News Flash: Guardian Seeks to Grow through Products, Not Content

If you are a regular to this blog, you've heard this before: in the future, it will be very difficult to tell the difference between media companies and brands that sell products and services.

Heck, we may be there already. Media companies are working hard to develop products while their advertising revenues plummet.  Brands must develop consistent content and publishing strategies in order to attract and retain customers (to ultimately sell their products).

It's a strange marketing world we live in today.

Another shining example of this happening is at The Guardian, the liberal UK newspaper and online resource. After giving my speech on the Future of Custom Publishing at the "Best of Corporate Publishing" 2009 event in Berlin, Germany last week, I had the opportunity to listen to Colin Hughes, managing director of Guardian Professional, the B2B Division of Guardian Media.

After talking for a while about content syndication, Colin opened up about the future of The Guardian.  Here are his thoughts through my notes:

1. No one has figured out how newspapers can make enough money online to be profitable, including them.
2. They are not quite sure when the last day will come for a printed Guardian, but their leadership is quite sure it will come within the next 30 years, if not sooner. They are preparing that it could realistically come very soon (though).
3. They belief the key to their growth is in creating new, unique and valuable products and services by leveraging the Guardian brand.

Let's focus on that third point for a second.  The Guardian has been working with over 850 development organizations around the world.  Their charge: to develop new applications and products based on the Guardian brand.

These development organizations get free use of the Guardian brand, with the only caveat being that if any money is made, there must be a revenue share with the Guardian.

It's a Facebook Apps meets NYTimes strategy.  The Guardian has their own VC fund, but instead of monetary investment, they willingly give use of the Guardian brand. Only time will tell if it will work, but I believe they are headed in the right direction as a large media company.

In 10 years, it will be interesting to see if we'll be able to tell The Guardian from other brands working to sell products and applications in their chosen sectors.

As media companies have been aware for some time now that their emerging competitors are their own advertisers, brands need to be aware that future competition will come from media companies as well.

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Comments

[Jonathan Kranz]

Funny you should mention this, Joe. Two or three weeks ago, I got a curious email from the Wall Street Journal. (I'm a subscriber to its online edition.) They were making an offer -- but not for a subscription or related content. Instead, it was for WINE. Not a book about wine. Not a wine newsletter. But actual cases of wine, hand-selected by their wine columnists.

Interesting...

So I imagine they captured my reading habits, saw that I clicked on the wine column, and put me on the list for this offer.

More significantly, they've decided that as a revenue stream, mere content isn't enough; instead, they want to leverage their reader base to target them with hard offers they suspect they would be interested in.

What do you make of this?

[Joe Pulizzi]

Hi Jonathan...great example. What do I make of this? Welcome to the future of media for the next few years until they really figure out what they want to do.

My question is, did you appreciate this offer, or feel like it was a little "Big Brother-ish"?

[Jonathan Kranz]

Joe, Dow Jones is a client of mine (different division than media) so I'm just going to say that I noted the activity and found it...curious.

[Brindey Weber]

Hello Joe. So, if someone suddenly named you responsible for leveraging the Guardian Brand for revenue, what ideas would you have for them? What do you think newspapers should do to make money but keep credibility?

[A Monck]

Jonathan - welcome to the WSJ's version of the Sunday Times Wine Club! It's a 35 year old idea...

http://www.sundaytimeswineclub.co.uk/xsite.aspx?xsite=theclub_home.xml

[Peter Holsgrove]

Hi Joe. Its certainly an interesting assertion and obviously one which makes sense - traditional media companies like the Gaurdian need to think differently. The main issue I'd suggest the Gaurdian will have however is simple... the Gaurdian isn't 'cool', and changing that perception, amongst the myriad of other established and emerging platforms is going to be very tough.

Therefore, when thinking about leveraging the Gaurdian brand, what success could be driven from the association? Online web 3.0 type stuff? Perhaps, but in my opinion, not likely. Are there print innovations that the Gaurdian could latch onto? Maybe, but with an ailing print industry, there is no long term picture.

Perhaps where the Gaurdian could prosper is in using its vast experience, knowledge of the industry, relationships, contacts and data - be less protective about the brand and use the 'real value' in what they have to churn out some real innovation. Kind of like what Barak Obama is trying to achieve... take age old values, ethics and traditions that will work to the end of time, get some smart people involved, put a modern facade on it and get people behind it. That way, the Gaurdian may still be around in 30 years, instead of watching Digg, Mashable, Twitter, GdGt, etc have all the fun.