Category results for "Innovation"

Conde Nast Entertainment Tees off Sports Video with Launch of Golf Digest Channel

March 20, 2014 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

Condé Nast Entertainment launched its first sports video channel yesterday with the debut of the Golf Digest Channel. According to Molly Baldwin, Director of Editorial Operations for GolfDigest.com, “We see a really big future in video—particularly when it comes to instruction,” which is something the brand has long focused on.

While Baldwin is enthusiastic about the opportunities to create more effective learning moments for the Golf Digest audience, she believes that video gives the brand ways to deepen audience relationships as well. “The fact that instruction works well in video is very natural for our brand, but any brand would be remiss to think they could only rely on print. Every brand has to evolve and go to where audiences are, which is increasingly in front of a screen.”

Not only does Golf Digest find itself with content that effectively transitions from the page to video—such as the “Hungover Caddie” column, which will become an animated series—Baldwin says they’ve got a wealth of talent that already shine on video. Among these is Ben Crane, who Baldwin describes as “a comedic genius… in addition to being on the PGA tour,” who will host #GolfSecrets with Ben Crane. This increased emphasis on video content will also afford Golf Digest a means to further develop its editorial staff on screen.

Unsurprisingly, Baldwin says “There’s been a wealth of demand for video advertising,” which is certainly a driving force behind Condé Nast Entertainment’s continued expansion in video offerings. This is its ninth digital video channel since its 2011 launch and the second this year. The Golf Digest channel launched with Callaway as its sponsor, leveraging pre-roll and in-stream video overlays. And Baldwin says that they’ve already had “great interest from both endemic and non-endemic brands” and have had early discussions around product placement and custom content. “This is a space advertisers want to play in.”

“It is still early days for this play in digital video and we are eager to learn from our audiences what they want and what works. That’s the great value digital brings,” says Baldwin, “we get immediate feedback and we can continue to learn and experiment.”

Innovation

What do Travolta, Weiner and Romney Have in Common? Good Smart Fun.

March 7, 2014 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

Covering everything from political scandal and civil unrest to technology and pop culture, Slate satisfies its audience with its highly intelligent and wholly irreverent perspective on just about everything. Slate is a go-to for an insightful take on the topics du jour. But it feels a lot more like a friend who finds humor in almost any situation than a dogmatic professor. Apparently you can discuss Romulans and the Big Bang on the same page as The Poetry of the Cosmos and Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine. Who knew?

Slate editor David Plotz, for one. In fact, he says Slate makes a conscious effort to hire staff who “are serious about their subjects, but also witty. It is core to our brand to be smart, analytical and funny.”

Funny is exactly the right word to describe John Travolta’s Oscar night name-mangling of Broadway singer Idina Menzel as “Adele Dazeem.” We’ve all mispronounced names, though generally not with 43 million ardently-engaged viewers watching. Jokes were bound to ensue. But back at the Slate office, Monday morning joking turned into Monday afternoon pageview gold.

According to Plotz, Slate video producer Jim Festante came up with the The Adele Dazeem Name Generator and Slate interactive editor Chris Kirk, “a coder with journalistic DNA and a good wit” brought it to life — to the tune of nine million page views and counting. In fact, it is Slate’s most-viewed content to date. The widget, says Plotz, “blew up like nothing we have ever seen.”

While it can be tempting to look at the success of the name generator and try to mimic it, and equally tempting to enter the names of anyone you know (which will likely extend well beyond your lunch break), not every story needs a widget. One size does not fit all. Nor, it seems, does any set formula. The fact that Slate was “born digital” affords it unprecedented editorial flexibility. Likening his decision-making process to Michelangelo’s (tongue just barely in cheek) Plotz says, “I cut away all the pieces that don’t look like David.”

Sometimes, that takes the shape of an award-winning article. And sometimes, of a wildly-popular widget. The trick to knowing how to tackle a Slate story, it seems is “treasuring the relationship with [its] audience, which is very devoted and very smart.”

It is also about the relationship between technology and journalism. “Journalism, for a digital publication,” says Plotz, “is intrinsically an interaction between the words and the medium. Sometimes that means an 18,000 word story and sometimes that means a generator.”

Like Slate “generators” before it — which include the Carlos Danger Name Generator (“Get a name like Anthony Weiner’s alleged sexting pseudonym”) and the Mitt Romney Income Generator (“How long would it take the GOP candidate to earn what you make in a year?”) — The Adele Dazeem Name Generator leverages editorial wit with digital agility and technological acumen to create interactive experiences that are naturally social. This latest widget success has already garnered five million referrals from Facebook and 43,000 tweets.

“Our Oscars coverage was extensive, with a dozen or maybe 20 stories coming out of it. Like the rest of the audience, we saw this super funny moment and sometimes you need to do something quick. Fish gotta swim, right? It just seemed so natural.”

Innovation | Research

Discovery Digital Networks Growth Fueled by Staff Superfans

March 6, 2014 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

Discovery Digital Networks is feeling the love from its audience more than ever. The web-native portfolio, which is made up of four original video networks – Revision3, TestTube, Animalist and the DeFranco Network – has increased views and audience 400% since Revision3 joined the Discovery Communications family in May 2012. An increased focus on video has been a key factor in the growth. Today, fans across these four digital networks are consuming, on average, 160 million video views each month and, in social circles, the communities are stronger than ever – with 35 million followers and 14 million Facebook fans.

Discovery’s digital-native portfolio has driven its growth the ‘Discovery way,’ with highly curated, premium content. Content that Discovery owns. Great storytelling is at the heart of the programming, led by show hosts who are as authentic as the content itself. It’s the relationship between the show host and each community that drives engagement.

In fact, according to the latest Discovery Digital Networks’ Audience Survey, the most compelling driver of views and social interaction is the fact that Discovery hosts are, themselves “superfans of their brands, the network and its content,” according to Suzanne McDonnell, SVP of Sales Strategy & Client Solutions at Discovery Communications.

According to Discovery’s research, the authenticity of its hosts is at the core of why its content resonates with fans and advertisers alike. As McDonnell puts it, “our hosts are experts not actors. They are born of the communities that they represent.” This affinity between the shows’ fans and the equally engaged hosts has inspired the programming.

Comments from survey respondents made this sentiment clear: “The Rev3Games team comes across as honest professional[s] that actually play and enjoy games…You are critics, yes, but you also have a love for gaming.” Of Hak5, a respondent said “I think it is the personalities that make it top notch. They really seem to be enjoying themselves.” And one DNews viewer said “I feel just like I’m listening to a friend talk.”

Discovery Digital Networks found that 97% of viewers are very/somewhat satisfied with the host’s personality and 92% with the host’s expertise. This fact, says McDonnell, keeps the network focused on “a hosted-show model around which we build passionate communities.”

The power of highly curated, premium programing, led by authentic hosts, extends itself to advertisers as well. Discovery’s research found that 64% of respondents feel that brands featured within the network programs are usually a good fit with the show/channel, and 50% have more confidence in brands featured within the programming. “Viewers trust Discovery Digital Networks to feature brands that are relevant to them. Viewers’ highly favorable opinions of our content adds a halo effect to brands featured within the content,” says McDonnell. “That presents unparalleled opportunity for advertisers to join the conversation and become a member of these communities.”

Innovation

AccuWeather Makes Another Social Connection With Launch of BBM Channel

February 27, 2014 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

AccuWeather has launched a branded BBM Channel to extend its social connection to weather fans. The company, which has a longstanding relationship with Blackberry, has joined the ranks of brands such as Time and Disney in creating its own dedicated BBM Channel. The new AccuWeather BBM Channel will offer a range of breaking weather information, including severe weather updates, breaking stories, local weather images, radar and more, which Blackberry Messaging (BBM) subscribers can access across mobile platforms.

AccuWeather timed its Channel release to coincide with last week’s expansion of BBM when Blackberry announced an update to BBM for all users as well as making Blackberry’s private social network available to iPhone and Android smartphone users. AccuWeather’s Coordinator of Social Media Jesse Ferrell says that the move made sense to extend the brand’s mobile and social reach, “BlackBerry has a huge audience who is always connected and online, and we are thrilled to be able to interact with that audience through this Social channel.”

BBM Channels is Blackberry’s social engagement platform that works within BBM. It allows people to connect with the businesses, brands, celebrities and groups of interest. It also lets users engage in in conversation around content in a similar fashion to Twitter and Facebook while providing brands with integrated monitoring and measurement tools.

“Social Media in general helps AccuWeather inform its audience about inclement weather, while reinforcing the brand,” says Ferrell. Though the audience may overlap with other social channels on which AccuWeather is already active, Ferrell says that delivering content within the context of Blackberry Messaging will extend the reach of its weather related information to an audience that might not yet be as familiar with what the AccuWeather brand offers. And, as Ferrell points out, “Because of its real-time and local nature, weather is always a win on Social Media.”

Innovation | Revenue

Free to Innovate: Experimentation in Fee-based Media Models

February 20, 2014 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

For a time, free looked like the only option for the media business. The model seemed to be a veritable free-for-all. Because, despite digital content consumers’ insatiable appetite, models that made this all-you-can-eat buffet profitable—or at least as profitable as offline legacy models—remained elusive. The upside of the rise of free was that market pressure caused many media businesses to experiment with monetization methods and, in many cases, they have diversified their revenue streams, strategies, and organizational structure which makes them more resilient in the long term.

Yet contrary to the seemingly overwhelming tide of free, many media organizations sustain subscription-based models. In fact, according to research conducted late last year, 95% of OPA members have an ongoing subscription based strategy. And these strategies are far from stagnant.

Subscription Model Starting Point
While its longstanding subscription business makes it one of the industry’s paid content poster children, the Financial Times continuously pursues the development of new offerings that maintain customer affinity and feed the bottom line. When considering a new premium offering, FT.com managing director Rob Grimshaw suggests that you first focus on “what is unique or different about your product. Then he says, “take advantage of the flexibility that the web environment offers. You don’t have to put up a gigantic blank door on the site that says ‘pay to enter.’ The web offers many ways to do these things: You can build sampling in, you can use freemium models.”

Though Michael Crosby, COO of The Deal says that a subscription based initiative “is no different than any business idea,” he suggests examining the market and look for a problem that exists. Then ask “Can we provide insight or analysis the fills that gap?”

Sarah McConville, Harvard Business Review Group VP and HBR Press publisher, also approaches the development of subscription offerings from distinct value propositions. However she says “we always start with audience. For whom are we developing this? What job are they hiring Harvard Business Review to do?”

Innovation and Experimentation
As Grimshaw points out, digital media provide an opportunity for a great deal of flexibility and experimentation with pricing, offerings and customer experience. At FT.com, they not only view subscription models as a revenue stream, they are a means to better understand, serve and retain customers. “Subscriptions create a direct relationship with your audience,” he says. “You learn so much about them including demographics, onsite behavior and other information that can be very powerful from a marketing and advertising point of view.”

One insight that he has put to work for FT.com was that “engagement is absolutely critical to the success of subscription models.” This engagement imperative was a driving force between the company’s Fast FT product, which provides a continuous stream of “intelligent first-response to the news.” While the creation of a near-real time news culture marked a shift for the FT, Grimshaw says it has paid off with those visiting Fast FT spending ten or more minutes on the site.

HBR has also made a significant change in approach over the past year by offering “All Access” as its primary offer to subscribers. Readers can access their Harvard Business Review subscription in print, online, and via your iPad, and access to the current issue as well as the online archive of 50+ years of HBR articles. McConville says “we were really pleased to see that, in a time when many media brands are cutting subscription price and offering more content for free as a way of maintaining circulation levels, with “All Access” we’ve been able to add more subscribers, and increase the price with this subscription. Harvard Business Review’s 1H13 AAM Publisher’s Statement was the highest paid circulation level in HBR’s history at 260K. “

At The Deal, Crosby says they focus on helping readers come up with “ideas for their next deal through our editorial insight.” Realizing that these readers will then want to figure out how they might have a connection with someone who will help them make that next deal, The Deal launched a subscription offering called “Connections” that does just that.

Subscription Success Strategy
To create a content product that pays, Crosby says you must have an “obsessive focus on the user experience” Understanding how it fits in with their daily workflow is the starting point that will ensure that a user “needs to have your service.”

One piece of advice McConville says it is essential to align the editorial and commercial stakeholders in a shared understanding of how offerings serve subscribers. However she also suggests “bringing in the skeptics, listen and take them seriously.”

Grimshaw agrees that much can be learned from peers and your own team. However, he suggests that one of the best ways to foster innovation in subscription content offerings is to “look outside of the boundaries of the publishing industry.” He suggests looking at the retail industry, gaming, and others pioneering the space to find inspiration for the next generation of subscription innovation.

You Might Also be Interested In:

Q&A with Rob Grimshaw, Managing Director, FT.com on Subscription Model Success

Q&A with Michael Crosby, Chief Operating Officer, The Deal on Subscription Model Success

Q&A with Sarah McConville, VP of Marketing, HBR & Publisher HBR Press on Subscription Models

Innovation

Where Dreams Come True: Disney Launches Startup Accelerator

February 18, 2014 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

Disney has joined the ranks of Fortune 500 companies launching accelerator program. General Electric made headlines last year when it announced StartsUpHealth with the mission to build 1,000 sustainable health and wellness companies within a decade. And two years ago, Nike partnered with TechStars to create the Nike+ Accelerator Program, which is designed to drive digital sports innovation. Disney also opted to partner with TechStars, a mentorship-driven seed stage investment program.

While he notes Disney’s respect for the past, Kevin Mayer, EVP, Corporate Strategy and Business Development at The Walt Disney Company, says this initiative is an extension of Disney’s “long, storied history of innovation.” According to Mayer, “We have also been leaders in entertainment technology development with inventions like the multiplane camera, audio-animatronics, circle-vision 360° and Fantasound. I see Disney Accelerator as an extension of this legacy and a new way of bringing together the creative energies of the media/entertainment and start-up communities to inspire innovation.”

Disney Accelerator will select 10 startup companies for a three-month mentorship and seed-stage investment program which begins June 30th. Participants will receive $120,000 in investment capital to develop their ideas. They will also receive mentor support from top Disney executives, including Disney chairman and CEO Robert A. Iger and John Skipper, Co-Chariman, Disney Media Networks Group and President of ESPN, along with others from Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, ESPN and Walt Disney Imagineering and the investment community.

“While the seed capital is clearly a boost for the selected start-ups, the most valuable aspect of the program is its unique access to the time, expertise and involvement of Disney Accelerator’s diverse group of mentors,” says John Kosner the EVP Digital and Print Media, ESPN who is one of the participating mentors. “These new companies will get the benefit of all the ideas, experiences and lessons learned from some of the most successful and innovative leaders Disney and its network has to offer.” The list of mentors also includes Anne Sweeney, Co-chairman Disney Media Networks and President Disney-ABC Television, Group; Jason Calacanis, CEO and Founder, Inside.com; and Alan Patricof, Founder and Managing Director of Greycroft Partners.

According to Meyer, that the Disney Accelerator “unites the start-up community and the media/entertainment industry in an effort to collaborate on new, disruptive, innovative products that could provide opportunity or value for our business and inform the future of the media and entertainment industries.”

Along with access to stories, characters, technology and other resources from across The Walt Disney Company, selected teams will also present their companies and products to industry leaders and investors during an Investor Demo Day in September.

Applications are being accepted through April 16.

Innovation | Perspectives | Research

Q&A with Joe D. Weir, VP of Digital, A.H. Belo on Mobile Advertising Innovation

February 14, 2014 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights… If you want to learn more, keep an eye out on our site for more interviews. Today’s Three on Three is with Joe D. Weir, VP of Digital, A.H. Belo.

Q: In mobile advertising, what is the most important thing to consider?

A: I think that it is the ability to reach the consumer where they are. “Where they are” means two things: First, it can mean geolocation. But it can also mean where the consumer is within the buying cycle.

For example, I am going to dinner. So first we need to think about how we play a part in where they are physically. Then we need to think about where they are in their decision making process about dinner. At that point, we factor in our relationships with businesses, grocery, restaurants, to help marry up the consumer and “where they are” with our advertisers.

People are using mobile more often, in more places and more ways; they are using it in line to buy movie tickets or at the grocery story, or pumping gas. But behind all that may be them doing something bigger. For example, maybe they are in the process of buying a car and using mobile to explore and research products.

We need to understand how the consumer is using mobile so we can connect them with content that helps them make better decisions or, as we’ve done through our partnership with cars.com, to bring buyers together with sellers in the marketplace. Another factor to keep in mind is the importance of reviews. An exciting opportunity for us has been matching up consumer reviews with other content.

Mobile helps change the landscape because of its mobility, but also because of its connectivity. It allows for more data points around various topics.

Q: Describe one of your recent or forthcoming mobile ad initiatives that you think is particularly innovative:

A: First let me tell you a bit about our approach. The way we’ve looked at mobile is that we’re trying to build a network of mobile access. We have variations of our content that is HTML5 that can be pulled up and rendered on whatever device consumers are on—mobile or tablet. We also have applications that we’ve launched for iOS and Android and we’re working with Windows right now.

If you look our stuff, you’ll see things like “Dallas’ Best Burgers” and “Dallas Skyline”. Obviously, we also have our core offering like Dallas Morning News as websites, epaper and applications. One of our strengths, as with a lot of newspapers, is sports.

I think one of our most innovative stories is in sports. So it is an understatement to say that High School football is big in Texas. In December, we had a game that broke the national High School attendance record with more than 54 thousand attendees. Needless to say, we’d been creating all this content around High School ball and realized we needed a mobile play in that space.

The way we created the SportsDay High School app, and the way we sold the whole campaign, is a good example for media companies. The app delivers all of the content we were creating, but we also built live score delivery into it, which is really optimal for mobile. It also includes push notifications and alerts for teams you are interested in. So what we did was work hard to create an app experience audiences would really want.

Then we sold a single sponsorship to the app as part of a much larger package, which had print, desktop and mobile components. Albertsons sponsored an entire High School Sports package. It even includes a community element where Albertsons honors top players at a banquet. Mobile, for us, fits into something bigger. It allows us, as publishers, to pull together revenue opportunities that might exist in a range of areas as one larger sale, which delivers more to the advertiser as well.

Q: What is working in mobile advertising, and what do we need more of, in order to drive success in this area?

A: We need a couple of things. First, there needs to be as much standardized delivery of advertising as possible.

We also need the best ease the integration of mobile into our existing business. There are a lot of media companies right now who, with their mobile, are doing ad serving with x company over here and then on desktop, with y company over here. And all of those systems are separate and don’t talk to each other. All media companies need to look at their technology stack and figure out how their technology can support the needs of salespeople. It needs to be very efficient for pre-sales—to understand how big the audience is and what the opportunity is. It also needs to be efficient for post-sales—I’ve closed the business and need to implement the campaign across platforms.

We have this great group of sales people who go out into the market every single day. Their job is to sell audiences and those audiences exist on mobile, print, desktop, tablet. So to make the most of that, we need to create the best technology stack to distribute the ad dollars seamlessly across our different platforms. The easier this is for sales people, the easier it will be to get those dollars in the front door.

Joe D Weir leads sales of all digital offerings of DMNmedia and is responsible for product development and digitally related strategic initiatives. Prior to joining DMNmedia, Joe had been with Belo for 18 years. His most recent position was Vice President of Digital for Belo since 2009. His responsibilities included digital strategies for revenue and audience growth across new media platforms. Weir was named a “Digital All-Star” in 2010 by Broadcasting & Cable magazine. In 2009 he was named “Outstanding Young Alumnus” from his alma mater Hardin-Simmons University and in 2008 he led WFAA.com to be honored with a National Edward R Murrow for online innovation. Weir currently serves on The University of North Texas RTVF (Radio, TV and Film) Executive Board.

Also in this series:

Q&A with Brian Colbert, Chief Revenue Officer, About.com on Mobile Advertising Innovation

Innovation | Revenue

Q&A with Sarah McConville, VP of Marketing, HBR & Publisher HBR Press on Subscription Models

February 3, 2014 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

Q: When conceiving of a subscription-based model, initiative or product, where should you begin strategically?

A: At Harvard Business Review, we always start with the audience. Whether it’s a strategic initiative, a new product concept or our overall subscription model, we ask the questions: For whom are we developing this? What job are they hiring Harvard Business Review to do? What’s the context in which they will be using this offering? What are we bringing to it that is of distinctive value for the audience? What can we give them that is far and away better than they could get anywhere else?

And, just as importantly, we work to ensure that all parts of our business – editorial, marketing, advertising, product development – are in sync when beginning a new strategic effort or offering.

In the past year we’ve been following the framework of a book we recently published calledPlaying to Win. It’s been an incredibly helpful focusing mechanism at all levels of our business.Playing to Winputs you through the paces of asking: What is our winning aspiration? What does winning, not just competing, look like? Where will we play? Specifically, which segments, which markets, which channels, which products? How will we win? So that we get at what our strategic advantage is in achieving our winning aspiration, what capabilities must be in place? How must we be prepared as an organization and as individuals to achieve our aspiration? And finally, what management systems are required? In other words, how are we going to support our behaviors and track our progress? It’s helped us to align and cascade our efforts from an HBR group-level down to individual units and teams.

Q: Please describe one of your subscription-based initiatives and the way in which you feel it is particularly innovative.

A: In the past year we’ve made a significant change to our subscription model by offering “All Access” as our primary offer to subscribers. “All Access” is just that: You can access your Harvard Business Review subscription in print, online, and via your iPad, and you have access to the current issue as well as our online archive of 50+ years of HBR articles. We made the move to “All Access” after hearing from subscribers that this offer represented a greater value for them than just print or print and website alone. And I have to say that we were really pleased to see that, in a time when many media brands are cutting subscription price and offering more content for free as a way of maintaining circulation levels, with “All Access” we’ve been able to add more subscribers, and increase the price with this subscription. Harvard Business Review’s 1H13 AAM Publisher’s Statement was the highest paid circulation level in HBR’s history at 260K.

Based on the success of “All Access” we’re in the process of engaging with our audience to explore other ways of adding value to a Harvard Business Review subscription at a premium level so that we can build on our success to deliver an even better experience for our readers in the future.

Q: What advice would you give in terms of approaching subscription models creatively? Are there any best practices, processes, tips or resources that you would suggest?

A: I think it’s important to listen closely to your subscribers and to understand their most important needs today, but also have an eye on the future and a sense of how you think you can grow your business. Finding this balance of today and tomorrow is critically important. Engage in ongoing audience research, follow best practices from other media brands, but have a strong point of view about what you think makes your offering unique and what you can capitalize on to deliver more value.

When considering new models or offerings, work hard to align the editorial and commercial stakeholders in a shared understanding of how you’re serving subscribers and what you want to deliver to them. But also bring in the skeptics, listen, take them seriously. They will help you gain a different perspective on what you’re trying to do and push you to think more rigorously about the solution you want to offer and the audience segments and channels in which you want to play.

Work to create value for everyone – subscribers and customers, the editorial team and contributors, advertisers, employees. It’s important that everyone involved is contributing and feels they are being well served by the outcome.

Continually check your assumptions. What is true today is sure to change in the future. Evolving your subscription model is an ongoing practice that requires you to constantly test, try new things, learn from the feedback, refine − and sometimes, take a step in a new direction. Innovation is a dynamic process.

Sarah McConville is the Vice President of Marketing for Harvard Business Review Group and Publisher of Harvard Business Review Press. In her role as Publisher, McConville leads the commercial aspects of Harvard Business Review Press, including strategic partnerships, marketing and communications, licensing, and global sales. With Harvard Business Review Group’s executive team led by Group Publisher Joshua Macht and Editor-in-Chief Adi Ignatius, McConville is helping to shape the transformation of Harvard Business Review into a multi-platform digital media brand.

Note: This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights.

Also in this series:

Q&A with Rob Grimshaw, Managing Director, FT.com on Subscription Model Success

Q&A with Michael Crosby, Chief Operating Officer, The Deal on Subscription Model Success

Innovation

Customer Understanding Drives “Cultish” Devotion to the Content People Love

January 29, 2014 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

Perspective matters. Be it a writer with a point of view or a brand inspiring cultish loyalty, delivering an engaging experience rather than information on its own is what will drive digital consumption and profitability. As Strauss Zelnick, founder of Zelnick Media put it, “what you do has to be compelling; it cannot be generic.” This experience, he believes, will deliver much more than those dreaded digital dimes. “We ought to get to digital dollars as we create engagement,” Zelnick confidently stated at the 12th Annual OPA Summit held January 22-24 in Miami.

As OPA President Pam Horan pointed out in her opening remarks, “It’s not content that people kinda like. Or content that people occasionally pay attention to. It’s about content that people genuinely love. And use.” That love, as several speakers pointed out, is driven by genuine enthusiasm about a given subject, be it business or celebrity gossip. As John Najarian, EVP/GM of Digital and Business Development at E! Entertainment put it, during the “Creating Content People Love” panel, “When you read a sports story or a business story, you can tell that there are people behind that category that are really passionate.” Fellow panelist Forbes Editor Randall Lane agreed that point of view has been integral to his brands’ success, but to it he adds credibility as the other key component in creating content that drives engagement.

Vox Media COO and Group Publisher Marty Moe said success “all starts with great content and an emphasis on social.” And to translate that into revenue, “it takes a combination of talent and technology.” However Moe did quip that, at Vox—which is known for such digitally native brands as the Verge and SBNation—“we have magazine envy” to which Forbes’ Lane replied, “You know… we’re for sale.”

Though as Zelnick pointed out, during his interview by Krishan Bhatia, EVP, Digital Strategy and Operations of NBCUniversal, his business (like that of Vox Media) does not “have to focus on a legacy business, so we can focus solely on the future.” This notion of the peril of protecting legacy businesses at the expense of preparing for the future was at the core of Digital First Media CEO John Patton’s talk, “Past Can’t Buy the Future.” Patton emphasized the need for media organizations to invest heavily in digital “because the profound changes in digital revenue streams will require huge investments in digital products and people.”

At Vox, according to Moe, “There’s no part of our business that owning and developing a very tailored, powerful technology platform doesn’t enable and improve — from how editors and writers publish the content, how we manage it, how we distribute it and how we advertise brands. Like the printing press was key to driving newspapers, our technology is as important to the way we are doing business.”

Even talent acquisition should take a turn for the technological according to speaker Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, who believes that “Technology will bridge the gap between the physical and digital world.” He points out that currently organizations lack effective mechanisms to find talent and the most popular tools and techniques are “notoriously biased”. He asserts that using gamification and profiling tools may “inject some order and accuracy into an area where the bar has been historically low.” He also echoed a point made earlier in the summit saying that “consumers, customers and readers are potentially your best employees as well.”

Having an intimate understanding of those passionate consumers was one of the most recurrent themes in the 12th Annual OPA Summit. For media companies, this customer knowledge drives content creation, product development and helps deliver optimized marketing opportunities. Day Three keynote speaker, Tony Tjan, CEO, Managing Partner and Founder of venture capital firm Cue Ball and Vice Chairman of the advisory firm Parthenon encouraged everyone in attendance to begin with a “front-end customer strategy rather than a go-to-market strategy.”

Closing speaker Wharton School marketing professor Peter Fader, also emphasized the need to put customer knowledge at the forefront of business strategy. He pointed out that there is no “the customer” and that generalizing in that way can be dangerous. It is essential, Fader asserts, to understand who our most valuable customers are and to not only be responsive to them, but to anticipate their future needs.” Fadar’s advice to media companies planning for current and future success: “Create a cult brand.” To do so, understand your audience with the intimacy of a trusted confidant to create genuine engagement that inspires devotion, trust — and a successful long-term relationship.

Innovation | Revenue

Q&A with Michael Crosby, Chief Operating Officer, The Deal on Subscription Model Success

January 27, 2014 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

Q: When conceiving of a subscription-based model, initiative or product, where should you begin strategically?

A: The answer to this is no different than any business idea. You look for a problem that exists in the marketplace. For us, it comes down to some information gap that exists amongst our clients and prospects.

Secondly, we look to whether we have an answer for that problem. Can we provide insight or analysis the fills that gap? The first two questions are the theory part, and the last two are the monetization ones.

Third, are there users out there that care about having this problem solved in the way we are solving it? And, are there enough of them to scale the revenue? For The Deal, we are fortunate that we serve a client base–bankers, lawyers, fund managers–that traditionally pay for quality information. So, determining information gaps in the marketplace and how we could fill them is the bigger question for our firm.

Q: Please describe one of your subscription-based initiatives and the way in which you feel it is particularly innovative:

A: The most exciting one we are working on right now is called “Connections.” Our clients are forever looking for new M&A and restructuring deals. We’re in the business of coming up with ideas for their next deal through our editorial insight. Often, when we write something, our clients want to quickly figure out how to get “connected” with a company mentioned in an article.

“Connections” does just that: It lists how a user is connected to a company or person mentioned in an article. It accomplishes this without requiring the user to enter any information. We are very excited about the service and have a patent pending on it. We are in the process of launching it and client feedback has been phenomenal. This finally answers the question, “How am I connected to that person” directly without a user having to email their entire office.

Q: What advice would you give in terms of approaching subscription models creatively?

A: I believe everything starts from having great product. Whether that is principally your content, data, or application layer, you need some combination of those that a user would deem “must have.” Obsessive focus on the user experience with your product, and understanding how it fits in with their daily workflow is the starting point to ensuring that a user needs to have your service.

Once you have that figured out, getting the right subscription model is based on what you have done in the past; what your competitors are doing; and how valuable you are. One of the toughest things to do is reposition a brand and product to a new subscription model. The bigger the gap, the more work you will need to put into sales and marketing. If your users know you as mostly a free ad-based model with great content, and now you want to be a paid subscription model, you need to do a lot of work to have them change their perception of you. One of the ways The Deal did it, when we shifted from majority ad-based to majority subscription-based, was doing a massive amount of user outreach where we presented a well thought out concept of where we were going. We find clients are great at giving us feedback on incremental change, but if you want to make a major shift, you have to clearly spell out your vision and have them respond to it.

Lastly, you can’t talk to enough people: your team; clients; prospects; industry players; advisors et cetera. Most subscription-based businesses operate in a competitive space so even a great strategy can be ruined by poor execution. Constant communication and belief that you can continually improve – that you are not doing everything perfectly – puts you in position to achieve success.

Michael Crosby is Chief Operating Officer at The Deal, part of TheStreet, Inc. Michael is responsible for strategy and day-to-day operations of The Deal, a transaction information service used by 45,000 bankers, lawyers, hedge fund managers, and private equity professionals. He was instrumental in transforming The Deal’s business from ad-based to a subscription model, achieving 22 consecutive quarters of revenue growth and guiding The Deal’s sale to TheStreet, Inc. Previously, Michael was a Managing Director at Thomson Reuters where he was responsible for starting their hedge fund business and transforming their buyside client model.

Note: This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights.

Also in this series:

Q&A with Rob Grimshaw, Managing Director, FT.com on Subscription Model Success

Q&A with Interview with Sarah McConville, Vice President of Marketing, Harvard Business Review Group

Innovation

Picture Perfect: Inspiration in Storytelling from Bill Marr’s OPA Summit Keynote

January 23, 2014 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

There is perhaps no more vivid depiction of the OPA slogan “Content People Love” than National Geographic’s iconic photography. So National Geographic creative director Bill Marr’s keynote set the tone at the 12th annual OPA Summit not only by showcasing the publication’s widely-lauded imagery, but also through a demonstration of the brands’ commitment to leveraging digital to embark on a new adventure in storytelling.

The iPad, according to Marr, offered the publication new life and provided a catalyst that is driving National Geographic’s entire team to reconceive of its content creation process and to rethink the ways in which its already visual stories could be told. To do so, Marr says, they had to recognize that “short form video is not television.” For them, “it is an extension of print; it is an extension of storytelling.” While National Geographic has always embraced and supported the work of photographers, now the publication is working with them to evolve their craft using video and a wide range of technologies. The brand is also physically reorganizing its content creation team—down to the office space in which they work—to create a more “open, collaborative environment.”

Marr illustrated the result of these ongoing efforts with a range of stunning examples that had a room full of seasoned media executives mesmerized. One example in particular, the National Geographic’s most popular story of 2013 “The Serengeti Lion,” features the brand’s iconic photography enhanced with audio and video and reveals the technology it used to capture these intimate images, which included infrared photography, micro-drones and a robot.
Now that National Geographic has begun to offer these deep wells of content that go far beyond what it had previously been able to deliver in the pages of its magazine, Marr says they are approaching many other aspects of their content delivery with a new perspective, such as its “The Power of Photography” exhibit on display at the Annenberg Space for Photography. Instead of limiting the exhibit to what could fit on the gallery walls, they created a digital exhibit that uses video walls to showcase 500 photographs and accompanying information from the brand’s 125 year history.

National Geographic, says Marr, has moved away from the notion that a story is “one thing.” Instead, they are working to “envision how any story can come to life in myriad ways.” This approach is generating more powerful storytelling than ever before. It has also created an opportunity to better monetize via digital subscription offerings including iPad and Kindle editions. However National Geographic’s exploration of the frontiers of digital storytelling also demonstrates how delivering these deeper offerings creates a level of engagement—web visitors spent an average of 12 minutes with “The Serengeti Lion”—that the brand believes it can leverage to generate revenue via its site as well. Marr says they are currently beta testing a new iPad-inspired site experience that will offer a premium experience for subscribers and in turn, drive its visual storytelling even further in its next 125 years.

Innovation | Revenue

Q&A with Rob Grimshaw, Managing Director, FT.com on Subscription Model Success

January 23, 2014 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights. Today’s Three on Three is with Rob Grimshaw who is the Financial Times Board member responsible for the commercial development of the FT’s B2C digital business and product portfolio.

Q: When conceiving of a subscription-based model, initiative or product, where should you begin strategically?

A: I think the key things are: First, think about what is unique and different about your product. What are people going to come to you for, as a publisher, that they won’t go to anybody else for? Perhaps it is a particular columnist or topic that few other people do. Identify something that differentiates you in the marketplace and that’s how you’ll approach it from a content point of view.

Second, take advantage of the flexibility that the web environment offers. You don’t have to put up a gigantic blank door on the site that says “pay to enter”. The web offers many ways to do these things: You can build sampling in, you can use these freemium models. Many publishers find that once the paywalls are in, you don’t see advertising suffer at all, which has been our experience.

Thirdly, look to third parties that can help with the task of building your subscription offering. It can be quite challenging technically, certainly more difficult than running a free access site. There is an ecosystem of third party providers that can help you with these projects and help you shortcut some of the processes to get something out to market more quickly.

And one last bit of strategic advice is to consider the wider benefits of having a subscription model and how to take advantage of these. Subscriptions create a direct relationship with your audience. You learn so much about them including demographics, onsite behavior and other information that can be very powerful from a marketing and advertising point of view.

Q: Please describe one of your subscription-based initiatives and the way in which you feel it is particularly innovative.

A: We’ve done many at FT.com. A recent one was fastFT, a feature we launched earlier this year, in May. fastFT is what I would call the FT’s intelligent first response to the news. It provides a continuous stream of content, managed by a team of eight journalists based around the world—in London, New York and Hong Kong—so they can maintain the output 24 hours a day. The goal was to boost engagement on FT.com.

Engagement is absolutely critical to the success of subscription models. We see very clearly that people whose usage of the site drops off are far more likely to cancel and, of course, those who don’t use it in the first place don’t subscribe: a simple equation there.

When we were thinking about increasing engagement, we factored in how competitive the web environment is. We need to communicate to our subscribers that they’ll never miss anything on FT.com so they aren’t tempted to look for information on other sites. This product marked a radical departure for the FT including changes to our newsroom culture and changes to the editorial process. With fastFT, the emphasis on speed-to-page without sacrificing accuracy, authority and all things that make the FT great.

I think that this product offers an excellent example of the commercial needs of the business being creatively translated to a product.

Interestingly, we’ve seen that over half of users come through mobile devices and a third of subscribers who visit fastFT stay longer than 10 minutes on the site.

Q: What advice would you give in terms of approaching subscription models creatively?

A: I would give two tips:

The first one is to look outside of the boundaries of the publishing industry. Think about it: The news publishing experience with pay models and online retail, which is what this is, is relatively new. There are others who have been in this game much longer. You can gain a lot of inspiration by looking at or talking to people from the online retail industry and others pioneering the space. Look at the gaming model and the way they’ve set up things to get you to make in-app purchases. They’ve developed brilliant ways to ease payment and even make you feel like you aren’t paying anything.

The second thing I suggest is to test, test, test. We are in a world where there are a multitude of multivariate testing tools available. These tools allow you to test different page designs and sign-up forms against each other live on line. The insight you gain from those processes is tremendous. Often what you discover can be counter intuitive. The data helps you understand what is really happening and design better offerings as a result.

In his role as Managing Director, FT.com, Rob Grimshaw is the Financial Times Board member responsible for the commercial development of the FT’s B2C digital business and product portfolio.

Note: This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights.

Also in this series:

Q&A with Michael Crosby, Chief Operating Officer, The Deal on Subscription Model Success

Q&A with Interview with Sarah McConville, Vice President of Marketing, Harvard Business Review Group