[Image: today's front page, Newseum]
Friday, September 03, 2010
USAT | How reorg pits paper against marketers
An excerpt from "USA Yesterday," a recent post by Jorg Pierach, president of Fast Horse, a Minneapolis marketing agency; it follows USA Today's week-old reorganization plan announcement.
As USA Today broadens from news into custom content, they will have to convince marketers that they understand their brands and audiences, and that the “McPaper,” as it was nicknamed, can create relevant, quality content that can help sell stuff. That won’t be easy because the competion for content marketing will increasingly come from agencies. That’s where we come in. More and more brands are acting like their own media companies, and we’re placing some big bets they’ll continue to recognize that shops like ours are the ones with the expertise to help them navigate this new media landscape. Advertising, PR, interactive and marketing agencies have the ability to tell stories and aggregate consumers in some very sophisticated new ways, whether it’s through social media or search marketing, and we have the advantage of being able do so with a deep understanding of how great brands are built. We won’t just create content. We’ll create content that is well intergrated with the rest of the marketing mix. And it will move the needle. It’s what we’ve always done.
[Image: today's front page, Newseum]
[Image: today's front page, Newseum]
4 comments:
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"... aggregate consumers in some very sophisticated new ways ..."
ReplyDeleteI think this tells you pretty much all you need to know about Fast Horse and other PR firms. I believe I saw that phrase on whatthefuckismysocialmediastrategy.com.
Jorg Pierach wrote an excellent article, and one that every Gannett employee should read to see the new competition out there for advertising dollars. I think corporate has been sleeping on the job in the belief advertisers were just sitting on their accounts to save money. Now corporate realizes advertisers have been drifting elsewhere, and targeting their advertising dollars more cleverly. Look at what Procter and Gamble did with its stodgy old Old Spice brand of deodorant. To reach the 18-35 year-old Americans (a key age bracket USA doesn't reach, and doesn't try to reach), P&G used a viral video that was cute and clever and more importantly to us put togther in-house at P&G. It worked. Now P&G is redirecting its ad campaigns with a similar goal. Need I point out how much of a huge advertiser this company is?
ReplyDeleteSo what is our response? Reorganization and dismantling the silos in the newsroom.
Well, that certainly addresses the threat we face with this new economy, doesn't it? The old farts who run this operation are so far out of touch with what's happening they will only wake up when they see advertising revenues collapse.
Many thanks for posting this analysis.
ReplyDeleteI read it and I got a shivery feeling that the brains behind the transformation didn't take any of this into account before launching us into the perilous waters between Scylla and Charybdis.
At this point, there's not much to do but lash ourselves the mast and keep on rowing and hope we don't get devoured by the other media or get sucked down the whirlpool of lost nespaper revenue.
P.S. Good story, bad headline. The writer is saying that USA TODAY is pitting itself against online marketing and advertising agencies, not the advertisers themselves.
Good point, 5:18 am. I've now adjusted the headline.
ReplyDelete