Finalists Announced for Incredibly Boring Content Challenge – Two week comment period begins.

By Ted Page, Captains of Industry

Whew! This continues to be an amazing experience for us at Captains, and a great learning opportunity for us and everyone involved. We applaud all the entrants for understanding that you can have a great product or service, but unless you’re telling a good story on the web with interesting content, there’s a risk of being ignored. We also want to thank Ann Handley of Marketing Profs for her invaluable help in the review process.

We’ve selected 4 great finalists, and have provided some insights on each of them here. Over the next two weeks, we invite your feedback on which of these 4 should be the ultimate winner. While Captains will make the final decision, the dialog in the marketing community about these entrants, and the very nature of web content and engagement, will play an important role in the process. Please weigh in and tell us what you think.

Drum roll please.

The Alberta Geological Survey
This web page is certainly yawn inducing, but look at what they’re saying. There’s diamonds in them thar hills! And lots of them! Apparently, Alberta, Canada, has a potential mother lode of diamonds worth billions of dollars. The web page itself, though, is text heavy with copy such as “The Buffalo Head Hills area has the highest diamond content results to date.”

The Nibble
This specialty food magazine home page was a real standout, and it certainly helped that they offered to bribe us with food (how did they know us so well?). This entry raised some really good questions. When you’re trying to engage your audience, is well-written text enough – versus a video, podcast or other type of content? And to what degree does the design of the web page, as well as the user interface, impact your ability to experience the content? If you have a minute, check out their Squash Glossary. http://www.thenibble.com/reviews/main/vegetables/squash-glossary.asp

Intimate Surprises
Talk about sexy. This company lets you subscribe to receive monthly gift packages with items that are “fun, sexy and unexpected – and designed for couples to enjoy together.” At first, our review team raised the concern that doing a content makeover for this page would be perceived as too easy. Who couldn’t do sexy content for a company that helps you have better sex? But the reality is that it wouldn’t be that easy. The content would need to be tasteful and smart, reflecting their brand. And it can’t give too much away. After all, it’s about surprises, yes?

Communicative Health Care Associates
Here’s how they describe themselves: “Communicative Health Care Associates (CHCA) specializes in full speech-language diagnostic services, therapeutic care, and hearing screenings and through our division, Allied Rehabilitation Associates (ARA), we offer comprehensive, multidisciplinary rehabilitation services including physical and occupational therapies.” Translation: They help people speak or sign, people who have lost (or never had) the ability to communicate and connect with their fellow man, and move their body without pain, either through injury, birth defect, disease, or old age.” What a wonderful service and company! This web page, which is truly dull right now, has the potential to tell a human and very moving story that will help their customers understand the great value of their services.

Leave us your comments on the finalists and share your ideas here!