GoPro is fast becoming the Lego of the camera world - in so far as they've tapped into a rich vein of creative types as a customer base and it becomes difficult to work out whether a great piece of content marketing has come from the brand or whether it's come from a customer.

What to see what it's like to fly like an eagle? Of course you do:



Many in this industry strive – spending many millions of their clients’ money in the process – to come up with content-based ideas that will fly (pardon the pun).

They will dream up convoluted situations in which the client’s product looks great, all the key messages are delivered through a professionally-worked script and that it’s all stunningly shot, edited and totally glitch free.

Proud of their handiwork of production, they will let it loose on the web with not a penny of media spend and expect the crowds to come flocking.

What is perhaps more surprising than anything in this situation – and I’ve watched it unfold time and again – is that people are disappointed, indeed shocked, when those people don’t rock up to watch their creation.

Whereas what this little piece of glorious film-making shows is that, when it comes to it, a good idea will beat any of that hands down, time and time again.

The simple act of strapping an ultra-light stable camera to one of these birds has netted millions of views and thousands of pieces of coverage (much like this one).

And that should be the lesson to everyone. When it comes to creating content, don’t think of the most effective way to deliver a clients’ message, think about how to entertain an audience with a product weaved in. Where you can, show, don’t tell.

And, more than anything, invest in clever over production values. A lovely idea delivered on the cheap can afford to fail – with the door still open for more in the future. A poor idea with all the money in the world thrown at it is unlikely ever to succeed (and deserves not to) and will is unlikely to ever be followed.

Next time you consider content, the lessons of the GoPro Eagle should ring in your ears.

James Gordon-MacIntosh is founder and Managing Partner at Hope&Glory PR. He is also author of Ideas of the Year 2012: an incomplete compendium of the best ideas in PR during the year. You can buy a copy simply by emailing him.