Go to Australia to learn what's right about the news-on-paper environment

I was warned in advance by my Australian hosts to bring examples outside of the U.S. newspaper industry. While we're interested in what big news brands are doing to grow their business, they said, U.S. newspapers have the reputation of having given up on news on paper. And that experience is not applicable to Australia — maybe never, but certainly not yet.

As a dutiful speaker, I complied. INMA is a big network with nearly 5,000 members in 80 countries. Plenty of stories to illustrate universal truths.

Throughout the PANPA Future Forum last week in Sydney, this caveat loomed in the back of my head. Through meetings with leading publishers News Ltd. and Fairfax Media, this warning echoed.

Other publishers from South Asia to Europe to Latin America to Africa have told me the same.

The two trains of thought among publishers worldwide are that:

The United States is ...[more]

Reach vs. audience, numbers vs. engagement: we need a storyline

A debate last night between Google and newspaper publishers yielded fresh new insights about the value of search-infused audiences. It's a lesson for INMA members everywhere.

In a panel discussion at London's Frontline Club, the usual arguments about Google's value in driving eyeballs were bantered about — only to be interrupted by one of the clearest voices about the value of audiences for publishers: Matt Kelly, digital content director for Mirror Group Newspapers.

Here's what Kelly told the forum, as reported by Journalism.co.uk:

“We need to worry a bit less about search engines and worry a bit more about our readers. We aren't that impressed with the value of audience we got via search engines. They came across it via Google and buzzed off again, that's Google's audience. It's not our audience. We can't successfully leverage a disconnected audience.”

And then the killer quote for INMA members:

“I think they confused reach with audience, they ...[more]

From print to digital audience engagement: why we can't sleep at night

In the halcyon days when consumers lacked news options and the advertiser's money paid for creativity without limits, we printed until the presses couldn't take it anymore, assumed a lot of eyeballs stumbled across our prose, and slept peacefully at night knowing that our work made a difference in the world.

Let's say our circulation was a nice round 100,000. At least four people, on average, read each copy, for a daily readership of 400,000. Now, that's influence! That's something advertisers can appreciate — a good number.

What we didn't know couldn't hurt us.

Of course, the reader studies parsed print engagement in a way we'd prefer not to talk about. Different genders, different races, different socio-economic levels of consumers liked certain sections and genres better than others. Eye-track studies suggested the broadsheet was less a broad piece of paper than a broad palette that people tended to read here and ignore there — ...[more]

Empty newspaper brands don't age like wine

Twelve years ago, I wrote a book titled Branding and the Newspaper Consumer, a snapshot of how publishers conceive, protect, and grow their brands. The critical — and for me at the time, surprising — finding was that publishers had no idea what a brand was. And if they invested in anything it was short-term image enhancement built around short-term sales campaigns. The image campaign lasted about as long as a publisher's tenure.

This lack of brand understanding was brought home to me today while I read the dreary chronicling of newspaper industry performance in the new OECD report “The Evolution of News and the Internet.” Behind every statistic, I couldn't help but think that lack of investment in brand was a part of the under-performance. With every turn of the page, I got angrier and angrier.

Studies over the past century repeatedly show that brands with high perceived value tend to outperform ...[more]

INMA agenda doubles down on integrated ad sales, content value, tablets

INMA has focused on one big theme thus far in 2010: how to generate financial value from the integration of audience, content, and platform.

We believe this is a central theme as our industry transitions from “newspapers” to “newsmedia companies.”

Yet from this big theme stem three more focused subjects we're trying to cover with greater detail:

Integrated advertising sales: A report, a seminar, a soon-to-be-released blog, and significant conference programming.

The value of content: A report on content value, a report on synergies, a seminar, a blog at INMA.org, and significant conference programming.

Tablets: The recent INMA World Congress in New York and the University of Oxford Tablet Summit were our first forays into this subject.

In the second half of 2010, we've decided to circle back on these three subjects for deeper dives: Ideas Magazine case ...[more]

John Paton's relentless effort to change the newspaper culture — before it's too late

John Paton is a hot commodity these days.

Named Editor & Publisher magazine's “Publisher of the Year” in 2009, his “digital-first” speech at a major global industry conference late last year garnered significant attention when he was CEO of U.S.-based Spanish-language publisher impreMedia. Conference speaking appearances have become more frequent.

In early 2010, John was appointed CEO of the Journal Register Company, known for its thrift, low-tech tendencies, and high margins with its 20 small dailies and 300 non-daily publications and web sites.

Like other U.S. peers, the company took on too much debt during expansion, and the recession wrecked their financial plans. The Journal Register Company emerged from bankruptcy protection having reduced its debt from US$692 million to US$225 million. The company also made the tough transition from a public company to a private company. Today, the Journal Register Company is owned by a few dozen hedge funds seeking ...[more]

Reflections on INMA New York conference: value all about audience, content, platform

Last week's INMA World Congress in New York effectively poked and prodded at the edges of key industry debates while simultaneously packing an emotional punch that made you think, laugh, cry, and cringe. The conversation centered on “value” and the interplay among audience, content, and platform: when to segment and when to integrate for maximum benefit.

When you have 350 people from 48 countries, you're going to have splits in cultural likes and dislikes. Yet cutting through those cultural twists, there was something magical about the New York conference.

Here were my seven key takeaways:

Paid content: The paid content debate is about financial peanuts, but this small part of your future business has the effect of being the marketing conversation that sets in place a newspaper's multi-media strategy. Have that conversation, and be prepared to be surprised.

iPad: The iPad is sexy and fun and isn't a killer application. Yet it's the beginning ...[more]

Paid content a proxy for transformative marketing conversation

I had some fascinating conversations in the past 24 hours with two senior newspaper executives about how the paid content discussion is really a proxy for Marketing 101:

What is the perceived value of what you do to customers?

What is the differentiating value of the content you produce? Quality? Surprise/delight? Context?

Can customers discern the differences between your USP and the package it comes in?

Newspapers are to publishers what trucking is to FedEx. They're in the delivery business, and if technology allowed them to drop their trucks they'd do it overnight.

While we can bias eyeballs and advertising opportunities toward what pays the bills today (print), both executives acknowledge they are only nominally in charge anymore. We can no longer decide for our customers what mechanism they use to consumer our USP. They're doing a better and better job of telling us how they prefer to consume our content.

I tested similar ...[more]

The iPad's first impressions: no revolution for newspapers, but perhaps a spark

One week ago, I picked up my new prescription for eye glasses. I have astigmatism and, truth be told, I haven't had a serious checkup in 20 years. Apparently there was a severe change over those two decades. The doctor who conducted my checkup babbled on about whether I could handle the new prescriptions which — in guy talk — is pretty much the equivalent of challenging my manhood.

I put the glasses on for the first time, my vision was horribly distorted, the floor magically rose up, and the pit of my stomach did a turn reserved for astronauts and roller-coaster freaks. As I walked home, I didn't quite make it 50 meters before re-introducing the City of Dallas to that day's breakfast and lunch.

Touché, manhood.

Similarly distorting for me was my introduction to the iPad this weekend: no doubt a spark to a revolution for publishers, but not a revolution unto itself.

Like ...[more]

Could the iPad turn out to be the next “Ishtar”?

In 1987, Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman starred in the can't-miss comedy movie “Ishtar” about two mediocre lounge singers who travel to Morocco seeking work yet find themselves in a Cold War standoff. These were two of the movie industry's most bankable stars, paired together a la Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.

The movie turned out to be one of Hollywood's all-time bombs. Even to this day, the movie hasn't been released on video in the United States.

Fast-forward to today.

The Apple iPad is days away from release. The hype is through-the-roof. Pre-sales have surpassed expectations. Experts say this device will change the way people think of computing, the internet, and reading. It's evolved into a can't-miss, game-changing product.

I hesitate to suggest this, but is there any chance the iPad turns out to be “Ishtar”?

A colleague who is placing his consultancy at the center of the iPad Revolution for ...[more]