Can New Media Save Print?

March 30, 2006

As I caught my breath and tried to slow my heart rate during a commercial break of the LSU vs. Texas basketball game this weekend, I saw a Cingular ad that caught my attention. The short synopsis is that one guy was reading news headlines out of the newspaper while the other character corrected him with the more up-to-date news he was getting in real-time off of his cell phone.

Yet another industry trying to bring newspapers to their knees. Add “mobile” to the list with online classifieds, advertising, podcasting, etc…

On the flip side, the Newspaper Association of America has launched a $50 million dollar ad campaign to show, based on independent research, that consumers do respond to newspaper advertising and that it is an effective advertising medium.

They have some compelling stats:
• 52% of consumers say newspapers are where they go to check out the ads, five times more than any other medium.
• 46% say newspapers are their preferred medium to receive ad information. TV comes in second at 10%.
• 51% of consumers say newspapers are the most valuable in planning shopping, with the Internet coming in at 11%
• Newspapers lead all media in heavy usage among ‘influential’ and opinion leading consumers at 41% (helping advertisers harness the power of these word-of-mouth advocates.)
Sources: How America Shops and Spends, MORI 2005; Media Engagement Study, Millward Brown 2005 and MRI.

But the fact that this much money is being put into an ad campaign by the NAA proves what we said in an earlier post: the newspaper industry is bleeding. While trying to bring advertisers back to newspapers is one approach to regaining ad momentum in newspapers, I think a much more effective method is for the newspaper industry to embrace and strategize around new media.

RSS grew over 50% last year and is growing even faster this year. The revenue from RSS marketing efforts has grown at the same clip. While many newspapers are offering RSS feeds, very little focus has been put on monetizing them, and this is where publishers are falling short. As ad dollars are draining away from newspapers, the mediums that are taking over the content are being ignored from an advertising perspective.

To the newspaper industry, I say: RSS is here, embrace it as well as other new media alternatives like Mobile.

Posted by Bill Flitter on March 30, 2006 4:02 PM
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