“Old media” like newspapers, broadcast television advertising and nonprofit appeals are moving in the right direction by forming alliances with social media, mobile and other emerging platforms.
Our latest “Game Changers” review of important news developments looks at recent changes that are impacting both old and new media in a positive way. Here are four transformations worth keeping an eye on.
The New York Times and Paid Content
The New York Times announced last week that it will begin charging for online content starting in January 2011. The Wall Street Journal, Consumer Reports and a handful of other publications already charge for some or all of their content. PM Digital’s Chris Paradysz predicted in a prior blog post that this would become a trend in 2010 – the NY Times move announced this week supports that. As a long-time reader of the NY Times, I have watched the steady shrinkage of the paper. Some of this has been due to cost-cutting and, more recently, fewer advertisements. Circulation is down, too. Surely the NY Times needs a new business model to withstand these circumstances. Should the paper ever wither away and shut down, it would be a real loss of quality content. I support the Times’ new fee structure and definitely plan on paying for it.
Text Donations and the Evolution of Payment
Texted donations brought millions of dollars in aid for Haiti. American Red Cross’ 90999 and UNICEF’s 20222 raised considerable sums though this method. Based on the amount of individual donations received through texting, it appears that the simplicity and speed millions experienced in making their donations this way is appealing. Another success driver is ease of advertising, which was done widely on TV. Also notable is that the 90%+ abandon rates typically seen with website donations were not a factor with the texting method.
After it’s all been tallied, my guess is that the donations themselves would have been higher had they been placed online. It’s also worth noting that nonprofits won’t have future access to the donor names for cultivation efforts since the carriers won’t release texting donor data to the charities. What we don’t know is if texting yielded donations from people who would never have given otherwise. If so, texting represents a brand new universe created with a new response mechanism. We may be on the cusp of other uses for cell phones with the carriers doing the payment collection. Was this a one shot or the future? Consider other payment evolutions. Cash was replaced by checks, which were in turn replaced by credit/debit cards. While we’re seeing texting as a new front-end acquisition method, the backend evolution may turn out to be an even bigger story.
Super Bowl Ads Go Long with Social Media
Super Bowl advertising will be getting lots of play this year making the $3 million spent per 30-second ad go further than it ever has in the past. Since it’s also an Olympics year, these ads will be shown repeatedly from now through at least mid-February. As has been the case for the past few years, YouTube will make the ads available for viewing in one fell swoop, and this year they’ll be hoping for even more engagement by adding contests and ratings. Twitter will play a big roll this year too, with the ads being tweeted and retweeted by the marketers who paid for them and (hopefully) by viewers as well. Will the viral distribution be as big as the advertisers hope or will people get tired of the hype? If these ads do have legs, the social media component could be a very nice value-add to the advertisers. What’s likely is that those with a quality product will get wide distribution.
A New Device from Apple
The iTablet, iPad, iSlate, TabletMac – whatever the name turns out to be — is the latest exciting development from Apple. We could be looking at a new device that garners the type of love shown for the iPod and iPhone. Not to mention the Kindle. In fact, the iTunes store – already the number one shopping destination for music – has no doubt made Apple’s new device of particular interest to content providers like The New York Times. I am not sure yet if I personally am ready for another device but this one should definitely be worth checking out. January 27th is the date the specifics should be announced.
Suzy Sandberg is President of PM Digital.