What Publishers Must Learn From CPG - Tom Cunniff - MediaBizBloggers

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Published: February 18, 2010 at 02:42 AM GMT
Last Updated: February 16, 2010 at 02:42 AM GMT

By Tom Cunniff

My first MediaBizBloggers post said content is now common as dirt and worth about as much. As a writer myself, it pains me to say it.

But when Condé Nast, which owns some of the best brands in the business, faces a billion dollar collapse in ad revenue we all have to acknowledge that something fundamental has changed.

We can ask, "how can publishers stop content from being commoditized?" but it won't help. I think it's time for a weirder but more productive question.

Are You Selling Cave Swiftlet Saliva Or Kraft Cheese?

Cave Swiftlet saliva is the main ingredient in bird's nest soup. It's so rare and so differentiated that a bowl of soup made from it goes for about $30. Nice business. But the other 99% of what people consume are essentially commodities. Salt. Coffee. Cheese.

Publishers can learn a lot from consumer packaged goods companies. Especially food marketers.

In a 2007 Wall Street Journal article Kraft CEO Irene Rosenfeld describes how their products are made.

"Our cheese segments are based on our manufacturing processes. We have processed slices, natural chunks, jar cheese…"

Content is based on manufacturing processes too. Publishers have daily newspapers, monthly magazines, nightly news broadcasts. Advertising has :30 TV, full-page ads, 720x90 banners, home page takeovers, etc. It's about how we're used to making stuff, not about how people like to consume stuff today.

When Ms. Rosenfeld went out on ethnographies and saw for herself how people were consuming her company's products, her perspective changed.

"Consumers are using processed slices to make sandwiches. They're using natural chunks to snack. They're using jar cheese to dip and spread. So if you start to focus on it from the consumers' perspective, it opens up a whole world of possibilities to what new products one might offer."

What Hot Opportunities Are You Missing?

It's no secret media consumption habits are changing. But they're probably changing in ways you hadn't even considered. What if there is emerging consumer behavior you're not making products for because you have no idea they're needed?

"When I went to Beijing, the consumer whose home I was in offered me some Tang. She poured it out and I started to gulp it down and almost burned my tongue because they drink Tang hot. And I didn't know that. We haven't really spent a lot of time thinking about the solubility of our Tang product in hot water."

Is your content easy to consume, in the way that people want to consume it today?

Make It Smaller. Make It Bigger. Just Try Something.

How would a food company look at the problem of commoditized content?

Make it smaller

. Why not make your content snack-sized? Twitter did it. Why isn't there more 100-Calorie Pack content? Candy is always merchandized by the cash register. What inexpensive treats can you sell that way?

Make it bigger

. Verve took an unsuccessful Ella Fitzgerald live LP and turned it into a best-selling CD box set. How? They went back into the vaults and found out-takes that were amazing. Can fashion or travel do the same with photography?

Make it more convenient

. When breakfast left the kitchen table, Kellogg's started making hand-held breakfast foods. Can you make your content more convenient?

Make it luxuriously experimental

. Ferran Adria at the Spanish restaurant El Bulli pioneered molecular gastronomy and changed the entire restaurant business. If you're re-heating the same old stuff and not inventing anything new, you can't expect people to pay much.

Sell it by the slice

. The New York Times sells a Premium Crosswords subscription for $39.95 a year. Smart. What could you offer by the slice?

Stroll the aisles at your supermarket and you'll see 1,000 more ideas. Diet. High Protein. High Fiber. Odd flavor combinations. Canned, whipped, frozen, powdered, microwavable products. Maybe your next offsite should happen at a Super Wal-Mart instead of a hotel. Seriously.

Blessed Are The Cheesemakers

It may sound weird to think about cheese and journalism in the same sentence. But these are weird times.

But to mangle a quote from Monty Python, "Blessed are the cheesemakers, for they shall inherit the media landscape."

If Kraft can work magic with cheese, imagine what you could do with your content if you looked at the way people consume it instead of the way it has always been made.

If you're a content company, invite the best food marketers you can to come in and talk about how they turn commodity products into profit.

You may be surprised by how many new ideas can be generated.

Tom Cunniff is VP Director of Interactive Communications at Combe Incorporated. He began his career as a copywriter at traditional agencies, founded an interactive agency in 1994 and now works on the marketing side creating and integrating traditional and interactive. Tom can be reached at tomcunniffnyc@gmail.com.

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