Is content for escapism more powerful than content we actually need?

Two years ago, Toronto-based ad agency John St. brought us ‘catvertising’ – a parody on content creation for brands. The partly-serious yet HILARIOUS video touched upon using cats as a marketing tool when producing video content.

Watching this now I can actually see (maybe even more than was apparent then) how this could be taken as quite a serious concept. While their message was more around cats as part of an overarching media strategy what they were really touching upon was the power of content marketing.

Content production and content marketing for business has seen so many niche elements arise in the past two years that I could almost see this working. From giving the audience what they want (Weight Watches and health/lifestyle information), to what they need (AMEX and helpful business information) to what they don’t need at all but actually want more than anything else (Buzzfeed and their endless amount of addictive lists)…. maybe cat content is merely a content strategy that essentially fits into the latter aspect of content industry’s development?

They may have joked that people want cats not commercials but maybe the past two years have proved that to be true.

Is content for escapism more powerful than content we actually need?

Maybe John St. were actually on to something…