I’m writing this from the set. I’m a day and a half into the production of a series of informational videos for a B2B client. Trust me, if you’re not in the automotive wholesale remarketing business, you probably won’t ever want to see them. And that’s totally fine.

Over the past six months, I’d say half of the projects I’ve worked on haven’t been traditional branding or promotional, they fall into the category of content. They are created to directly inform the audience/customer about the category. That’s right, mostly-unbiased information.

This is a huge swing compared to when I first entered the business. Then the internet was new and branding was all the rage. The majority of the work we produced was to reinforce the brand name and its unique selling position.

Now Mark Earls is telling us the big idea is dead. And the 30 second spot is also dead. So is it time to contemplate the future of advertising messaging? I’m going to go on the record and say that this more altruistic form of “solution selling” is here to stay, especially in B2B categories and for high-involvement purchases. Frankly, people would much rather buy from a helpful teacher than a class clown or a loud-mouthed salesman. Especially when the purchase matters.