Lately I have been experiencing severe cases of déjà vu.
I remember many years ago, maybe ten, ranting about the threat of commoditization and the internet; the googleization of the content. Fortunes have been made over the years through search engines and ad serving companies. I don’t begrudge any individual or company for leveraging their technology to take advantage of market opportunities.
I read with great amusement a recent article in MediaWeek about ESPN turning off their content with a series of Ad Networks, claiming that they were tired of having the value of their content commoditized and sold to the cheapest buyer. They argued that they had spent millions of dollars over the years in building their brand reputation, loyal customer base, and the relationship between the brand, content and customer; only to realize that all of this “value” was being negated as part of an ad network package.
I was amused in the sense that this fear of value reduction and commoditization is something that I spoke about years ago, when publishers threw up their hands in frustration that the internet was impacting on their ability to sell their print inventory. They argued that their titles still held great value in the market but they couldn’t compete. Instead of kicking the butts of their sales teams and retraining them on selling their content in the new integrated world, they gave it away and established relationships with Ad Networks to “sell” their inventory. The finance guys were ecstatic, saving costs and seeing incremental revenue come in almost immediately.
So now, being lost in a “network” that puts more value on reach versus quality of audience, they are angry. Do they really expect that a broadcast network sales executive is going to take the time to single them out for special consideration and pricing? Not going to happen… ever. These networks are built on selling big packages to their customers. Like it or not… you have done the deal with the devil… you took the quick dollar… and now your brand is suffering the consequences.
There may still be time (you need to move quickly) to change the fortune of folks like ESPN and other “premium” brands in the market. Instead of creating your own premium network and believing that a third party can sell the value of your brand, invest in a kick-ass sales leader and get your marketing team to build you a set of tools that demonstrate the value of your brand. Do something breakthrough, such as showing your customers why, from an ROI standpoint… “premium out-of-ad-network” dollars should be spent in your content arena… because the relationship between your brand, content and your audience can deliver much better than the lesser content providers in the “other guys” network.
What was old is new again… time to get to work.
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