When we want to learn about strategy, we often gravitate to successes, yet failures are often far more instructive. Newsweek’s failed strategy gives us a great opportunity to do just that.
For those who missed it, last week the Washington Post company announced that they would sell the magazine, which they have owned since 1961, citing mounting losses and no clear path to profitability. The announcement was in stark contrast to Time Inc, which announced a very good first quarter.
The failure of Newsweek is especially interesting because it comes on the heels of a new strategy and redesign launched just short while ago. So it’s worthwhile for us to take a look at what the strategy actually was and why it failed.
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Why does a rabbit run faster than a fox? Because while the fox is running for his dinner, the rabbit is running for his life. Businesses work the same way.
This isn’t a post about motivations, but rather a very simple principle with far reaching consequences: Priorities matter. Things survive for a reason. Existence implies viability.
Therefore we should always be on guard when given easy answers to hard questions and simple metrics to explain complex businesses. Life is much more complicated than dinner.
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Conversation is in vogue this year, which begs the question: Who are you talking to?
Analyzing consumers is one of the most important things marketers do and therefore it’s important to get it right. Unfortunately, there are many pitfalls and it’s easy to get lost.
Here’s a quick guide to common mistakes and how to avoid them.
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Media is changing at such a frenetic pace that even the most jaded veterans of the industry are uncertain about what it all means. We’re told the old days are gone, but it’s still not clear what the future will bring.
It seems that as soon as the next “big thing” comes along, a bigger one arrives to take its place. All of the dissonance and chatter is extremely confusing and that makes it hard to plot strategy going forward.
However, hidden in the commotion, there are some principles that are constant and they can help guide our way.
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It’s no secret that the newspaper business is in very serious trouble. That’s a problem for the companies that own newspapers and for the journalists who work for them, but it is also a problem for the rest of us.
Newspapers make up the foundation of the fourth estate that is essential to the functioning of our society. As somebody who has first hand experience with societies that lack a well functioning free press, I can tell you it isn’t a pretty picture.
There is no problem with newspapers; it’s the newspaper business that needs to be fixed.
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We all follow trends. They are a sign of the times, a reflection of the zeitgeist and have the benefit of being relatively easy to spot and extrapolate off of.
However, what’s really interesting are the inflection points, when trends switch directions. That’s when fortunes are made and lost. Here’s three ways to spot them.
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Is Digital Media taking over? Not according to the data. With digital at 12% of global media spend, 88% still goes where it always went.
The web is the most rapidly adopted technology in history, spreading across the globe in less than a decade and gaining penetration even in areas that are desperately poor. It’s hard to think of a more transformative technology.
That’s what makes the relative failure of digital media that much more astounding. It took 15 years to break 10% market share and will probably take at least another decade to reach the current levels of TV.
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Repetition is the soul of wit, or so it would seem.
Lies are always convenient, unencumbered as they are by the burdens of fact, but if they are repeated enough they can become popular as well. As lies spread, they will eventually encounter themselves and become self affirming. (Oh, you heard that too?).
Here’s a quick guide to five of my favorite lies which are making the rounds as we speak:
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Traditional media has a big problem.
They know they need to make the transition to digital, but still have to pay the bills and maintain margins. Unlike digital upstarts, incumbents don’t have investors willing to wait years for results, but have to earn money every day.
To make the transition to, new skills need to be learned. Yet, even more importantly, they need to unlearn some things that they thought they knew about how to make money in media.
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Many digital marketers proclaim that they offer superior value than traditional media by delivering direct response metrics. No touchy-feely image talk, but concrete results. Just the facts ma’am.
That’s a mistake. The world’s premier marketers spend billions every year on brand image campaigns because they make money doing so. Anybody who believes that the profit oriented companies continue to invest because they are subject to some kind of mass delusion is just not thinking clearly.
The bulk of marketing budgets will continue to go toward building brand perceptions because brands are incredibly powerful.
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