Print Media is Running Out of Time

Posted on March 12, 2013 by Lyn Bunch

No More Time!

The transition from our legacy analog world of ink and paper is accelerating. Major changes in newspapers over the last several years with revenues significantly down to levels not seen in 10 years. Growth ceased, and status quo is hard to digest to those in the industry that used to grow by showing up. Population growth meant circulation growth. Those trends no longer exist, and print media outlets are starting to drop like flies. First it was newspapers, now the trend has extended to magazines and direct marketing publications.

In a recent Daily Beast article by Daniel Gross “Why Time Warner Felt It Had to Spin Off Magazine Unit Time Inc we see why this is happening. Its all about stock prices. This trend is now making its way felt through the entire communications field from newspapers, magazines and direct marketing publications.

Newspapers were the first to feel the pinch of declining revenue. The grind of producing, printing and delivering daily papers IS not easy, and its expensive to do it every day, especially on those days when the paper is not full of ads. Recent changes in newspaper ownership around the county brought some promise of hope when heavy hitters like Warren Buffett bought in and gave some hope to other owners that were still viable. But Warren likes to buy and hold, and he likes to buy things he knows a lot about – and HE still reads his paper daily. Not everyone agrees with Warren, nor do they all have his deeps pockets.

Even with his very deep pockets Rupert Murdoch owns bunches of papers in the US and in Australia and England, but Rupert also owns lots of digital media in those markets as well. He also sees the enduring value in the print, but he was one of the first to see that revenues were lagging in print, and those lagging revenues reflected poorly on the ability for the overall stock value of these publicly traded companies to grow. He has lead the move to split his holdings into discrete segments – digital on one side and print media on the other. Future dollars for investment and growth are attached to the digital side, and print you’re now on your own now.

Recently Time Warner felt the urge to ‘unmerge’ its holding and to spin off its magazine unit, including Time, Fortune, Money and Sports Illustrated and make them a new stand alone organization and take them public as their own group. The magazines are still profitable, but they cannot keep with the market and are thus a drag on corporate earnings.

Harte-Hanks, Inc. originally started off as group of small Texas newspapers, but chose a different way to grow outside of newspapers and moved into direct marketing, and over 20 years sold off all other holdings, including all of their newspapers and became a powerhouse in shoppers publications covering millions of households in California and Florida. A still thriving industry for small communities covering a market just below that of the newspaper they provided cost effective targeted advertising and in the process stole market share from larger local newspapers. Those golden days are now over. Having written down all of their goodwill equity in the declining value of The Pennysaver, they were able to unload them quickly.

In December the Florida operations were sold back to their founder Dick Mandt, a former boss of mine, and his team of highly effective industry managers. Were they losing money -no, but they had to go. Sources tell me that the same thing is likely in California where the original Pennysaver circulates. Staff cuts are being made, offices are closing, and they appear to be on the same trajectory as Florida. Can they still make money – yes. But they can’t grow in the manner that a public company needs them to.

Like Time, Inc., Harte-Hanks, is a publicly traded company and must show growth. The huge revenue base of the Pennysaver could not keep up the growth curve for Harte-Hanks and stock prices lagged. Decision time came, and decisions were made. Heads rolled, and the new management staff has a mandate for growth, and a tight timeline. This is the new story for print and direct marketing, especially for those mailed publications. If you are on the big march and you fail to keep up – we’ll leave you a canteen of water, and a couple of biscuits, but your on your own. Tough love, I think we call it! Time is not always on our side.

Lessons from 2012 for Business & Politics

Posted on December 20, 2012 by Lyn Bunch

The 2012 election drives home some basic new realities about how we communicate and conduct our business and our daily lives. The advent of the digital and social world has changed us forever. In politics as in business we see those who are on the leading edge, and the stragglers. Many of my clients, and certainly my future clients, have come to this understanding late.

Here are a few thoughts on how this worked out for the latest election cycle. Everything we saw as business and communications work nearly exactly the same in business as politics. One side triumphed over the other, and the reasons were more for business practices in the conduct of the marketing for the election, than in purely political leanings. Just a few thoughts…

Nate Silver and the Pundits The biggest winner of the 2012 election cycle was 538 - by Nate Silver. The success of Nate with his ‘system’ that followed individual polls, weighted the results, and then posits results by election area, became a new standard for tracking forecasts. The single poll as a key talking point will recede as conglomerated results become the new norm. This will also impact the role of the pundit who is basing their forecasts on feelings and not empirical data. Pundits were especially routed in this election cycle when their results did not match the data on the ground, and the final results. They are now relegated to mere ‘talking heads’ and all of their wishing on hoping are just that. Show me the data is what we now expect.

The Role of Social Media The biggest change in this campaign from 2008 to 2012 was the role of social media. 2008 was the digital campaign yea . 2012 became the social campaign, all of the benefits of the digital conduit for communications, along with tailored messaging, and listening, with their targeted audiences. Obama’s team built a large social-digital staff that literally drove the campaign. Nothing did more for the Obama campaign, and this will set the standard for all future campaigns. Little time here for the details, and I will go into more detail in future posts, but for now, we must see that a return to more traditional messaging will not work in future campaigns. The die is cast.

The Power of Print Media Print media still lives, and will still have a key role in future campaigns, just as they do for day to day business, but it will play a lesser role in the future. The power of the press, and especially of the official endorsements no longer drives the electorate. Day by day, their hold on the public is loosened. The results of who endorsed each of the candidates had a low correlation to the final outcome. We now want newspapers to tell us what is going on, but not who to vote for…we’ll get that from our friends on social media or general social contacts, if we need those at all to make up our minds.

The major dollars spent at the end of the campaign by the Romney campaign in print and television did very little to move the needle. By the time they ran, minds had already been made up. Words and print images are simply not as powerful and recent and visual images on the web or on television.

The Party Vs. The Campaign In this election cycle we were treated again to the real power of incumbency. Though many thought Obama carried a lot of negative baggage, and that incumbency in a poor economic climate would act as a drag, it did not turn out that way. As the incumbent, he was able to rebuild his election team from 2008, and take advantage of all of their previous experiences to come up with an even stronger campaign organization.

Romney was perceived to have been a great organizer, but it didn’t work out that way in this campaign. With a long primary, his team was late coming up to speed, and messaging and marketing continually ran behind. They also gave up the advantage when the Obama campaign was able to define them before they could build their own image.

Campaign Timing In past campaigns both sides usually started at roughly the same time, the incumbent having an advantage. In the current election cycle, the challengers were exceptionally late due to a long and contentious primary campaign. The party used to play a larger role in the overall campaign, but in recent campaigns it is the candidate who basically runs the entire show. Funding still comes from the party, but direct campaign funds and the direction of the campaign really are driven by the candidate.

I first saw this with Richard Nixon, who had the California campaign staff taking the lead and driving the campaign. This worked for most campaigns from Carter, the Bushes and Bill Clinton, but in this last cycle we saw the Chicago group take out the Boston group who struggled to mount the right campaign. They went to battle ill prepared for what was ahead, and the experienced crew out managed them. Future campaigns should take heed from this. Next time there will be no incumbent, but the team with the best plan, crew, message, and funding sources will likely win – all other politics aside. The same goes in business. Thinking you have the best ‘product’ will not trump the best marketing campaign, especially in a short ‘campaign’ with a finite deadline on election day.

Digital Donations The Romney strategy was based on large donations and the use of PACs to drive their message, and they did exceptionally well in this area, both in the primary and election campaigns. The money was flowing, but the results did not match the massive amounts spent, much of it too late to change minds already set by the other side.

The very large PAC infusion of money, much of it from just a small group of very wealthy donors did not accomplish the goal of total domination. In the end, the other guys had some strong PACs as well, but even more they discovered the power of small digital donations via text or emails. The power of small donations by the many, repeated several times by strong messaging did the trick. The key fact is that the masses that donated also took the time to vote in large numbers. The ‘engaged’ donor became the very engaged voter. For me that was the big win that I did not see coming, especially the size of total donations via this methodology.

Audiences and Precise Targeting In the world of direct mail the Republicans set the standard, and their lists were gold to the party. Election cycle after election cycle they yielded fantastic results. I’m sure they performed well this cycle as well, however, the Obama team who switched the ball game to heavy digital marketing outperformed them. Appeals went out on a nearly daily cycle; immediacy trumped the heavy mail package.

What we found out later is, that in this new 2012 cycle, the digital team advanced the art and science well beyond their initial efforts in the past cycle. Offers were tested, run, revamped – all within the span of a few hours, something impossible in direct mail. The single most interesting fact that I found out later were that nearly all of the appeals tested worked…they all worked. Message may be the key, but in this case it was more likely that methodology triumphed. For business, resisting digital and social marketing is at your peril. They must be a part of your mix in the future if you want to win the business in your daily marketing cycles.

Generations & Ethnicity…and Single Women Perhaps nothing explains the results of the 2012 election than the results shown by generations and ethnicity. They certainly skewed in both directions. But the bigger question is what this means to our electoral and business future. Targeted messaging is critical to identifying and supplying messaging to each audience. The days of mass marketing producing and mass result in the general marketplace are fast fading.

In future any marketer must target and message for their audiences, each with their own concerns and issues. Not only is the messaging variable, so is the media. Fewer of us subscribe to a daily paper. Confession here, as an old direct marketer and newspaper advertising executive, I used to subscribe to all the local papers on a daily basis. Now I have just one paper on Sunday, and the other for 4 days a week. All the rest of my news comes from the Internet via computer, iPad and iPhone. I also consume at least 3 times more total information as a result. For me, less is truly better.

For many, the iPhone, and other fully featured phones are now their prime communication vehicle and news source. Any business, or candidate, who does not take this into account, will not survive the next election cycle if they need that audience to win. As we saw the older audience does not use these tools as much now, but that audience is literally dying out. Not good ways to run a campaign in the future, if you want to have a future.

Single women also went heavily for Obama, married women more Romney. Messaging alone wouldn’t change the results here. It becomes a platform issue of what each party stands for. Is a party platform a key component of the message and do they need to be in synch. Much was made of the distinction in this case and through the Republicans courted single women, their overall message that was ‘heard’ was negative. Now we need to heed and message to gender, age, marital status, ethnicity and generational location as key factor in future campaigns. This is a very tough challenge for any marketer in business or politics and will determine the results of most future elections here.

Unforeseen Events Unforeseen events, like ‘Sandy’ will not be unforeseen in the future. What? I expect that future elections will forecast for every possible event and preparations will be at hand. Kind of like packing for a trip to Hawaii, but bring your snow skis anyway. With the outcome resting on any unforeseen event, they simply have to be built into our future radar. There is not time to regroup and react – bring the kitchen sink with you, we may need it will be the new motto.

Closing thoughts… Future elections, and future business will never be the same. Our digital and social tools have changed everything. I also expect this trend to continue as newer processes replace the old. Keepup, use the tools, or lose it all. No looking back now.

Integrated Marketing – an Imperative for Success Today

Posted on May 16, 2012 by Lyn Bunch

The Wheel of Marketing Choices

The integrated imperative! That’s where marketing is today. Heed the headline, or perish. There really aren’t any options. Over the last several years my clients and I have noticed that marketing has gotten harder to do well, we had fewer choices and those produced good results. There are more marketing choices, channels and media options than we thought possible just a few years ago. Choosing wisely and making it work across channels and markets – integration, is what it really driving our marketing world today…and to do it well is hard!

On May 10, Steve McKee, in Business Week, authored the article “Integrated Marketing: If You Knew It, You’d Do It” He starts with the opening paragraph – If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, is such a cliché that it has spawned its own cliché: If it ain’t broke, break it. Unfortunately, that’s just what many companies do unwittingly to their branding programs, playing into the hands of public enemy No. 1 in today’s marketing environment: Fragmentation.

The rest of the article made the case for integrating the marketing, mainly keeping a consistency of messaging across multiple platforms we all endure today. It is a delightful read, and one that many of his readers commented on in a favorable manner. For the most part I agree, but the key message he iterates is ‘integrated marketing is hard!’ Yes it is, and this is why so few are able to do it well, if at all.

The boomer generation grew up with tightly bracketed marketing channels. You bought the best and then hoped for good results. The good news is that your audience had fewer choices and they were generally on the receiving end – be it newspapers, television, radio or out of home.

That world doesn’t exist today, and everything is hard. So many choices, and so many places for your audience to be hiding. The digital world is wonderful with all of its options on both sides, but for the marketer it is tough to juggle all those balls. Three key channel options for most, have now turned into 8 to 12. On top of that it is now ‘social’ so your audience can talk back to you…and you better be listening, because they’ll carve you up if you aren’t. Trust me, I have, and they have left scars for not listening and not responding fast enough.

The McKee article is a good read, and I implore you to look at it. You should also read the reader comments which come mainly from industry participants, who mostly agree, but they also have their particular bents. They are in agreement that ‘integrated marketing is hard.’ Yes it is, but there is no choice. The world we knew was broken, and there is no going back. Multiple channels, both analog and digital need to be attended to and used appropriately to reach your target ‘audiences’ (emphasis on the plural) if you are to survive.

Many of my clients have long histories, they love their new options, but still talk about how it ‘used to be.’ We commiserate, have a cup of coffee, and then get on with reality and plan how to cover their broad patch of media options. All of this with careful attention to keeping the message consistent and true to each channel of their multi-faceted customer and target base. It takes more time, and more money, but it produces better results. Isn’t that what we are all looking for? It’s a new world, and I love it!

AT&T Exits From the Yellow Pages – check it out on Yelp

Posted on April 10, 2012 by Lyn Bunch

It was announced this week that AT&T has agreed to sell a majority stake in its Yellow Pages business to Cerberus Capital Management. The price was reported to be $950 million dollars, for a declining business that AT&T was happy to jettison and get on to more important areas of their business.

The deal was for primarily cash with AT&T receiving 750 million in cash, with a 200 million note on the backend. AT&T will maintain a 47% stake in the business, but Cerberus will handle all day-to-day operations. Cerberus has pulled a number of rabbits out of their hat in the past, but this one looks to be particularly difficult.

During its heyday through the 1990s the Yellow Pages franchise, which included AT&T and a number of other telephone companies, and even a number of independent publishing companies, had a wildly profitable business. Recently the business, as a print operation, has become a boat anchor. Revenue was down 30% in just the last two years. The goal for Cerebus is to help turn the business into a digital operation that will compete with a number of newer players including Google and Yelp.

It has been a number of years since my family has kept or used a printed Yellow Pages directory at home. Like so many our tendency today is to simply Google what we are looking for hit the return and we have our answers. If we are looking for additional information, we’ll take the time to go to yelp for additional feedback from users where have actually used the service were looking for. In Orange County, CA where I live, Yelp is helpful but certainly not the powerhouse that I found when I was working in the San Francisco Bay Area. There looking through Yelp was like reading a novel, and I discovered a number of incredible writers who took the time to elaborate on their personal experiences at the various restaurants and shops they wrote about.

AT&T will use the time and the money to help grow their electronic portion of the communications field. With their growing competition this would seem to have been a good move. Cerberus will attempt to do something I that seems impossible, but they have done the impossible before, and I’m confident they have a plan to do it again. As a private equity firm they don’t have to meet the needs of the market and shareholders and that is critical for them to have the time and hard efforts to pull this off.

Good luck to both AT&T and Cerebus, we won’t hold our breath, but we wish you well. I wonder if Cerberus would also like to buy a few good newspapers, I know of a number that can be had for well under $950 million. In fact they might be able to purchase several former large newspaper-publishing groups for the same figure. There is one that is headquartered in Orange County (Freedom) that I hear can be had for well less than a billion.

Can Groupon Survive?…and Should It?

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Lyn Bunch

Is the end near for Groupon?

It’s been years since I got my first penalty flag for piling on, nearly 50 years to be exact. Today I’m getting my next one. I’ve had more than a few over the years, but this is a ‘fun one.’ Today I’ll take one for the team and talk about Groupon again. Talk about penalty flags, they are setting records for their first year as a public company. Like the targeting scandals in the NFL, they could be coming close to getting a death penalty called on them. Time to stop and reflect on where they are now, and ponder can they save it before someone comes in and takes the ball from them.

Last week they were forced to admit that they had overstated their earnings in the latest quarter. The CFO fell on his sword and was officially let off the hook by the CEO. However, the investment industry doesn’t take well to these kinds of ‘mistakes’ and a drumbeat has come up with a chant looking for changes NOW, with a decree that this can’t happen again.

The market came on line at the same time and hammered the stocks on Monday, and yet again today. The price is now well below the initial offering price, but the overall market value of the company is still strong…too strong actually, and this is the real problem for Groupon.

Groupon was started with a great idea – daily deals that would shake money from the pockets of the public mired in a recession. They were sitting on their wallets and needed a real reason to open them back up. Groupon started the ball rolling, created buzz in the market, and produced some amazing results for many of their client businesses. Consumers fell in love the ‘daily deals’ and a new marketing segment was born.

It started so quickly, and the results were so strong for a number of advertisers, that many thought that this model would be the key driver for local marketing and would overtake all of the other media including daily newspapers. Investors roared in with loads of cash. Big money on Wall St. was looking for a place for high returns, and fodder for the mill on IPOs. The die was cast and Groupon went public in a blitzkrieg not seen since WWII. But then…the roof fell in, and here we are today. What happened?

What happened is that the creative spirit that drove the design and initial rollout of Groupon has no depth or maturity. The CEO Andrew Mason has been shown to have some great ideas, but no real management depth. A real manager should have been brought in – they needed an adult.

Secondly, the infrastructure to account for all the transactions and dollars is woefully inadequate. In these deals the money is collected up front by Groupon and then the remainder after the Groupon split, is paid back to the client company as they are redeemed. So here’s the picture- lot’s of cash rolling in, and slowly rolling back out over time. Sounds like a big bank that needs lots of financial controls – and there weren’t any, or at least, not enough. I’ve dealt with this many times in my career in business and consulting, and this always leads to problems. With all that cash on hand, you just have to feel wealthy and successful, but then the money has to rollout to clients and suppliers and the giddy ‘wealth effect’ sets in. This is where Groupon is today.

And now the ultimate penalty could be coming. The SEC, as toothless as they are, is now starting to investigate Groupon for having to restate their earnings. It doesn’t look good for Groupon, especially in light of the fact that the SEC needs a win to help them in their fight to keep their funding from being cut further by Congress.

If having the SEC on your case is not enough, an influential segment of the blogging community is also coming after Groupon. Rocky Agrawal in his reDesign blog opens with “Groupon was forced to restate fourth quarter earnings, sending its stock down 6% in after-hours trading. This surprised me as much as my $2 investment in the Mega Millions jackpot not paying off.” Ouch!

Rocky picks apart the business model of Groupon and that it is neither a coupon or marketing company, but rather a receivables factoring company. They are a sub=prime lender in effect, living off of one cash stream while they try to meet the spread on the other end. I think he is spot on in his points here. One thing for sure is that they are not the saviors of the marketing field, not newspaper killers. Newspapers have committed suicide over the last several years and needed no one to do the job for them.

So what next. Enjoy your daily deals. Groupon or someone else will continue to provide them. They work for many on both sides of the transaction, but not for all, as many complaints will show. I think the real issue is that Groupon can survive as a business, just not as a publicly traded one. A great idea, but a horrible timing in the rush to the public market. Yeah, they are a sub-prime business and Wall St. yet again was at the ready to make the deals cause they get paid no matter what.

I’d be willing to place a small wager that in this game, like the housing markets they have bets all across the line – win or lose, black or red, and they know how the numbers work. They will be the ultimate winner in this ‘daily deal’ at the expense of shareholders.

A Death by Inches for Newspapers

Posted on March 13, 2012 by Lyn Bunch

Sometimes you see a chart that stops you dead in your tracks. I saw one today in The Atlantic that graphically displayed growing and shrinking industries. My sons both inhabit the top-growing field of the Internet…and I, still have my past linked to the bottom industry – Newspapers. Ouch!

This is a great chart because it shows growth and size of the industry losses or gains in terms lost at a single glance. I hope we can see more of these from the suppliers – LinkedIn Analytics.

As I deal with clients and prospects this will be part of my kit bag to help explain key opportunities, and the pockets of pain at the same time. This is why the recession has been both so deep, and so persistent. As employment shifts from the old sources to the high growth areas it is easy to see that needed skill sets must be transformed or much of the pain for those who have lost jobs will find it to be permanent.

The Future of Newspapers Now in the Hands of The Washington Post?

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Lyn Bunch

Over the weekend Jeremy Peters wrote an article on The Washington Post for The New York Times. This was a great read, and documents just how difficult the transition is into the digital age of publishing is for newspapers. This is a must read for anyone following the challenging rebirth of newspapers in this new digital era.

The Leader of the Charge Marcus Brauchli,

The transition has not been easy, but the future looks relatively bright, at least for The Post, in the manner, the methods, and the resources they committed to in leading this critical process. It has not been without bumps, glitches, and lots of hurt feelings, bruised egos, and red ink.

The news business is changing and there is increasing pressure on the publishers, editors, writers, and even the advertising staff. Nearly every newspaper is facing a similar challenge. What is different at The Post is that they have had deep financial resources to help in the transition. Unfortunately, even at The Washington Post for well can run dry.

The cash cow that is helped to finance this transition is their Kaplan division. Long a financial success and a reader in the for-profit education field, they are now feeling the same financial pressures that the rest of the field has felt in the current economic downturn. The former cash cow is now just a sick puppy.

Mr. Brauchli has stated “that he refuses to be a prisoner of the past” that may sound a little arrogant to many in the newspaper field, but his actions show that he is living his feelings. In a recent social setting, Mr. Brauchli brought in many of the distinguished writers on the staff of The Post to review the transition and how they could use that to their benefit in the coverage of the 2012 elections. As the newspaper of record for Washington D.C., The Washington Post is expected to feed it’s pampered local audience of key national influentials the best coverage possible.

Washington Post staff has brought in a number of key tools and techniques to bridge the existing print world with the new digital audience. This includes locating the print reporters alongside the newer staff, which includes a large contingent of what we now call bloggers. This is not unlike what you will find at many other large metropolitan newspapers, however one unique factor is that many of these “bloggers” have had some significant success including Ezra Klein a young, California bred, blogger who has had significant success as a political wonk.

I’ve followed Ezra for the last couple of years that have taken great pride in the success since he is a hometown boy from here in Southern California. In fact he attended the same high school as both of my sons. I can’t imagine a better example of what we will be seeing in the next generation of reporters and writers at all of our newspapers.

My pride in the local boy making good aside, along with Ezra there legions of new writers who a publishing content all day long for the electronic versions of The Post. They are learning minute by minute how to provide just the right content for their audience. Metrics are viewed by Mr. Baruchli and key editors, and delivered in a continuous stream to their readers and viewers. This stream of data influences what is being covered and written about throughout the day. This is also happening at a number of other newspapers around the U.S. and the world.

What’s different at The Washington Post is that they are under incredible scrutiny since they are covering the most expensive election cycle in the world. They have resources not currently available to other chains, under even greater financial pressure. A lot is at stake here, this includes for The Post, for the American public, and for journalism. They have a chance to get it right for print journalism, digital journalism, and for the future of journalism. Lets hope that they get it right. Our future and the future of the news industry is at stake.

No More “Kodak Moments”

Posted on February 10, 2012 by Lyn Bunch

There are those things that are touch points to our past. This was a big week for key events that highlight how far and fast we have gone over the last several years. Growing up with a Brownie camera and Kodak film I was the model of American youth. The advertising phrase – ‘ A Kodak Moment’ was the catch phrase for time to store a happy memory that only film could do. Movies had many scenes of hapless dads and moms trying to capture their ‘Kodak moment’ while their kids were going crazy to get out of the scene. While working at Disneyland in college there were signs at various locations that encouraged people to take advantage of a Kodak Vantage Point with a sign in Kodak yellow. Kodak film was sold on Main Street and shops all over the park.

This week we got the news that Kodak, now in bankruptcy for reorganization, was going to drop most of their last links to photography. This is a sad story, and one we have seen repeated many time over in our ‘ industrial digital transition.’ Old services, products and companies are in decline as our economy, and lives, are changing in this new ‘digital’ world. Yesterday’s business leaders are tomorrows canon fodder…do they still ‘make’ canon fodder?’

The shame for Kodak is that it saw it coming and did not take the steps needed to survive. They saw the digital revolution in photography early on, and made some minor adjustments, but in the end the effort was staged to protect their lucrative film business, even when the ‘digital barbarians’ were at the gates.

What will Kodak do now? Their next phase, if they can survive the bankruptcy courts, will be to continue as a provider to online and retail photo printing services – like Costco, where I get my prints done. They will also continue in the desktop printer arena, but with heavy competition from HP, Canon and others. Selling printer paper is also a key factor, but that is a commodity business, and margins are shrinking there as well.

What does the Kodak transition mean for us? I guess we have great role model for change – or at least what happens when you fail to adapt or change. Strong brands with years of earned equity in their brand can flame out just as easily as the next brand. Twinkies and Ding Dongs are still trying to find a new home since their founding baker has faltered.

Kodak shows us that the allure of circling the wagons and protecting the flanks because of high margins for existing core businesses will not work in this new world. Being both ‘digital and flat’ will be the keys to new high margins. Kodak saw the light coming down the tunnel and didn’t think it was a train. Everyone should be alert for their own ‘trains’ being aimed at them now.

My own experience in marketing and advertising has been in the publishing field – newspapers and shoppers, and in the direct marketing – mail. Think I don’t know the numbers and schedules of all the trains coming down the track – I do now.

My clients, mostly those with strong roots in the pre-digital world, are learning and alert to the transition. However, the force is strong with those who want to protect what they have built up, and that causes many to falter and lose sight of the pending changes. Now is the time for reinvention, for all of us. No more ‘Kodak moments’ will be coming, at least for Kodak in coming months.

Stadiums Yes!, Beaches No!

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Lyn Bunch

Proposed Farmer Field Stadium for Los Angeles

Is this in our future?

I was amused to read the article in the recent Los Angeles Times–” Coastal cities will sponsors: make our beach your sandwich board”. Boy did that bring back memories for me. For several years, beginning in 1999, I led a start-up in Southern California that offered advertising on local government vehicles. This was a fun venture for several years, but then the fun for me left of the business. It appears from the comments in the articles that little have changed since that time. Local governments are still looking for new revenue sources, but are not willing to give enough value to attract advertisers who have more attractive ways to reach their audiences.

Beginning in the late 90s, and continuing through the early years, municipal corporate advertising was in its heyday. By the mid-“ought” years the bloom had come off the rose. The hard fought battle to gain acceptance have led to some significant revenue streams. However, it was then that the impact began to be felt from the growing Internet advertising. We could see that the trend would gobble up much of the hard fought growth that had been expensive to win.

The real trend in municipal advertising has come from larger sponsorships mostly to stadium advertising. This is where the big bucks are. A few dollars have been left over from corporate budgets that have leaked into municipal advertising programs. My experience in the early years of municipal advertising showed me that the concept was viable, and rewarding, but in the long term most programs would not be sustainable. Why? The reality that I found, and others in the same field found, was that the returns for advertisers was not at the level of their expectations. High client churn, meant high sales costs. Within a short period of time, usually within 2 years, the programs started to decline.

Advertising and government places can work, however the price generally doesn’t match the value received and the grief rendered. My experience, and those of other compatriots working in the field at that time, showed that working with the government agencies was costly, time-consuming, and unfulfilling. The dollars earned simply did not match the effort and as such made the venture non-sustainable. This can work for both sides, if and when, the value ratio can meet expectations of both sides

Happy Endings to All…and to All a Good New Year!

Posted on December 31, 2011 by Lyn Bunch

I love endings! That usually means a completion of a task or a goal, and the opportunity to move on to new things. Year endings are the best. Close out the old and start with a clean slate. I think this year will not end so well. Instead of starting fresh we will be dragging an incredible amount of baggage along with us into 2012. As we have moved into our new digital age in the first decade of the 21^st century, our legacy tools and traditions, and so much of what makes up our business way of life are struggling to advance with incredible pressure being on them to adapt, or die.

One of our oldest tools in the U.S. has been the Postal Service initiated in large part by Benjamin Franklin. It was instrumental to our overall success for over 200 hundred years. Today, it is seen by many as a ‘relic’ of the past as new digital tools have eaten into its core ability to facilitate communication. Hand written letters are becoming things of the past. Our current generation would not understand the context of the old saw – “keep those cards and letters coming!” Now we have to warn people about communicating (i.e. – texting) while driving.

I could go on for days about this transition, but I won’t. I have written extensively about the battle for the future of our USPS and what it means to commerce and personal communication. The leaders of the USPS have offered solutions – i.e cutbacks, and I have applauded their honesty and candor about their situation and things that must be done to keep the USPS on a sound financial footing given our change in mailing patterns.

The latest salvo against their plan has come from their masters, the Postal Commission – “Postal Service’s Closure Review Process Was Flawed, Panel Says” They believe that the original plan was ‘flawed’ and did not take into consideration a number of sensitive issues other than just cost. That is an honest statement, but the overall consideration by the Commission is politics. The only answer for the USPS is a full and open consideration of what we expect from the service in light of today’s evolving digital world, and what are we will to pay for as citizens to preserve the service as a whole, and how will the prime users contribute to save their unique positions. This includes the full commercial mailers, and rural users who are the prime drivers of cost.

I await 2012 to see how this evolves. I expect no real answers until after the election of 2012 which will go a long way to determining how we as a large community will choose to deploy and pay for the resources that we use.

Analog Sherpa

Media, Marketing & Management For A Digital World

Tag Archives: digital integration