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How will media convergence affect the production and distribution of news?

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I thought you all may be interested in this brief interview, conducted online by Jenna Batchelor a student at Nottingham Trent University, UK.

Firstly how has media convergence and the switch to the use of so much technology affected the production and distribution of news?

At first the newspaper/magazine industry reacted poorly and to me a major part of the cause of their steep decline has been in part their own inaction and lack of preparing for the future, a predicted future, which they themselves had reported and covered.

Rather then embrace the “future” I think many newspaper or media groups expected the new technology to be a temporary inconvenience and things would soon go back to the past (slightly changed) model. Technology was offering change, but the change in consumer and advertisers perception, the change in the use of news and how would valued news would be viewed by the consumer and the advertiser was also part of the convergence. Industry did not see this change and they should have or at least they should have started to ask questions and define their path to growth. Add the massive worldwide economic decline and you have additional reasons to see the need to change.

Many then made the move to offer “free” access to online editions and reductions or eliminations to traditional printed editions. They soon realized that free news was not as important since nearly all news was now free. Removing the traditional printed editions also was for some a knee jerk reaction. Recent data indicates that the 18 to 24 age group may be moving back to “printed” sources. Convergence also means a planned integration of media not a chaotic integration of media.

An example of this change in gathering and distribution of news can be seen in the recent Boston bombing. Many people received news of the attack via personal or internal networks. News has become simple to gather, review and choose, most media groups until recently did not understand this switch. Live action videos had been available to “friends” before they made it to many of the networks.

Technology is also part of the mix, a major part of the mix; the consumer’s perception of the process accelerated the technology and adaption of the technology. Media Convergence is a composed of Content, Communications, Distribution (Cloud) and the Consumer. If you add the need to support the advertising model and the need to be targeted with branded content you will start to see a greater impact of change to the industry as well.

In summary, the perfect storm of media, technology and behavioral change hit an industry in transition and nearly destroyed the vertical.

Secondly how have newspapers attempted to overcome this challenge and remain relevant with the audience?

A basic rethinking of their current model, they responded to what was working and what was not working and have succeeded in adapting to the change and being prepared for future changes.

Adding branded content, there are some examples that have allowed subscribers to select their media mix, the type of stories they wish to review and in the near future select the advertisers they wish or not to review. Newspapers are looking to technology (BBC reports a RFID embedded paper being offered) across all media as well as new media such as NFC, RFID and mobile technology being used to support future plans.

Since content is a critical component of media convergence, you will start to see in the US politically directed media groups. For example the Koch brothers, politically conservatives are considering purchasing a bastion of liberal media The Tribune Group. Their stated plans are simple; offer a more conservative (regionally as well) based version of national and international news. And possibly offering the news via new media channels like iTV, Google TV and paid Internet or cable channels will only add to the convergence and hopefully growth of news distribution.

Newspapers and media groups will also need to establish dialogue with the consumer and the advertisers as well. Newspaper and newsmagazines will also need to develop and provide measurable engagement processes to prove their new model.

Finally do you think media convergence is good for the news industry?

Yes, as simple as this may sound, I believe change is always good. Change is part of the natural selection process that drives industry. It is when change is ignored that the problems occur.

My belief is that in the next 10 years you will see newspapers and magazines being reborn as a hybrid of real news, editorial, feature based stories and a combination of all, offered across all media based on the needs of the consumer. The convergence of media and the tools or technology of media are here to stay and will continue to change in new yet unseen ways.

People are starting to ask what had once been the foundation of journalism, the why something happened, without bias!

Reporting on the incident is fine, but how will that incident impact the consumer/reader, how can a consumer respond to the news, WITHOUT political interpretations? Just the facts and those facts and data that provide an in depth understanding of the news, a 360 degree understanding of the news.

I also look to readers of newspapers and magazines not as readers but as users, since the future of newspapers and magazines is a portal to even more information, perhaps free, but most likely paid for information, defined by the knowledge of the users.

I also see a greater and more defined use of media groups replacing the traditional advertising agency as the main source of client support. Advertisers should be going DIRECTLY to media groups for their needs, the media groups have the most critical aspect of the “sell” they own the customer data – Scientific Marketing is based on dialogue and engagement is part of the newspaper and magazines future.

Thaddeus B. Kubis
Chief Evangelist Media Convergence
The Institute For Media Convergence
Media Convergence | Curriculum Development | Strategic Messaging
Direct: 917.597.1891
email: thad.kubis@tifmc.org
Twitter: thadcmce
www.tifmc.org

Print is for Losers!*

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Trending: A new concept to many – most social media sites – including LinkedIn and Facebook and others use a variant of trending to define thought leadership. No matter how short or long your personal or business “upward tending curve” is being on top of the pile is a powerful position to hold and when used correctly a powerful tool for your business.

Print has not been included within the trending universe for sometime and I doubt that it will ever make its way back to the any of the top trending lists in the future. Not because print is dead, for it is not, not because print is an old fashion technology again it is not. Print will not get back in vogue until the “identity” of print is changed and updated.

Print according to the latest Flash Report from Ron Davis of the Printing Industries of America is defined or combined into three segments based on the intended function of the printed piece, a very smart division of the industry.

Those three segments are: Inform or Communicate (essentially newspaper, magazines, book financial, business for and greeting cards), Product Logistics (includes package printing, converters/labels and wrappers) and Market, Promote and/or Sell (political needs, marketing/promotional including general commercial printing, quick printing, direct mail and signs/signage). Combined these three segments and they will provide the projected shipments of print in 2021.

Expected Print by Function 2021
Inform or Communicate 46.23%
Product Logistics 14.79%
Market, Promote, Sell 38.98%

Why is this important? Well if you ask a myriad of “trade” people, I think you will find that most cannot provide an accurate definition of print. This definition becomes more difficult to determine if you move to the creative, marketing and advertising segments. From my experience those who lump or silo print into “print media – advertising” don’t seem to care if that definition is correct or not.

Can you fully use a media if you cannot define that media? I think not!

Print or print plus as Ron Davis states is undergoing massive change, but not all of that change is bad!

Do you know which of those three (print) segments are considered growth segments?
Do you know what the response rate is for a communications or marketing project, which include print vs. those that do not include print? Do you know which channels of print plus offer dialogue, engagement and that “special touch” to convert the prospect to a customer?

Most likely you do not or if you do that information has been provided to you via a print centric source. Not that print centric sources are incorrect, most are highly professional and dedicated to the media of print and to its growth.

These print centric groups provide a great foundation of information, but I am not sure if we as print providers can or any marketer accept industry centric information without examining the bias of that information and looking to independent channels to verify the results. Second source or source verification works outside of journalism

Digital Media is Well Defined
Ask what social media is, or even digital media and across the board you will get a fairly well defined answer, again this is based on my unofficial survey, if I am wrong let me know.

Trending and how it relates to print or print plus is only one of the problems I see directly impacting print; the second is the lack of coordinated industry “buzz”. Sure there are some great print industry groups out there, like the PIA, NPES, IDEAlliance, RIT The Print Council (no longer active) and many industry vendor or suppliers providing some great “specific and self serving” (rightfully so) support of print.

What is needed is a neutral database driven clearing-house that presents print not as a provider of a service, but as an integrator of the marketing process, which is based, not on theory but on raw hard facts. Facts that prove the ROI of print, facts, offering a detailed review and defining the benefits of print and accept the fact the industry is changing and has a plan to adapt to this change and offer defined benefits to counter the change and to, play happy with the other forms of media.

I suggest that a JD Power’s type model be organized, reaching out to ALL MEDIA, inclusive of all media representation and yes include all aspects digital media, data driven marketing as well. This neutral group will then provide the benchmark study that will start the process of identifying print as a valued, valid and needed part of the chain of communications.

Possibly for the first time in the history of print, print can have a single mantra, a brand that is based on fact, a brand that will benefit the industry and a brand that will start the incorporation of print into the new world on integrated and inter-digital media.

Print is more then just an integrator, it has proven to be a device that can establish dialogue, maintain the discussion and provide a path of measured engagement that will benefit all that use print.

When you link the three critical tenets that I feel are the motivators to consider for the future of print as Integration, Dialogue and Engagement you have within print a formidable weapon, regardless of your equipment mix, despite your sales organization you are no longer selling a commodity your are selling a result, a proven and repeatable result!

In the next installment of this blog I will outline the three critical steps to end the shunning of print, clearly identify what print is and how print can provide a path to profit advocacy, a path that print can once more support.

* Not really but it did get your attention.

Proven New Business Idea!

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Announcing _____________________ Event! (fill in the blank with your firms name)

If your facility were a trade show and your clients were to attend, what part of the show would they find most interesting? Would that interest provide a direct benefit to your bottom line – and to theirs?

I have attended many trade events, and I have designed, marketed and installed even more. The exhibition vertical is undergoing change, but in the end a trade show or similar industry event still offers a few interesting points of discussion and comparisons to the way you run your (no longer print-centric) print business.

First, printers love trade shows, not in large numbers as they once did, but the industry’s main shows are often crowded events teeming with new products, services, introductions, smoke and mirrors, commentary and sometimes controversy.

Understanding that the purpose of most trade shows is to present a neutral arena of ideas, services and products to interested attendees, here is a key question: If you were to present your services and skills at a trade event, how would you rate your shop?

In the current economic downturn, I don’t know many people who visit shows for the sake of the show. No, the people I know attend shows to learn, gain knowledge and expand their ability to thrive in their current or next job posting. I attend for other reasons, i.e., to identify trending ideas, understand what works and what does not (lately it’s more about what does not work than what does) and often to measure the levels of trade show dialogue and engagement, without which the exhibition is likely to fail.

Please take a moment to consider these questions:

• Does your shop offer interest, information, knowledge, dialogue and engagement as the main exhibit?

• Can your client reach out to the manufacturers of print equipment and request information on the latest non-digital press technology and applications?

• Can your client call upon one of the digital press manufactures and request the insider’s view of what is considered trending in the digital print arena?

• Can your client contact a paper manufacturer or paper merchant to learn about the latest in substrates?

Chances are, only a small percentage of your clients or prospects will make these contacts. And how much will they actually learn?

Your shop is like the floor of a trade event or conference. When clients arrive, what will they see? More important, what will they learn and how will you benefit?

Knowledge gained is not knowledge lost. In fact, knowledge gained by your client from you is the bedrock of an expanding relationship characterized by dialogue and engagement.

Not every dialogue can be about sales, sales and more sales! No, you and your team must offer knowledge, laying down inside information at the altar of new business. Everyone on your team needs to be ready and able to present your brand and your message without expecting a sale!

Your plant tour or trade event is not a program to sell your client. It is a chance to become one with your client, to explain the scope of your traditional services, the scope of your new services and yes, yes, the links you have established to connect online and offline technologies with the sole purpose of increasing profits (both yours and your customers’), and providing a much stronger return on marketing investment (ROMI) on all that you deliver.

So, what exhibit do you think your customers would like the most? Pre-media, press, post press, distribution, data, customer service, quality control (or lack thereof), your front office, your back office, you, your sales team, your creative group, your lack of a creative group, consultative services, traditional print, digital print, the awards you won, the samples you present, your communications offering, the plan to keep your audience an integral part of your future and in turn your profits?

What about your involvement protocol, your customer desk, your media convergence evangelist, your vertical application skill set, the list of magazines (online and offline) you subscribe to, the list of blogs you read, your information data base?

Perhaps your answer is none of the above, OK. So fill in the blank: What is your visible client attachment point? ___________________________________.

Take a guess. I bet you will be wrong. No, I am not being testy, just honest. What you think is the pinnacle of your shop will be viewed differently by your sales team, by nearly everyone else in your organization and by your customer, client or prospect.

There is only one way to know, and I am not telling.

Why? In the end you will not believe me, you will say, “No way!, I can’t believe that is true!”

I am offering a solution to this puzzle: Just figure out the acronym TVIEOSYTWBTSEOSWBDPCOPATVTLW, and you will have the answer.

But before we end this discussion, read on. The best is yet to come.

Again, if your shop were a trade show, how would you get the client to attend?

Most firms rely on trade show management to handle getting the crowds. As a shop owner, you rely on your salespeople to bring in customers. In both examples, you would be wrong. Trade show managers sell you space and some assist in filling the aisles with attendees, but in the end you are in charge of attracting the right visitors and targeting customers to attend your event.

The same goes for your sales team. They will look to the financial advantage of getting the client, prospect or ex-client to the shop, and you may need to overrule them and take control. Get your clients to the event via a personalized integrated marketing program that exhibits the skills and services you offer.

Once you have your audience at the event, maintain communications with them by expanding the in-your-face component of dialogue and engagement, all the while positioning your salespeople in a supportive role. The event itself is neither the time nor the place for selling.

Lastly, after your newly educated and much more knowledgeable clients or prospects leave, they will want to keep it touch about relevant subjects. Expand the bond (nearly 74% of all leads generated at a trade show never are contacted) and remember: you and your shop are key components in the chain of communication, a chain that your marketing client lives and often dies by!

Need the solution to the acronym, email me your request and I will send you the answer.

thad.kubis@tifmc.org

Forget about sales in 2013, think profits!

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Forget about sales in 2013, think profits!

Let’s start off with the simple premise, you as all of us in business need new business and you want to develop a plan that will provide fertile ground to harvest sales season after season, do you agree?

I am also going to state that you do not wish to re-invent yourself, you are what you are and that ain’t as they say a bad thing.

Do you agree with the following statement?

If you owned a candy store and 30% of your customers said they no longer want sugar based candy, would you become a health food store? No, you would change your inventory, add new products based on your customers requests and benefit from that change. Sure you may lose some business but not all your business, by expanding your offerings you may even gain some new business.

A simple survey!
In 2013 where would you like your new business efforts to originate?

Marketers, as I called them the originators and enablers of your new business, including the enterprises, corporations, marketing departments, marketing managers, communication managers, purchasing agents, product managers, sales managers, distribution managers, print buyers.

The Creative Market, which includes designers, graphic designers, creative directors, art directors, advertising agency personal and those directly involved in the development of advertising, sales promotion, integrated marketing and related channels.

Verticals: An almost endless list, including Manufacturing, travel, travel and leisure, financial services, banking, medical, pharmaceutical, B2B, B2C. Add your vertical ________________.
Email thad@nakinc.com; include the target vertical that most interest you in the subject line. Once I have the results tallied I will present a series of articles on the how to attract sales based on those results.
Here is an example:
Subject: Marketers, Product Managers
Creative, Art Directors
Verticals, Travel

The future of Magazines and Publishing!

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The root of the word magazine is based on the Arabic word “makhzan” meaning “storehouse”.

As we enter 2013, a year that I foresee as a pivotal year for the transformation of “magazines”, I ask is a magazine a storehouse or it is much more?

What do you say? Let me know via thad.kubis@tifmc.org

If a magazine is a storehouse then we are losing the scope of what a true magazine is. Yes a magazine can store information but most storehouses are dusty, dark and non-innovative locations, located on the outskirts of town, not my view of a cutting edge tool. Most magazines do not store anything. No, outside of a reference book a magazine is to me a portal, a gateway or entrance to the first step of a planned sales event; the establishment of a dialogue via traditional and innovative, emerging media and marketing tools.

Dialogue is defined as an exchange of ideas and conversation. This discourse should lead to an engagement, which means many things to many people but for the sake of this article engagement is the meeting/visit/rendezvous/commitment of said seller with said sellee.

This may be a good time to ask where am I going with this train of logic?

Simply put I as do others define the goal of any magazine to start the sales process, with the establishment of a dialogue and the conversion of that exchange/dialogue to an engagement and then to at best a sale, or at least a continuation of the dialogue. Today this dialogue begins with the placement of a targeted advertisement, and with the support of new, emerging and converging technologies to allow the simple and easy transfer from the storehouse or gateway to the house of interaction.

But this not the future, and we need to look to the future!

To allow this transformation to take place I would agree with Earl J. Wilkinson and his recent article featured on the inma.com website. A link to this article is below. (http://www.inma.org/blogs/earl/post.cfm/5-keys-to-the-emerging-hope-for-publishers-amid-transformation?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nonmember).

I would counter that yes as Earl states a road map has emerged, but I think the road map provided by Earl is missing a few key “rest stops”. As John P. McLoughlin, EVP and GM of Hearst Magazines stated over a year ago, magazines need to find other venues of revenue. Earl states this need as the first stop on his valued road map, Earl also outlines the need to focus on the magazines core competencies, the seemingly everlasting print-only based audiences, the merging or convergence of print and digital (P+D/P2D) and yes, the mobile world of the smartphone as milestones, markers of the golden path to increased and expanded profits.

But what about the need to refit, refuel and move forward on your road to success. Add a few key rest stops for establishing dialogue and engagement and I think the road map is nearly complete. Why nearly complete? Road maps as true travel almost never goes as planned, so I think you need to built in some options for road construction, sightseeing and detours. I will call those course corrections, emerging technologies and the convergence of new media into the traditional media mix. Publishers need to consider experiential marketing and the defined 2013 trends that will impact their brands and those of their advertisers.
See no trip planning is ever complete it is always changing,

How do you handle those course corrections and how will they impact the industry.

The answers next month.

Interested in engaging customers, across publishing, direct marketing or targeted verticals read my latest article. http://www.pubexec.com/blog/the-pez-strategy-for-publishers-seeking-convergence-engagement

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If you have followed my writings you will know that I am a very strong supporter of the process of media convergence, integration and engagement. Engagement to me is a more important result than the immediate or impulse sale, since the term engagement defines a long-term relationship, which under the correct conditions will provide your advertisers with long-term sales.

The main obstacle to establishing engagement are the prospect themselves, (your clients potential customers) they will place multiple barriers, mislead and miss direct any marketer that they the prospect, has found to be unworthy to engage. The aware and engaging publisher, printer, marketer, advertiser or creative person will look to enter what I can the PEZ, or Prospect Engagement Zone.

Entry to the PEZ is a highly restricted, carefully regulated process that begins with defining the media trail, offering customer/product/service relevance, ease of interaction and brand integration.

PEZ is a multi leveled and dimensional zone of profit that once established can become the Holy Grail of the sales process. PEZ is the red carpet of red carpets, the last minute touchdown, and yes, it is the gateway or portal to the prospects long-term and ongoing spending habits.

How do you enter the PEZ?

Well in this complex world of media convergence you need to find what I call the enabler media. It seems from recent data that your prospect may have a favorite media or the vertical you are targeting is best reached by a defined media(s). Once the enabler media has been defined (it may change) you need to have an engagement media/process defined and linked to the correct media or combination. Your call to action or sales based media/process will also need to be defined and ready to go.

For example, it can be said that to achieve greater results when asking for donations, the first step to engage a prospect would be direct mail, but the enabler media for existing contributors is a digital approach. The same can be said if you are looking to introduce your product or service to a new audience, print, direct mail or other “offline” technologies work the best. Yet, today, media convergence has made the term offline as antiquated as buggy whip. The key to remember is that all media when planned correctly have a degree of online interaction, integration and an online interface.

Adaptation of a PEZ strategy broadens the range of available media and marketing opportunities because the marketer will need to establish an enabler, engagement, and call to action media (plan) that can change often, change is a big part of the BIG data link to media convergence, integration and results!

An in depth understanding not only of desired media and the types of media but a complete understanding of how the media, all the media is prospect relevant, integrates, interacts, converges and yes the attribution characteristics of your media selection MUST be understood.

Today as the world of print converges into the expanded world of communication, any printer or print provider has the base of needed products within their own shop. If you are offering “marketing solutions or services” you are close to fulfilling the first step of the need, you have the tools. A PEZ strategy will allow you to make the most of these tools and provide new avenue of profit.

Need to enter my PEZ; I will make it simple thad.kubis@tifmc.org.

* My apologies to the PEZ Candy Inc., I grew up eating PEZ and I still long to renew that most enjoyable engagement.

Doing Print Forensics Brings New Business

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If you are a printer, creative, print provider, marketer, end user or an agency, you MUST read this blog!

http://www.piworld.com/blog/doing-print-forensics-integrated-marketing-campaigns-brings-new-business-thaddeus-b-kubis?e=thad%40nakinc.com#utm_source=today-on-piworld&utm_medium=enewsletter_headline_story7&utm_campaign=2012-09-18