Publishing in the Digital Age: Feast or Famine?
Digital technologies and platforms have turned the publishing world upside-down. New-breed publishers continue to enter the landscape and are helping to drive the evolution of what publishing offline and online is all about.
Doron Wesly, VP Media Practice, Millward Brown, set the stage right off, indicating that web pages have come to include more than just text, now including podcasts, video webcasts, interactive online forms, games and more. So clearly, their is a need to recognize that the online space has moved beyond the "add on / added value" mentality many publishers and marketers have had about it.
The panelists for this session included:
Fred Lebolt, VP, New Media, Sun-Times News Group
Mike Kisseberth, Senior VP, Corporate Sales, CNET Networks, Inc.
Chad Peplinski, VP, Media Development, ValueClick Media
Judy Bahary, VP, Research Director, Starcom MediaVest Group
The panelists all agreed that there is a real need to understand their audiences more deeply and to derive new and better tools for understanding consumer engagement. The group were in agreement on most issues discussed, which was surprising considering their diversity.
The one 'old media' panelist, Fred Lebolt, agreed right at the onset that there have been tumultuous changes in the newspaper space and it has forced them to ask some very hard and fundamental questions. Clearly, when your company owns a $125 million printing press it behooves them to get the answers - and fast - so the impact of bloggers and burgeoning web 2.0 sites is not lost on them.
Mike Kisseberth of CNET Networks followed Chris Anderson's opening remarks by saying that customers have a wall of brands to choose from. You have to set yourself apart from an infinite pack of options. Lowered infrastructure costs has bent the old model where the fragmentation of readers has collectively started to impact not just old media but larger online-only media as well. "If you only harvest, you end up with a dead field."
Chad Peplinski of ValueClick Media had the fun quote of the session where he said "If you are not sticky, you are sucky".
Judy Bahary of Starcom MediaVest Group thinks this is a great time to be in research, as you can obtain direct feedback very quickly about what is resonating with consumers.
The panelists appeared to be in agreement with a returning theme at this conference that there is a need for new metrics to study consumer engagement and a need to understand the interactivity between print and online.
