weighing in on the death of newspapers

in today's weekly blog reading catch-up, i perused numerous stories on the death of newspapers and thought i'd weigh-in myself as it's something i've been conceptualizing since college when i wrote a thesis paper on their death, or evolution as it really should be. i thought it was a good time to revisit it and update with some of the new information.

do i want newspapers to die? yes, in their current incarnation i do, but not entirely. why not entirely? well it's simple, journalism in that form still has a very important place in the fabric of society. citizen journalists (ie. bloggers) are one thing, but the world still needs, as atlantic magazine puts it:

... there’s no online substitute for institutions that can marshal years of well-developed sourcing and reporting experience—not to mention the resources to, say, send journalists leapfrogging between Mumbai and Islamabad to decode the complexities of the India-Pakistan conflict.

newspapers have arrived at this point solely by virtue of intense hubris in their value and business model, which hasn't changed in 100 years. while keeping their core printed versions status quo, they simply layered on website versions with little apparent thought to changing the costlier side of the business, that was really in danger.

to distill it down, the business model of newspapers is in disseminating information to the masses. what i'm about to say isn't new, but important to the discussion to elaborate later. the main problem with the printed business model is the old 24 hour news cycle which doesn't exist anymore. news is a constant stream now and expected to be by the viewing public. immediacy is key and that doesn't happen with a product that has to lock in their news the previous afternoon, get printed and shipped in the wee hours of the morning. newspaper people need to get over that, and should have a decade ago.

while immediacy is paramount in the news business, the quality of journalism is what should continue to be the hallmark and still has a place in society and media today. it's melding the two into a new product which better meets consumer needs that is their future.

so what did i posit in 2000 as a possible and viable solution? i needn't look much further than my geek side and star trek: the next generation. no, not phasers to wipe out the arrogant old guard newspaper barons, but the data padds (yes, i'm spelling it right).

i'm not saying this is a revolutionary thought, but back then i did think it was forward thinking, but now well outside of the dream phase.

already we have the amazon kindle and a host of other reading devices. some papers even have editions available for it like the new york times. it's a step, but why did they wait for someone else to do it? why did they make their content fit someone else's platform rather than creating their own? newspapers have always created the vehicle for their content delivery, right?

beyond the kindle, here's a couple other emerging technologies that are options as well. forbes took the leap with this new e-ink as a disposable version, so certainly there is a reusable option.


granted, it's easy in hindsight, with the benefit of seeing where technology took us, to see what newspapers could have done. but that's the point, right? these things didn't happen over night, and with a little foresight, could have been tapped into earlier. there are smarter people than myself and if it occurred to me nearly 10 years ago, surely it must have for someone else too.

we are just seeing this technology emerge now because scientists are developing it to find applications for it. had newspapers stepped in to lend some of their considerable resources (although greatly diminished as of late, but there was money years ago) for development with a specific purpose, it's quite likely that it would have come faster. they could already be in market with some derivation of this and we wouldn't be having all these conversations about their demise.

now it's 2009 and we have iphones, other smartphones, kindles, and other personal digital devices. it's infinitely more difficult now to break into the handheld space and it becomes harder to ask consumers to adopt yet another device. if they were leaders though, there wouldn't be this added hurdle. although, with a quality, low cost device, there is still plenty of room for consumer uptake.

what of cost? i would think it'd have to be free, but as this technology continues to come down in price, it becomes much more fiscally prudent. especially if you can lock people into subscriptions to pay the device costs over time. it works for cell phones.

then there's what makes the whole newspaper world go round, advertising. that's right editors, it's not the purity of news reporting, it's the dirty world of selling things. sorry. here lies a tremendous amount of opportunity for marketers to capitalize on that printed publicaitons fall on their face. how so? glad you asked:

1. interactivity - the ads in the space would no longer be static and thus more engaging
2. measurement - being able to directly and far more precisely understand the audience and actual readership
3. linkable - simply being able to click through to an advertiser is a huge boon
4. current - messages no longer have to be expensively developed and locked in far in advance
5. lower cost - newspapers are notoriously high in cost because the printing and distribution is passed on to the advertiser, not the reader, and this is a far less expensive delivery system

it probably sounds like i'm oversimplifying this, but it doesn't seem that far of a stretch to me. pretty logical, really. anything's better than death, right? for all their smarts in delivering a superior information product, they certainly are myopic of their own predicament.

i feel compelled to lastly address people's long standing adherence to the notion that the tactile nature of newspapers (and any printed medium) is of benefit to people and something they are willing to give up. i guess it's true so long as people like, cumbersome sized pages, low quality paper, rub-off ink and lower production quality imagery (ie. blurry or just b&w). this is just another old school belief. newspapers are failing because young people are not adopting due to their needs not being met by newspapers. that attitude doesn't resonate with them. they have more important things to worry about than feeling newsprint between their fingers.

update: here's an article that makes it pretty clear this model could succeed. 

the more commercial guitar hero

i picked up the guitar hero world tour set for our wii over the holidays. great addition to the series, but one that was clearly marked with it's commercial success. of course i'm talking about all the advertising that is very visible throughout.

the first instance is as soon as you open the case, a coupon from kfc.


then throughout the gameplay you're peppered with a number of other placements like the coke and kfc bucket below.


as someone in advertising, these efforts are all good in my book. video games have emerged as a mainstream vehicle, whose viability as a new medium is very clear. i say all this with one caveat of course, and that's relevance. there's a place for everything and marketers have to find the right ones or else it's wasted money and consumer dissonance.

the examples above are well suited, in my mind, to the environment you find them in. kudos to those companies, they did a good job. but then there's the flops. also featured in the game is a prominent sign for at&t (i wish i could get a picture to show you, but there's not a still frame to take something of quality). i don't see what place it has in a video game about rock and roll. there's a disconnect, and it's not integrated within the game or story as the others.

it's our responsibility as marketers and agencies to find appropriate venues for our products to be placed. just because it is a hot game, on an emerging platform doesn't mean we should get involved blindly because on paper i makes sense to form some, even loose association. sure there's eyeballs, but what's the quality of your implementation?

i see three main guardrails we all should adhere to so we don't ruin the space and make our efforts just more wallpaper.

1. relevance: does the product or service have a legitimate place within the theme or story of the game? does it fit environmentally?
   
2. value: does it enhance the the user's experience and give them something they might actually want?
3. integration: is the product or service inserted in a way that is thoughtful and not just slapped on?

there's so much opportunity in video games that has yet to be realized, but just jumping to it without thinking hard about how we do it isn't a recipe for success. it is a highly immersive and interactive medium and that is where success lies. by it's very nature, the audience is ripe, but only if it's handled with care because it's also very personal.

auto bailout bust

so the auto industry bailout didn't get through congress. finally a little restraint from washington. although $14 billion in restraint is really nothing compared to $700 billion in non-restraint. though i would have liked the bill to have failed on lacking fiscal responsibility, i know it was pro-union backers that caused it to fail. the message i wished this sent was letting everyone know that the government is not here for handouts and the populace is not the benefactors of troubled companies.

the one part of the auto bailout that i supported was in saving the hundreds of thousands of direct jobs (and million indirect jobs) from being lost because of a few irresponsible executives. much like the financial bailout, the part of that i supported was not putting people out because of questionable actions by senior management. the many should not have to suffer for the sins of the few and such en masse failings are problematic. i have no problem with people losing their mortgages or jobs in the normal course of things, but when it happens instantaneously in such large quantities, then that impact is more than a ripple in the ocean.

what would have been a better option is not putting money back into businesses with inferior products, faulty decision making and legacy systems/contracts/obligations rather set aside a fund for the employees when the big three eventual file for bankruptcy. in all likelihood, the big three will, in some form, live on post-bankruptcy and those jobs will be available again. the bailout should be to support those unfortunate folks put out by incompetent companies and not prop up those companies.

yes it's socialist and i wouldn't call myself as such, but it's more logical than giving it to bad companies who've shown little responsibility in a storm brewing for decades. the fund would be run by some kind of trust designed to support auto worker families, providing them a stable and reasonable income (ie. not to the excessive levels of union wages) until the company they worked for is back up and running. the key is that in this eventuality, there are guarantees and the companies work toward operations again with the same employees in mind.

i liken the whole situation to a junkie. a bailout is just enabling them further. junkies need to hit rock bottom and staving off death with free money doesn't allow you to hit rock bottom, it's just another hit. junkies won't change until there is no other option and detroit won't change either if they are allowed to continue with their ways.

to me, bankruptcy is the only option. a controlled, assured bankruptcy (if there is one) is the only future that will make real change. this will allow them to shed management who have led these companies to their current state, foster more innovation, collapse the crippling unions, and repair their ailing bank accounts. sure, i make it sound simple, and i know it's not. but drastic measures, that doesn't include the term bailout, is just realism.

will this rejection force the bankruptcy issue or will it spur on a diametric shift in their thinking to turn it around? i don't know, but it needs to be extreme.

canadian undemocracy

what i've born witness to in the past few days on parliament hill amounts to an all out assault on democracy. that's right, i said it. aren't the people supposed to decide the fate of a government in a democracy and not the government officials themselves? the powerplay that stephane dion, jack layton and whoever the leader of the irrelevant bloc quebecois party is, should be admonished for their actions.

in the last sham of an election, the people made a decision. there is no right or wrong one when it comes to government, it is simply the will of the populace. in it, they elected a conservative minority government, helmed by stephen harper. canadians made it very clear where the likes of the liberals, ndp and bloc quebecois stood, and it wasn't in power. the three musketeers are now telling all canadians that they were wrong in how they voted and it's their responsibility to make the right decision for them. there's something wrong in that.

i'm not siding with any party on this issue. i'm not saying who or what party or parties will be a better leadership for this country. i'm siding with the people and democracy. the people who spoke with their vote and are now facing that vote being overturned. with democracy that strictly lets the people decide the fate of our government. this is a coup d'etat thinly veiled behind a democratic banner. one where power hungry politicians are trying to use the system for their own gain and for their own perceptions of what is better for the country when it wasn't their place to decide.

if this was always their intention, which it seems it was, then they should have been upfront with voters during the election. now they are cheating those voters and subversing the democratic process we have in this country. i liken this whole situation to a child throwing a tantrum because they didn't get what they wanted. only it's three children in this case.

if the governor general has the final say in this matter, hopefully she has enough sense about her to dismiss this coalition. this is bad for the country and bad for democracy.

shiny new object syndrome in marketing

there's a phrase that has come to rise in the last while that goes like this: shiny new object syndrome. i don't know who coined it, but the saying started in tech circles, most notably the journalism side of things where writers rapidly move from covering one new thing to the next. they shower adoration upon a new gadget, or application and as quickly as they vociferously touted it, they would put it aside to bolster whatever was new, never really exploring in depth what any one thing in particular was capable of (features) or why people should use it (benefits).

shiny new object syndrome.

for the most part, SNOS has exhibited itself on the application front, specifically on the social media front. there's too many to count or keep track of that have fallen victim to this plague. the cycle goes that they launch, get a lot of media attention, there's some consumer uptake, and as quickly as they came to rise they seem to escape the popular consciousness. both media and consumers.

as of late, i'm seeing this model of adopting and disposing of things enter into the marketing world. of course it's due to the barrage of new media opportunities, web based or hardware based, that have entered the market in the last few years. and the malaise parallels that of the media coverage; we find them, we activate them, then we drop them.

all of us are to blame for this, myself included. we try to lead our consumers, or at least keep pace with them, so we jump to whatever they jump to. we as agencies make the recommendations and marketers themselves demand it. we keep aiming to be innovative and so we move on.

but there's one thing we forget - users don't stop what they started doing. they invest a lot of time and effort into their presence there. people haven't stopped using facebook, or myspace for that matter despite slowed growth and and plateaued usage. and think of how many people still have and use a hotmail account because that's the place they started. none of these are new anymore, but used just the same. in that regard, these are just as valuable places as all the shiny new ones. in fact, they may warrant more of our attention because they are proven (by still being alive) and our investment here would likely stand up. there's at least less risk our investment will be for not.

sure, there's the flash in the pan. we come charging out of the gate with that gets us noticed and some groundswell in our favor. but we have to also think of the longer life of the brand in these spaces. think about all the investment and all the equity you build into a property only to abandon it. consumers flock to us because of the value we provide. when we leave it fallow, we risk some consumer dissonance and in this powerful social age, it is too great a risk.

yes, there are temporary efforts that aren't sustainable. some efforts are in and out, but those need be efforts that are becoming of such an approach. but as it relates to the social media world and communities, there's no good reason why discontinuing efforts in this area is a good idea.

i'm not saying don't experiment. absolutely we should. it's about not abandoning what we start. seeing it through to it's real end. what that end is and when, i don't know. it just requires some thought about it rather than just dumping it. there's lots of great new things out there and there's room to give them a try, but where there is uptake and significance, keeping it up. we need to persevere to fully realize the potential of our presence in these spaces and get from our consumers what we desire.

p&g not sure about marketers in social media

in today's AdAge, the general manager-interactive marketing at p&g, scott mcconnell, pontificated that brands don't belong in social media, pointing to the difficulty these sites have had in monetizing their spaces. a couple of his points i took objection to and thought that mcconnell was off on his basis.

the easiest way for me to assess this is to go through the article top to bottom.

what in heaven's name made you think you could monetize the real estate in which somebody is breaking up with their girlfriend?...
... they were trying to talk to somebody. so it just seems a bit arrogant. ... we hijack their own conversations, their own thoughts and feelings, and try to monetize it.

the basic premise that this space is for consumers to have conversations (namely breaking up with their girlfriend - which is dubious to start with) and that brands don't have a place in that kind of environment is erroneous. consumers are having conversations about brands, branded content (ie. commercials), and how brands fit in their lives. granted, this probably doesn't happen as much as we'd like, but gentle pushes and good reasons to want to talk about our brands i don't see as problematic. yes, the main thing about facebook is for consumers to interact with each other (talking, sharing, etc), but it's certainly not exclusionary to brands.

to say that we hijack their conversations is completely unfounded. in no way do brands become associated with the personal dialogue of people on facebook. the only conversations our presence and our media become associated with are those of the community doing something with the brand itself and that is completely legitimate to want to capitalize on and promote. and the news-feed stories those propagate do not take over user conversations, just add new ones.

so the targeting is fantastic. you can do really amazing things. but i'm not so sure i want to be targeted like that. ... i don't think everything every consumer says to someone else and writes down is somehow monetizable by the media industry.

it is folly to say that he doesn't want to see highly targeted ads and thusly imply that other consumers don't want to as well. increasing ad relevance is a much better scenario for consumers and one that i think they'd actually appreciate. why do i want to see feminine hygiene products as it's completely irrelevant to me? i will ignore it and be left with a negative feeling about a brand or media channel.

however, if an ad appeared that met a certain specific needs, or was of high interest to me, consumers would pay attention, be more likely to respond and have a better feeling about the brand as it fulfilled something missing in my life. at the end of the day, there is consumer acceptance to seeing the ads there because they get that in order for the space to be a free service, it has to be ad supported. so if they have to see something, it might as well be appropriate.

as for our right as marketers to tap into consumer conversations and interests to target ads, i would bet that p&g puts money in search. that more or less taps into people's interests to target ads to them or in gmail tapping into keywords within to serve relevant ads. what's the difference there than in facebook or other social media spaces.

mcconell went on to say that marketers should not abandon the space entirely, and that there are potentially valuable vehicles for advertisers such as applications. this is a somewhat outdated viewpoint as facebook has severely curtailed their visibility. you have to have something really powerful to break through the wall Facebook has put them behind (literally and figuratively). it's a huge challenge that only very few brands could hope to accomplish.

they held promise when they were launched and facebook took the wrong approach and that ruined applications. facebook let anyone and everyone make their own applications and didn't vet any of them or put a pay model in place to launch them. this completely ruined the space as it was flooded with useless and invasive applications and they had to correct it. that correction was the redesign and it devalued them significantly. so to believe that applications are the promised land is a hard pill to swallow.

all in all, i find the article and his viewpoints showed a lack of understanding about the value of the social media space and how brands in fact DO belong there. it's a fine line and marketers have to approach cautiously. but it's rich and valuable territory if they can get it right.

twittersquatting

remember in the early days of the web (crica 1995) opportunistic schemers would buy up url's in the hopes to cash in on other people's trademarks only to have a short boon before it got litigious and not worthwhile? looks like there are still some who think this model is viable to this day, just in different shapes.

when i was recently setting up my slingbox, i ran into some tech issues. having looked at their website and not finding a solution, i sought other channels, one being twitter. i followed a thought that since dell and comcast had a few customer service reps on twitter, maybe more companies were following suit.

so i searched twitter for 'slingbox' and came across this:


now people are squatting on twitter names, much like they did domain names. did no one learn? one nuance though to the whole thing that will prove this to be not as easy a task to ameliorate: twitter is a free service. the trail is a lot easier to follow when someone pays like they did with domains. it could also be argued that twitter assumes people's 'handles' or 'nicknames' which may not be seen as a trademark for the companies like a domain would be.

there's also the matter of whether companies care. twitter is still very small, and only has a cult following right now. no one knows how mainstream it will get. do companies feel that twitter is a valuable signpost that they need to defend their brands in? if so, where does it end? How many variations of their namesakes can they snatch up so others don't? i believe companies should protect their trademarks, but only up to a point. twitter is never going to be the destination point that a url would be. i believe twitter could be a valuable asset to a company, but there's many who likely don't feel that way.

i wish there was a simple reporting feature to twitter as this afront to intellectual property and branding sickened me. i hope twitter can suss these hacks out, and all like them. i did a few other searches to see what other companies are going to have to trot out their lawyers and slap these hacks with some kind of cease and desist order or shutdown their accounts.

here's a few examples of companies who are likely being squatted on (a random sampling of brand names i find as i peer around my immediate surroundings):
probable squatting
canon, linksys, chrysler, microsoft, adobe, apple, mcdonalds, warnermusic, ebay, coca cola, nike, budweiser, ikea, google, xm radio, vonage

definite squatting
playstation, xbox, samsung