldwide web dramatically increased the significance of owned media, and the social web has now totally rearranged the paradigm in terms of how the audience is defined, what media are relevant and who creates (and influences) content.  The user is firmly in control and that, as I see it, really is the big deal.