PRINT MAGAZINES: “COMPETITION IS SPREADING TOWARDS ALL DIRECTIONS” MARKETING WEEK INTERVIEW
This is the unedited version of an interview I gave on Marketing Week about the digital migration of print magazines, readers behavior and market diversification.
In a previous interview with Marketing Week dating back to 2007, Thodoris Colovos assumed an extreme diversification of markets across the globe and the necessity to redefine media. Today, he reflects on these accurate predictions and the evolving notion of the “publisher” by explaining how this “well-worn” concept has changed beyond recognition.
Marketing Week: The New York Times recently expressed their certainty about suspending the print edition of the newspaper in the near future. What does this mean for the future of print media?
Thodoris Colovos: The New York Times is about to become the first truly global media brand by eliminating the need for geographical designations. It’s a daring identity uprooting, confirming the current need for a new, unified and consolidated world culture. It’s almost certain that through this action the New York Times brand will significantly penetrate the most remote local markets, creating, I believe, very tangible challenges for other media producers along the way.
Marketing Week: Aren’t there many cultural burdens that need to be surpassed before?
Thodoris Colovos: Local media and global media will have to compete. Young people (in Greece) are fluent in the foreign languages used by international media and do not require a local intermediary. Style.com is closer to their needs than a translated version of printed Vogue, for example. It is essential that we understand why the culture of safely adopting a proven formula from abroad is waning. Today it’s impossible to isolate and safeguard information. Having said that, I do not believe local media have no chances. The key measure here is creativity, and creativity often exceeds in value information. Only creativity can have a “local color” and relate to a specific group of people of common origin. Creativity may actually be the only shield that can protect small markets.
“…Whether (publishers) will continue to have control over (platforms) or not, relies on many different parameters…”
Marketing Week: What are the exact challenges periodicals currently face?
Thodoris Colovos: Similar to what happened in the music industry, in publishing control over exploitable content has also gradually passed on to IT companies, thus significantly changing the role and identity of readers. Publishers are no longer fully responsible for the production of content, but are taking up the role of platform controllers instead; and with “platforms” I am referring to environments in which users and content producers – or even better, providers – share pretty much the same role. Publishers are now faced with creating environments by utilizing a complex combination of media. However, whether they will continue to have control over them or not, relies on many different parameters.
Marketing Week: What are these parameters?
Thodoris Colovos: One of them could be how new generations of audiences will make sense of their products. Magazines are brands, they mean certain things. I very much doubt that these media brand names will continue to signify what they did 10 years ago. And I mention this because their effort to simply appear increasingly technologically advanced is only an impressive move, it doesn’t really add anything to the process of content making. It’s a shift of corporation irrelevant to the core ideas behind the production of periodicals. It actually feels as if publishers are now working for the benefit of IT companies.
Marketing Week: But accessing information through an iPhone or a computer screen is inevitable.
Thodoris Colovos: It sure is. But again, content producers are not supposed to indulge into this kind of action. Their identity crisis is irrelevant to transferring content from one medium to another. Media technology will be constantly evolving, and a shortsighted “techno-centric” approach is, simply put, a bad investment. Metrics are one thing, content expertise is another. If there is no engagement by consumers there’s nothing to measure. What’s important is producing interesting methods of circulation and flow of content. From any medium to any other, in a comprehensive way that complements the consumers’ experiences, in total harmony to their everyday lifestyle. Media that actually compliments this lifestyle, instead of appearing as a far off element. This is a time I believe, where information does no longer succeed the experience, but rather exists parallel to it if not precedes it.
Marketing Week: Can you provide a comparison example?
Thodoris Colovos: It is rather simple. Periodicals were the medium for lifestyle information to enter a household. Today it is no longer. The time it takes for a magazine to be produced is long comparing to the speed of information spreading these days. And mind, we are dealing with a new generation of consumers characterized by an extremely short attention span.
Marketing Week: Do you still believe the term “publisher” is dated?
Thodoris Colovos: In a few years time, I believe, the word “publisher” will simply fade into obscurity, as it will no longer correspond to any specific media function. What publishers have to understand is that their expertise is becoming obsolete, and this calls for them to decide whether they are at all interested in starting from scratch – by investing in their companies’ education, innovation and flexibility. The mere concept of the periodical as we know it no longer exists. And mistakenly the industry is reacting with mostly financial changes; you hardly see anyone trying to re-invent their role as publishers, which actually is the issue at hand. Once paper is out of the way, their identity will be no different then that of anyone with the ability to produce ideas, write or create a video of themselves. Information in the form of entertainment is no longer about exposing or publishing, it’s about controlling.
Marketing Week: What should the publishers that will take the plunge do?
Thodoris Colovos: If they indeed decide to invest, they should quickly form new expertise, not necessarily related to technology. They are late already and it is well-established that hasty work creates many mistakes and even more expenses. Publishers widely appear indecisive on whether to move towards a competition with technology strategy, find different sources of income other than advertising, or simply continue their traditional business. And the results of such indecision, in short, are inefficiency, frozen consumers and an even more hesitant advertisement market.
Marketing Week: If we accept that the content provider is not clear anymore, is there a risk that advertisers are going to bypass the media?
Thodoris Colovos: Absolutely. Every field is investing on IT integration today, including advertising companies. As a result, advertisers can easily build their own environments, with their own content. In order to prevent this and persuade them to choose a specific content provider, the media will have to offer extremely strong incentives. This will probably demand a bigger investment on the part of media, as the competition is spreading in every direction.
Marketing Week: Do you think that the now numb advertising market has the reflexes to adapt?
Thodoris Colovos: As long as there are products available for consumption, the need for advertising will exist. Brand managers are indeed skeptical, but they do not reject the advertising process. We need radical thinking on the part of the media; media and advertisers can help each other. After all, new media are serving the advertising process more efficiently than ever.