The Guardian's Three Little Pigs

 Just caught up with this brilliant piece of brand advertising from The Guardian.

Online profits, Oz Twitter useage

Monday Note shines a light on the elephant in the online newsroom: the financial numbers don't add up.

But can they?

Scott Karp points out that Facebook is lagging badly in delivering revenue against its current valuation. It has 100 million users but 2008 revenue was projected at only $300 million. So where's the rest?

According to Karp the problem is with Facebook's value proposition to advertising clients. It ain't as compelling as Google's by a long way.

In other words even the newest players can take a leaf out of Google's book. It's really about delivering customer satisfaction.

On another note it's interesting to see the growth in Twitter useage in Australia.

Masterful PR at Vanity Fair

You've got to hand it to them.

Consistently first class stories, beautifully written and accompanied by the best photography. Vanity Fair is an editorial-led magazine. And it is the complete advertisers' package.

The advertising pages in VF are beautiful to look at - they don't yell at you, they beckon seductively.

It takes nearly a whole month to enjoy this magazine properly. I love it.

I also love the way they use their web site. vanityfair.com is really a PR and marketing tool masquerading as a full service magazine site. The site is free, but the magazine leaks articles, on to it one by one as promotion for the current and upcoming print issue.

There's nothing particularly radical in that. But when your site content is as strong as vanityfair.com you can take a different tactical approach.

Their approach is to use PR to drive print sales, which of course is where they make the real money.

They do this regularly. Sometimes it's an Annie Leibovitz cover like pre-internet the one of a pregnant Demi Moore.

Today it was a Christopher Hitchens piece about letting himself be subjected to water boarding. theage.com.au lapped it up.


The story was a reprint from The Guardian, two days ago. The Guardian writer had taken Vanity Fair's bait ... and their hook and their line and their sinker too. But theage didn't mind.

I can't understand why theage didn't just write its own version. They did do a video piece. But the way video is presented on the Fairfax sites it really just looks like an afterthought to the serious work of putting words together.

By the way, if you're ever looking for Vanity Fair in an Australian newsagent you'll need to look in the "Women's" section.

Funny that ...

P.S. I don't love you

I admit it. Stories like this are too compelling.

I mean, all that chopping must have been hard work ...



But then, looking at that page, what really distracted me from the chopfest that was going on with the news item was the MPU ad for "One of the year's best love stories" starring Academy Award winner Hilary Swank, Gerard Butler and Friends "icon" Lisa Kudrow: PS, I love you.

Ahh, the wonders of contextual advertising.

Advertising and content

News.com.au has a dominant Vista ad at the top of the page today - taking over the whole feature editorial space. Lotsa money involved, no doubt.

This is the sort of thing that some editorial people absolutely hate. I take a different view.

The proposal actually came up when I was still editor late last year and I remember discussing it with the publisher and the product manager. One of the big concerns for news sites is revenue, always has been, so you can't afford to take a holier-than-thou approach as editor.

Still, the key was always going to be in the execution, and I think they've done a fairly good job here.

Cutting a bigger slice of the online ad pie

Amongst the gloom, some good news for newspapers' online efforts. Research by Veronis Suhler Stevenson shows that legacy media companies are growing their share of the online ad market faster than the Big Tech competitors Google and Yahoo!.

Paid Content reports:

"Traditional media’s share of the $22 billion 2006 spend is forecast at 37 percent, up 23 percent from 2000. By 2010 that is predicted to rise to 35 percent or $17 billion in a total market worth $44 billion. VSS MD James Rutherford said that despite the 'handwringing' about old media not making money online, the data shows the hard work is paying off."

Yes, the hard work is paying off. That growth, though, is coming off a low base, so it will be interesting to see if the rate holds. The strength of the legacy brands can translate into strong online audience numbers but it relies on more hard work and staying ahead of some pretty smart competition. (See Cameron Reilly's interview with Bob Cauthorn for an alternate take on the brand argument.)

Add to this the proliferation of independent and niche publications, and it will be very interesting to see how much of the online pie the old media companies can actually grab.

Time Inc is betting big. It is selling 18 of its niche publications to concentrate on the mass audience titles, both online and in print.

CEO Ann Moore explains:

“While these titles are good performers, Time Inc. is focusing its energy, resources and investment on our largest and most profitable brands, brands that have demonstrated an ability to draw large audiences in print and digital form. … I am confident that the biggest brands in print, with our expertise and support, will develop into the biggest brands online.”
- Adage