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BREAKING NEWS & VIEWS
min day Summit: Flexibility, Distribution, Credibility Are Top PrioritiesWednesday, November 10, 2010 At the Nov. 9 min day Digital Summit 2010 at New York's Grand Hyatt, presenters emphasized to the assembled media executives the enduring importance of their brands both to advertisers and readers, the need for staffs and business models to remain flexible in fast-changing times and the critical importance of improving distribution as audiences spend more online time away from destination sites. Whatever the allure of endless inventory and Web start-ups online, major marketers still go to the traditional media, especially print, to associate with reliable trustworthy brands. “Credibility is an absolute necessity,” said Bill Stabile, senior director, brand and marketing communications at Siemens, when he presented his company’s integrated campaigns for high-speed rail products. Similarly, Unilever’s North American media director Rob Master and Kimberly-Clark Family Care marketing executive Joe Kardel echoed the sentiment that cross-platform executions with CNNMoney and Food Network Magazine, respectively, were highly customized efforts that had unique power in the market because of their alignment with known, trusted media brands. Later in the day, Andrew Budkofsky, head of sales for Web-only Break Media, admitted that magazine brands often walk into sales calls with an inherent advantage. The magazines don’t have to “explain their brand” to marketers. But if creative content and its credibility remain king in the media market, distribution was on many publishers’ minds as magazine brands continue to seek greater scale in relation to many Web-only brands. Emerging media are the places where brands need to find new readers and get onto the platforms that are stealing time share from traditional destinations. During afternoon panels on mobile, video and social platforms, that was the persistent theme. Don’t just repurpose, innovate on mobile, said Sean Nolan, VP, online operations and external online marketing, Rodale. Shoveling the Web site onto the smartphone is not the way to expand the brand coverage. Likewise, Stack Media co-founder Nick Palazzo and Hearst Digital Media executive producer Scott Mebus reminded magazine video makers that search optimization around multimedia is as important as SEO for text. YouTube has become the second-most-important search engine on the Web, Budkofsky added—this is how video gets seen. And flexibility in staffing and in business models was a persistent subtext throughout the day. On the morning panel on paid content models, Press+/Journalism Online's Steven Brill, Harvard Business Review’s Josh Macht, Sporting News’ Jeff Price and Consumer Reports’ Jerry Steinbrinck all urged publishers to experiment incrementally with paid packages and listen to user feedback about what they are willing to pay for (and how much). Pay walls are not necessarily the answer, but locating the core value in your brand is, Brill insisted. If an online publisher can’t find content in their portfolio users are willing to pay to receive, then they are in the wrong business, the panelists seemed to agree. But they have to create programs that are flexible enough to move and shift in response to feedback. (For more on what paid models are working online, don't miss the Nov. 16 min Webinar: Fee-Based Content Models - What is Working for Media Brands. The enormously successful Consumer Reports will share its metrics related to subscriptions and revenue attached to a range of fee-based product. And Macworld will explore the lessons learned from its new Insider product offering. Plus, Outsell and ITZ Publishing will drill into the ways in which mobile and app products are succeeding with paid models and how print brands are using metered access plans.) Historically, magazines were slow to get onto the Web, and even slower to embrace some of the content and distribution strategies that drove many successful Web-only competitors. The speakers at this year’s min day Summit demonstrated that most magazine brands not only "get it" now, but they are "in it" now. Many are demonstrating to users and advertisers a deeper involvement with the unique media qualities of the Internet: social interactivity, multimedia content, hyper-distribution and user-generated content. In fact, many of the leading figures in magazine digital media will be honored at min’s next event, the Dec. 9 breakfast event in New York celebrating min’s “Most Intriguing People in Media.” Here we will celebrate our Top 21 Most Intriguing People as well as our Hottest Launches of the year and 15-to-Watch media up-and-comers. See the list of honorees and registration information for the event at our dedicated site. If you have breaking news to share please contact Steve Smith at ssmith@accessintel.com
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