A recent editorial in iMedia blasts “big brands” that are in an interactive fog in favor of big agencies – whose sole function, apparently, is to connect consumer to brands and not to develop content in support of connection (or to build trust, equity, differentiation, etc).

The pundit’s lead example of how big brands are in a fog is none other than P&G – specifically the CPG marketer’s current call to the industry to stop trying to impede the conversation about product and brand experience outside of controlled environments (telling and selling), to more “open, generous, and experiential” engagements that are more intra-consumer. Obviously, the most envied and successful brand marketers on the globe just doesn’t get it because they “have a million dollar contract, and a $100 game (?)”, and they are still focusing on TV and Sampling.

What the author misses - and ultimately shows his tin ear for – are two points: first, oftentimes leaders of large businesses use the trade podium to speak to their own lieutenants. P&G’s Lafley and Stengle are as much speaking to the AAAAs as they are to PG’s own internal legacy and formula driven brand marketers. Secondarily, the marketers themselves admit they are in the infancy of learning, and are calling on their own directors, and other industry leaders to challenge agencies partners to not only think, but also invest in the longer term, focus on observed instead of declared consumer metrics, and more.

The writer then contends that the secret to marketer’s ineptness is their desire to be in the content game.  I’d love to be on fly on the wall when P&G’s Lafley and Stengle sit down with the board and present their plan to move from detergents and diapers to taking on Disney in the animation game. Good times.

Only once they become content businesses, it seems, can big brands take full advantage of digital technologies employed by the likes of www.endless.com. (Forget the fact that had the author ever been exposed to advanced distribution technologies employed by manufacturers and marketers like P&G, or their customers, like Wal-Mart, he would know they already have the means for more advanced marketing practices, just not the internal collaboration).

All in all, a very confusing position to take from someone who has won an Eddie, or is it an Ozzie, and is currently a publications editor – but I wonder how much of the position is backed by experience as a big brand manager, or a big agency strategist. Or how much is self preservation from all those big companies who want to be contentencia (look out 1to 1 Media, here comes Johnson & Johnson).  P&G is right - agency or marketer: it’s not about engagement, it’s about trust.