Interestingness in marketing is dead

well, no, not really. Just thought making the title more interesting would get more people reading :D.
But seriously, remember the good old times when internet was just beginning and the marketing of things online was all about new things and we had just realized that we were no longer competing with stupid TV content but with stupid youtube content?
Those were the days. Because while competing with TV content has proven somewhat of a smaller challenge - okay, ads are only 30 seconds so it's kindof hard to fight motion pictures but some ads out there really kick some motion pictures' butt.
It turns out that being interesting these days is becoming more and more of an impossible task. Basically because of "stupid" internet things. And it's not just that people who post things online are sooo much better at making more interestingness than brands. Actually, they are not, mostly. Mostly it's just silly antics and sexy stuff. And in a one to one contest brands would definitely kick these people's butt in quality and idea and all. So it's not about interestingness per se, but rather about the amount of time one is able and willing to devote to any kind of interesting thing.
Think about it: however cool and amazing one website might be you go back how many times? If you are in any way a real net surfer, it takes less than 10 minutes to stumble onto something equally interesting. I mean look at people who tweet about stuff as opposed to themselves: you can have up to 100 tweets daily about interesting things from all over.
Interestingness is no longer the issue. Lasting power is.
So, what can brands do?
Well, for one they can be consistently interesting, like all the time. But that's hard and if you think about it, almost impossible because people make brands interesting and people change. Your start copywriter gets a baby and no sleep and down goes the quality of your copy. Or your marcom manager decides he wants to become an entrepreneur and you're left with the stupid executive manager. So consistency in interestingness is almost untouchable (and consider global brands...)
They could also focus less on achieving interestingness at any cost and more on making sure that they provide users with more reasons to create interestingness themselves. I truly believe that crowd sourcing for interestingness is the next frontier for brands. And by that I don't mean give them TV ad cuts to make their own video but create environments for them to do things with your brand universe. Not sure where to go with this thought but seemed like a good idea at the time...