Have you published your 15 pieces of content today?
Or are you still catching up on yesterday’s marketing assignments?
Jay Acunzo was once trapped on this content marketing hamster wheel.
But one day, he decided to get off.
And instead of continually publishing more and more content, Jay discovered a new place to compete: the Field of Favorites.
Jay shared this Field of Favorites with a packed audience at B2B Forum 2024.
Watch this clip of Jay’s inspiring presentation, or read the transcript below.
This year, B2B Forum has over 50 presentations to inspire you and your team to stop doing things the way everyone else does, and approach your B2B marketing career with renewed enthusiasm.
Jay Acunzo will be there. Ann Handley, too. And over 700 of your B2B marketing peers.
How about you?
If you’re tired of the content hamster wheel, join us at B2B Forum, this Nov 17-19 in Boston. Two-day conference tickets are available now, or get a 3-day All Access Pass to join an expert-led workshop. See your registration options here.
The impact of your content is directly proportional to two traits.
Its value. And its originality.
And we can depict how we’re doing and where we want to go from here using this visual framework, the Idea Impact Matrix.
Let’s talk about value first.
The least valuable content we can create is merely informational.
The most valuable is insightful informational content.
Sounds like, “What is AI?” “The six fastest growing brands in your space.” “How wide is this stage? So I don’t actually fall off with how frenetic I move up here.”
That’s just informational content.
Insightful content is like, “Why AI in this space, for this use case, for your goals?” “Why are those organizations growing so quickly?”
So yeah, I can give you the backstory of my favorite storyteller ever, Anthony Bourdain…
Or I can interpret what made Bourdain such an incredible and universally beloved storyteller.
One is informational, and one is insightful.
If you hand somebody information, it’s like handing them a map. “This is North America. Here. You have it now.”
If you hand them an insight, that’s like handing them a compass.
You can do way more to move around and get where you’re trying to go, if somebody gives you a compass and teaches you how to navigate walking into any scenario, getting your bearings, finding true north and figuring it out from there.
So think of it this way.
Informational content updates people…
But insightful content empowers them.
To increase the value of your content to others, make it more insightful.
We can also plot our originality on a spectrum from general to personal.
Could anybody in your space have said it, created it, done it that way? Or could it only come from you and your team’s personal, unique, defensible perspective?
So I can give you six tips for giving a better speech. I can give you a blueprint for crafting a better podcast. Or…
I can analyze my favorite speakers. I can analyze my favorite show hosts on route to the tips to do the work better. I can tell you the story of when I was at a low point in my career and I was disillusioned with B2B marketing and I rediscovered my love of Bourdain and all the things that I was feeling watching that show to escape work.
And then I realized, “wait, they’re professionals at this. They’re doing this to me intentionally. Maybe I can learn a thing or two and then I can teach you a thing or two in the post.”
I don’t have to win more resources. I don’t have to do anything stunt-like to connect more personally with you.
I have to use my personal perspective.
I think of it like this.
AI is trained on internet content. But you are trained on the content of your life. And nobody else has access to that.
What a gift!
But we’re not using this gift confidently or consistently.
In B2B, your personal perspective is your unfair advantage.
Are we using it? Mostly we’re not.
Mostly we’re doing things that feel informational, maybe instructional and generic. It’s generalized expertise that we’re sharing.
And so as a result, we’re trapped in the commodity cage and it’s there that we’re crammed in there on our hamster wheel competing against like 8,000 other little hamsters.
And we’re like, “I’m going to repurpose my content so hard on social media. I’m going to rank first on search. I’m going to go viral!”
“Sir, this is a hamster wheel. You’re going to go nowhere.”
And then when things get hard, instead of recognizing that the type of content itself is our problem, we try to work harder to succeed in the very place causing the issue to begin with.
We run faster and harder on the hamster wheel. And we’re like, “okay, I’m going to post on LinkedIn. I’m going to outsmart the other little hamsters though. What’s the best time to post on LinkedIn? Oh yeah, I found this report from Shopify that said 9:00 AM. 9:00 AM is the best time to post on LinkedIn.”
But guess what happens now that that’s public? That is no longer the best time to post!
But I don’t have time to think any differently because I also care about every other social network under the sun.
We have a Facebook page, we’re posting a Facebook. That’s kind of dying. Then it becomes Meta. “Oh no. Is that a new marketing channel?” Nope. Just the holding company that is Meta and all their apps, like Instagram.
Some of you’re old enough to remember when Snapchat was challenging Instagram as basically identical places. So we are posting the same content in both apps. Yeah. Now that’s TikTok.
Same thing here. Same thing there. Same thing everywhere.
I also have a podcast, but the podcast can’t just be audio. The podcast also has to be video.
So now I’m creating a lot of video and I’m sharing it to YouTube. I’m sharing it on my website. There are clips of the podcast. There are bespoke videos. I’m trying to go viral with these videos.
And then email is so defensible to every marketing organization. I’m sending everything I have over email.
But why is there all these experts out there who always say, “email marketing is dead?”
That makes no sense to me, but I don’t have time to figure out their words because I have to go live. I have to go Facebook Live, I have to go YouTube Live, I have to go Instagram Live, I have to go LinkedIn Live. Do you know LinkedIn has Live?
Then there’s all these trends we got to worry about.
Like, remember voice marketing? No more logos, no more branding. It’s all about Amazon Alexa!
Then there’s Web3 and NFTs and AI and chat, GPT and…
OMG, Alexa, please punch me in the face!
This is our jobs? This is our work? This is how we get results?
I called this presentation, “The Urge to Act.”
You know what I could have called it? “Free the Hamsters.” Let’s free some hamsters, shall we?
How do we escape the commodity cage and get off the hamster wheel?
Because opposite the commodity cage is the place we most want to be: the Field of Favorites.
And there’s not 8,000 other little competitors on their hamster wheels too. There’s like two other people there. There’s butterflies and rainbows. A unicorn trots by dragging a wagon full of refreshments served in golden cups. Is this marketer heaven?
No. This is just what we all thought we were going to do when we took the job to begin with! We’re running free in the Field of Favorites.
Wouldn’t it be great if that’s what the work felt like? And I don’t think it’s out of reach. I think it can start in a very simple place.
We need to rethink what it is to publish content, serve an audience, and build our brands today.
It’s not about competing on volume. That’s what commodified experts and communicators do.
It’s about competing on impact. The power, the influence of what you have to say to the world.
And this all begins in a simple place. It requires no budget. It requires no extra resources. A very simple start to this process is possible:
Tell more small stories with big meaning.
Published July 3, 2025
B2B Forum is packed with marketing insights, strategies, and tactics taken from the real world experience of over fifty industry experts, packaged into context you can actually put to use.
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