Media
2 Parent Policy for Chinese Olympic Athlete
Funny story by Geoffrey Fowler in the Wall Street Journal revealing an official Olympic sponsor with advertisements that are not entirely truthful (Cue: sounds of pained shock and horror).
Turns out that the “parents” pictured here with hurdler and gold-medal hopeful Liu Xiang’s are fake.
The ad, for the milk drink Satine, reads: “A delicacy among dairy products, Satine is my choice.”
While his parents have said in past interviews that their son grew up drinking milk, the people in the picture are actors.
The official explanation given to Fowler:
“The parents were shy,” says Tom Doctoroff, the north Asia chief executive of WPP Group’s JWT, which made the Satine ad for the brand’s parent company, Yili. “But they approved the concept.”
While companies are keen to capitalize on China’s reverence of family, Fowler points out that the use of actors as parental stand-ins carries the risk of backlash.
Paul Ginocchio: Should Newspapers and Dotcoms flirt or marry?
Spoke with Paul Ginocchio of Deutsche Bank, one of the few remaining newspaper stock analysts in the United States, about newspapers and dotcoms on the sidelines of IFRA’s Publish Asia 2008 conference in Macau.Newspapers have traditional strengths- Content: Highest quality and most robust local news and information (by far)- Brand: Almost always the strongest local media brand by a wide margin- Sales: Large local advertising sales force- Cash Flow: Legacy print business still produces cash flow that is significant compared to most online businessesbut also weaknesses.- National: Newspapers are local, which creates issues when bought nationally- Online Traffic: Not good at driving pageviews, industry struggling to create inventory- Technology: Much smaller IT staffs and less digital experience- Culture: Legacy monopoly print culture makes for slower change (US v. UK/Canada)An alliance with a pure online company could help a newspaper overcome some weaknesses- Partner with market leader- Better technology- Strong online brandbut also has inherent dangers for the newspaper.- Potentially diverging interests over time- Signifinant value accretes to online partners (brand building, consumer usage)- Relying on outside companyExamples of alliances:- HotJobs, Monster- Yahoo! Newspaper consortium: Ad platform- Google Print Ads- ZillowAlternately, purchasing a dotcom offers the newspaper some advantages- Total control- Most value accretes to owner- Owner gets product or services fully subsidized by other affiliatesbut full ownership can be onerous.- Clients have not long-term commitment to product, typical client/vendor relationship- Potentially harder to sell product, leading to lower network effectsExamples outright ownership:- Discovery Planet (Gannet’s white label local search business)- RealCities (ad platform/rep firm launched by Knight Ridder)- Town News (Website infrastructure outsourcing owned by Lee Enterprises)What guidelines for newspapers?- Newspapers should focus on what they do best and outsource or partner for the rest- Don’t try to compete via technology, win through brand and content- Local sales is a strength, national sales and self-service is likely a weaknessThe real danger for newspapers:- Building the brand and usage of your online partners (Zillow, HotJobs)- A newspaper’s legacy culture got in the way of partnerships for too long, ceding much of the first mover advantage to online pure-players.- Culture and language of old and new media companies are too wide to bridge.
Paul Ginocchio of Deutsche Bank
Met Paul Ginocchio of Deutsche Bank, one of the last newspaper analysts in the United States, at IFRA’s Publish Asia 2008 conference, where he gave some great thoughts about the strengths and weaknesses of online companies joining with dotcoms.
He has been Deutsche Bank‘s Publishing & Advertising analyst since 2003 and currently covers newspapers, yellow pages, magazine publishers, advertising agencies and marketing services (16 total companies,7 newspaper operators, was 10 until a year and half ago…)
Previously he covered European business services out of London for Deutsche Bank for 4 years and prior to Deutsche Bank, worked for Price Waterhouse (Chicago & London) in Valuation Services for 4 years. He has an MBA from Indiana University, BA in economics from North Carolina State and is based in San Francisco.
One of the best parts of his presentation, however, was the long caveat he offered (Perhaps in reaction to angry newspaper employees?):
“I have never worked for a newspaper company, my clients are investors in newspaper companies and other media. Public companies give us very little information on individual newspapers, so I tend to use company or industry-wide information. I have a large market, US bias, due to my coverage universe. My knowledge is nearly 100% based on what is happening in the US market. I am positively biased towards newspapers as I make my living covering them; I do not want them to fade away.”
Link up:
My newspaper articles:
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