Category Archives: innovation
Local media need to think bigger about the Big Data opportunity
Data, data, data. From every direction lately, I’m being hit with urgent reminders about the imperative for local media companies to master data.
Every day, I’m more convinced: This is the next wave of threat — or opportunity — for local media companies. That’s how disruptive innovation works — you either grab the opportunity, or you are overrun by it.
As Big Data marches down upon us, I’m reminded of Longfellow’s poem, “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.” It tells how, on the eve of the American Revolution, patriots gave warning of the British Army’s advance by hanging lanterns in the belfry of Boston’s Old North Church:
“One if by land, two if by sea.”
I’m hanging out three lanterns. Big Data is bearing down on us right now — by land, by sea and from every other direction. Read the rest of this entry
10 years later: Seven disruption lessons from Newspaper Next
In the fall of 2006, as the Internet was devastating the newspaper industry in earnest, the American Press Institute unveiled a new program to push back against the disruption.
We called the project Newspaper Next, and its first report was called Blueprint for Transformation.
Ten years later, what did it accomplish? And what should we still remember from that body of work? Read the rest of this entry
Lead generation: Reframing the future of advertising
In the last several weeks, my whole concept of advertising and marketing has been reframed, and I’m still sorting out what it means. But I know this: It has given me a clearer understanding of the path local media companies must take in sales.
The Rosetta Stone was the key in unlocking several ancient languages
Now I’m going to try to work the same kind of reframing on you.
Reframing is what happens when some new fact, or a new interpretation of old facts, reveals a subject in a very different light. It’s often a breakthrough that clarifies your priorities and shows you new ways to overcome your challenges.
And in advertising and marketing, we have more than our share of challenges. Print and broadcast media have been struggling for years to assimilate a bewildering array of new tactics.
The list includes buzz terms like SEM, SEO, targeting, retargeting, social media, video, reputation management, email, native advertising, content marketing, Big Data, programmatic advertising and more. And new ones show up all the time.
Global disruption: The information lowlands are rising fast
This time, let’s go up 100,000 feet for a look across the globe. As the media industry in the developed world struggles, billions of humans elsewhere are moving from information scarcity to full access to the world’s knowledge.
A topographical world map. (Copyright 2000 Seajester)
Some time ago, thinking about this strange dichotomy, I tried to come up with a visual metaphor to reflect what’s happening.
I was picturing the globe and its many nations and peoples, and thinking about their drastically unequal access to information. And I was thinking about the rapid and Read the rest of this entry
Thought experiments can put us ahead of the media disruption curve
Let’s try some thought experiments, in the best tradition of Albert Einstein.
The hypothesis we’ll explore is this: That the large, lucrative revenue stream that newspaper companies have enjoyed from major/national advertisers will decline to something approaching zero.
Our thought experiments will examine what we should do about that. Read the rest of this entry
Rethinking the mission and purpose of local reporting
How do you define the mission and purpose of local reporting?
Cover the news? Hold institutions accountable? Maintain a well-informed citizenry? Hold up a mirror to the community? “Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable?”
Search around the Web for statements of journalism’s purpose and you’ll find all of the above, and more like them.
And there’s a lot of anxiety these days about the present and future of this mission. With local advertising and circulation revenues spiraling steadily downward, and with newsrooms shrinking along a parallel line, two things are evident. Whatever the mission of local reporting is:
- A lot less of it is happening now.
- Even less will be happening in the future.
In many places in this business, the central question these days is: How can we drive revenue from new sources, so we can keep supporting the functions of journalism that are critical to a free society?
To an extent, I buy that. But there’s also something seriously misguided about it. Read the rest of this entry
Take a disruption lesson from Procter & Gamble
What could disrupted legacy media companies possibly have in common with Procter & Gamble — the huge and perennially successful consumer goods manufacturer?
One thing we have in common is that we both need to recognize and plan for the continuous loss of revenue from declining products.
We don’t think of P&G as needing to cope with fading products as an endemic part of its business. But 10 years ago, when I was leading the Newspaper Next project for the American Press Institute, I learned that part of their success lies in the careful planning they do to offset those declines.
We in the media business can take an important lesson from P&G’s approach. Read the rest of this entry
How legacy media reps can — and must — sell more digital
How can we sell more digital? In traditional media, that question has been pounding us for years.
It’s in our heads, in our meetings, in our training, in our budgeting. Few of us are growing our digital revenues at rates anywhere near the growth rate of digital spending.
And one of the toughest challenges has been getting our core sales reps to present digital advertising and marketing solutions effectively to their existing customers.
Four keys to leadership in times of change
When your organization needs large-scale change (and what disrupted media organization doesn’t?), how do you get it done?
Terabytes have been written about the strategies and tactics that legacy media organizations need. I’ve written my share, too, here at MediaReset.com. But I’ve seen precious little written about how to lead and manage effective change to carry out these strategies.
Big media sales opportunity: Take Big Data to Main Street
What if your local media company had a product that could make local businesses say, “Wow! Can you really do that???”
That’s the Holy Grail of media sales — a solution that meets an urgent need for customers in a way they have never before thought possible.
I saw that kind of solution a couple of weeks ago. I promise you — it will be big. Read the rest of this entry
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