Media companies: Embrace and innovate advertising or throw in the towel
One of Circa’s visions was to provide a mobile experience that didn’t heavily rely on revenue generated from ads. I don’t understand why the industry is shying away from ad money. Sure, the media industry got cozy with the ad based print models that worked for an unbelievably long time. That model is gone, but the ad spends aren’t. In fact, eMarketer believes advertisers will fork out $578bn dollars in media spends this year.
Media will continue to be in a frenzied state of catch up unless the industry refocuses the way it creates value and tries to make money off of that value–especially with brands.
Ads can still be a gargantuan money maker for digital news media.
So what’s it going to take?
1. Media has to champion ad formats that benefit brands and customers
I wish media companies would step up and think beyond delivering ad volume. I wish they’d focus on developing quality audience activity that brands would want to pay for.
Don’t get lazy media. Brands will hand over cash to media entities that deliver traffic. Social networks saw the opportunity and are on their way to pocketing more than $23bn dollars from advertisers in 2015. You’re losing out on a race other players are viciously innovating. Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, and others are hungry for that money and they’ve got the mindset to move fast.
Take advantage of what you do best because it’s the only way you’ll finance your future. Do everything to attract a solid audience that advertisers want to pay for. Then offer advertisers good placement and targeting–work with them to deliver an awesome experience.
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