The Safe Content Paradox: Why Playing it Too Safe is Actually Risky

Maybe it's just me, but it feels like the Super Bowl has lost a lot of the joy that went into its ads. The content just felt safe and stale. Seriously, can you remember more than a couple of ads?

The reason advertising works is because it raises awareness for your product. If people aren't remembering the ads, then the ad cannot lead to a conversion by definition.

Maybe the audience of the Super Bowl is so big that this doesn't even matter. Maybe the sheer number of impressions earned by a Super Bowl commercial makes up for an otherwise lackluster ad (though given the cost per impression, I doubt it). That certainly is not true on social media.

We're not advocating for you to make everything you post a cinematic masterpiece. After all, we're not trying to win ad awards; we're trying to earn conversions. However, investing in generic content is no different than just throwing your money away. When people push back on more ambitious social content, the critique falls into one of two categories: perceived imperfections in the content and deviation from brand guidelines. These concerns are real, and we do take them into account. That said – particularly with my second point – there has to be a limit. Overly sanitized content will not ruffle any feathers, but that doesn't do anything for you if no one remembers the content.

Linked here is a video we posted in December. It's in one of our client's kitchens – The Vig Oldtown – and makes a joke about work/life balance that doesn't align with the company's values. It's also hilarious and earned roughly 40X more views than their typical videos. If we had played it safe, we would have missed 83K impressions. Instead, through both an imperfect background and a deviation from brand guidelines, we got people thinking about our brand.

With The Vig, we did try to stay within the lines for the longest time. Every other video was a happy hour plug and didn't show off the personality of the bar at all. This led to a sustained period of lackluster views and, again, no conversions. Once we started taking some risks, things got a lot better. Views went up across the board, culminating with a video shot in the ugliest location of an otherwise gorgeous Chicago club.

There is a very delicate balance between taking risks and staying consistent. We get that better than anyone. We also know that you simply have to have leeway. The content that offends no one is often the content adored by no one. Think about the movies that you've watched in the past few years. My personal favorite is Fight Club, a cult-classic that has as many haters as it does fans. This tends to be true across the film industry. Meanwhile, more mediocre films tend to not be discussed at all. The same thing applies for your content. Those "safe" reels that get you 1-2 thousand views are not starting wars in the comment section, but they aren't bringing people into your bar. Part of growing as a brand involves turning off a few people, and avoiding that fact will only make it harder for potential supporters to find you.

On social media, your content will only be seen a finite amount of times before the algorithm decides to stop boosting your content. You earn virality by getting people to share your content, something they'll only do if they truly love what they're seeing, and they won't love the cookie cutter content that we saw on Sunday.