New Year's resolutions for newspaper executives
03 January 2012 · By Kylie Davis
Pop open the bubbly and kiss the person next to you! Good old New Year’s traditions always include a resolution or two. So here are some promises I hope newspaper executives internationally will keep this year.
- I will position my business around the needs of my readers and advertisers. To us they’re readers and advertisers — in any other business they’d be called customers. There is a point in the lifecycle of every business where it loses sight of its customers and starts to “improve” its service based on its own needs. Newspapers have been stuck in this rut for, oooh, about 30 years. But to reshape your business around the needs of your customers is to give yourself licence for radical reinvention.
- I will look externally for inspiration. No, not at what other newspaper companies are doing. This year, look at what other industries are doing. Examine case studies of successful reinvention from the tech sector, financial services, transport industries — and see how what they have been through can be applied to us. Change is hard, but others have been there before us and we can learn from their experience.
Newspapers don’t need to reinvent the wheel, just package it better
27 December 2011 · By Kylie Davis
At a time when newspaper buying habits-and advertiser habits-are dramatically changing, we need to be developing products that will engage around new behaviours, not defending old practices.
"You have a delicious cupcake that people love but can only eat every so often," I told an editor who was asking for advice on how to improve her section and attract a different audience to her publication.
"The question is not how you can make a more delicious cupcake or stretch the batter to make it a pie. The question is what else can you put on the menu that will convince people to buy regularly from your bakery?"
In the same way that McDonald's now has a healthier-options menu, with salads and wraps, as well as burgers, and in the same way that Coca-Cola has developed iced teas, bottled water and "vitamin drinks," newspaper companies need to think differently about their markets and the products they are developing in them to expand their appeal.
But the mistake too many newspapers continue to make when it comes to product improvement is to assume they need to improve an existing product.
This is why we see newspapers that believe the best way to turn a product around and make it more attractive to advertisers is to create more of it: more stories, more pages, more content, all in the same vein of what went before.
...[more]Why George Costanza should be the poster boy for newspapers in cultural transition
29 November 2011 · By Kylie Davis
Managing cultural change is hard. It takes discipline, commitment, experience, strategic thinking, a willingness to engage and a preparedness to face resistance without being put off. This probably explains why the newspaper industry is traditionally rubbish at it.
As a whole, we are deeply suspicious of anything that can’t be accomplished by tomorrow’s deadline, live in a hierarchical world where The Editor is obeyed and is always right even when he or she is wrong, and where we’d prefer to view our companies in the same way we analyse the value of a news story — by seeing the issue in the light of what is wrong — not what is going right.
I am a veteran of many news industry cultural “changes” — some of which I led successfully, some of which I tried to lead and felt I failed at, some of which were foisted upon me and created resentments so deep they required therapy for everyone involved — both changer and changee.
So I’ve been intrigued to follow the debate (Earl’s blogs) on managing cultural change, whether it is necessary and why we can’t do it.
...[more]Could data save newspapers?
01 November 2011 · By Kylie Davis
The world is entering a new era of “Big Data” according to a new McKinsey report which claims that businesses that can get their heads around how to harness the constant flow of information are winning the race of profit and competition.
The news is likely to offend many die hard traditionalists in newsrooms, who are still enraged by the Internet making the word “content” a synonym for journalism. But as obnoxious as it was for purists to contemplate the idea that the poetry of beautiful writing and stunning photography could be belittled by a collective noun, “content” has stretched our perceptions of journalism now. The word has helped us to visualise story telling environments that incorporate rich picture galleries, video, and interactive graphics and information that is both spontaneous and curated. Calling journalism “content” broke an old perception and allowed us to see our product in a different light — the light of our readers and customers (who are now called users, by the way, but we’ll leave that for now).
And so, to data. Data is an interesting one. A big one. Bigger than “content” because data could describe not just what we produce, but, if we get smart very quickly, considering that what we do is data could be our new business model.
...[more]Is access better than ownership for newspapers?
06 October 2011 · By Kylie Davis
Is renting better than owning? And could leasing be a new business model for newspapers?
A consumer behaviour report from international futurists, trendwatching.com, got me thinking about whether a model that works for real estate could have merit as an alternative revenue source for newspaper companies.
The report this month was on (Re)commerce — looking at the emerging trend of letting people recycle past purchases by returning them to receive a discount, or value add, attached to their next purchase. What struck me as genuinely intriguing about the idea is the extraordinary number of clever brands now using the concept successfully to recycle everything from mobile phones to jeans and cars.
Let’s face it, recycling newspapers is as old as, well the Gothenburg Press. And no one is suggesting that marketing nirvana is to be found by encouraging people to lug around an old broadsheet all day in the hope of getting a whopping 50 cents back. But it got me thinking about just how comfortable newspapers are with re-use — we use readership figures that boast more than one reader per copy religiously. So rather than literally giving back money to a single user, would we not be better to find a business model that recognises our readers’ current behaviour and how that is adapting and changing and charging accordingly? And doesn’t this model exist already and is known as renting or leasing? Hmmm. I smell a wheel.
...[more]Creativity must triumph over process in war of corporate culture
07 September 2011 · By Kylie Davis
As a card-carrying member of Generation X, I am a big proponent of cultural change in newspapers and its absolute necessity if we are to have a future that is robust and exciting, not one of whimpering retreat.
I even confess to finding merit in the view of Australian author Ryan Heath, whose 2006 book Please Just F*** Off, It’s Our Turn Now, claimed urgent generational change was needed because baby boomers “hog all the good jobs, are moribund superannuated leaders whose tired methods and recycled ideas are leading us to mediocrity and decline.” (His words, not mine.)
Heath was writing about Australian society, arguing that younger people needed to be given more roles of responsibility, and their ideas allowed oxygen and impact. But I always thought his views had particular resonance for the newspaper industry globally where too many decisions about our future are made by men in grey suits who use only 15% of the technology available to them and make business decisions accordingly. (Fellas, you know I love you all individually, but as a voting block that determines our future, you regularly drive me and my contemporaries mental.)
...[more]A dash of creativity, a pinch of chaos, and a platter full of lessons
10 August 2011 · By Kylie Davis
Put 60 newspaper editors into a large commercial kitchen, arm them with knives, fuel them with alcohol, and turn up the heat insisting they work as a team to create something edible. Then you’ll have a recipe for fascinating insights into what is both great and alarming about our industry.
The recent Australian News Ltd. Editors’ Conference featured a group bonding exercise based on the extremely popular television show Masterchef.
Masterchef is a reality television show where amateur cooks are put through their paces competing on a range of challenges from complicated Michelin-starred recipes to inventing restaurant-quality meals from just a handful of seemingly unrelated ingredients.
The show has been a phenomenon in Australia, racking up millions of viewers every week and breaking viewing records for its finals. The show has just finished its third season and has become a major cooking franchise with spin-off magazines (owned by News Ltd.). Its judges — Matt, George and Gary — are household names synonymous with food quality, and new words such as “plating up” have joined the Australian vocabulary. Everywhere, kids and adults who have ever held a wooden spoon dream of owning their own restaurant or food business.
...[more]The value of values: clearly defining and demonstrating our integrity
12 July 2011 · By Kylie Davis
It’s a rare — and astonishing — day when a profitable newspaper is closed down. But the decision by Rupert Murdoch to shut the News of the World is a telling example of the importance of values in the newsroom, and how our day-to-day behaviour as journalists and editors usurps any cleverly spun marketing line about what our “brand strengths” are.
Newspapers have been tossing around the idea that we have “brand values” for a while now. We like to trot out the line to reassure ourselves that our activities in online and mobile have some semblance of what appears in print. But most of us are pretty misguided as to what that really means, or how it plays out commercially.
Most editors believe their mastheads have brand values that are made up of proud histories of journalism, and the heritage of their papers to report and disseminate the news and capture interest. In these cases, we are confusing history with brand values and the rusted-on behaviours of our customers as brand strength.
The missing link that the News of the World has so deplorably illustrated is that the brand values of our newspapers are the sum of our behaviours as journalists, editors and photographers — and also as advertising teams, classifieds telemarketers, subscription teams, online newsdesks, and marketing and commercial personnel.
...[more]Virtual world of gaming holds real lessons for content strategy
13 June 2011 · By Kylie Davis
“Why didn’t newspapers invent Groupon?” was a question that got Tweeters at the INMA World Congress excited, starting a debate on creativity in newspaper companies that ran parallel to the official program.
Facebook, Google, Angry Birds, YouTube — these were all quickly identified as major game changers that newspapers should have had the technological and content understanding to embrace early on, but just stood by wringing their hands. There was a sense of frustration, but also determination by the tweeters.
“Same reason railroad companies didn’t invent air travel,” was one response. And from there the discussion quickly started to identify the early themes of the conference — the urgent need for cultural change in our industry, for entrepreneurialism, and putting money behind opportunities that drive audience participation and engagement.
The gap between newspaper understanding of what is going on at the cutting edge of content engagement and where our businesses need to be positioning themselves had been brought home to me just a few weeks earlier.
After sitting through one of those group meetings that makes you feel watching paint drying could be a more productive use of two hours, (and ironically, it was on the topic of how we engage our readers in content), I came home to cuddle on the couch with my youngest son Charlie. (He still lets me do that occasionally and after some meetings, you really need a hug.)
...[more]Refusing to step outside comfort zone creates a new kind of madness
24 May 2011 · By Kylie Davis
Einstein is quoted as saying the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.
If this is the case then newspaper companies could rightly be classed as certifiable. We are constantly guilty of simply tweaking ideas a little and expecting major results, being disappointed and then trying it all over again.
But the good news is that it’s not our fault. Possibly, it’s the way our brains are wired, according to a new report from the McKinsey Quarterly. And the really good news is that with some practice, the damage is reversible.
“The human mind is surprisingly adroit at supporting its deep-seated ways of viewing the world while sifting out evidence to the contrary,” according to the report “Sparking creativity in teams: An executive’s guide.” “Even when presented with overwhelming facts, many people (including well-educated ones) simply won’t abandon their deeply held opinions.”
Is this the reason why newspaper executives, when faced with compelling evidence that they must dramatically change their business models, have instead chosen courses that were minor improvements, tweaks and adjustments?
...[more]
