A client sent me a spreadsheet on Monday with fifty two rows in it. One per week. Each row had a theme, a channel, a format, and an owner. Row nineteen said Thought Leadership Piece. Row thirty four also said Thought Leadership Piece.
It is the end of October, so this is the season. Everyone is building next year's editorial calendar right now. The calendar always gets built before anyone decides what the company actually believes, and then the calendar quietly becomes the belief, and the belief is: publish more.
I asked what this brand thinks that its three closest competitors do not. There was a pause of the particular kind you can hear on a video call.
You cannot schedule your way out of having nothing to say, and nearly every content problem I have been handed was a point of view problem wearing a production costume.
There are three tests I run before I will look at anyone's calendar.
One. The disagreement test. Say your position out loud in a room full of people in your category. If nobody in that room would push back, it is not a position, it is weather. A stated commitment to putting customers first is weather.
Two. The byline test. Cover the logo on your last five posts and hand them to someone who works in your industry. If they cannot name the company, you do not have a voice. You have a template with a color palette.
Three. The repetition test. A real point of view survives being said again. Patagonia has been saying the same uncomfortable thing about buying less for years and it has not worn out, it has compounded. Oatly has one joke and has told it a thousand times. Liquid Death sells water and has never once talked to anyone about hydration.
The reason more content keeps winning the argument is that it is measurable and a point of view is not. You can report on forty eight posts. You cannot report on the afternoon you finally decided what you think. So the calendar wins by default, and the brand publishes itself into total invisibility.
I have watched this from inside brand strategy rooms, and the fix is almost never more writers. It is one afternoon, a whiteboard, and the willingness to commit to a sentence that some portion of your market will actively dislike.
If nobody in that room would push back, it is not a position, it is weather.
I sing at a sticky-floored bar in Southeast Portland twice a month, badly, where the host calls everyone baby. The people who get real applause are not the ones hitting the notes. They are the ones who decided, before the first line, exactly what the song was going to be about. Commitment reads from the back of the room. Competence mostly does not.