CHANGING MEDIA SUMMIT - MARCH 2007
Report to Plymouth Media Partnership of attendance of The Guardian’s Media Summit, March 2007, by Katie Thompson
Introduction
Thanks to PM-P support, I was able to attend the Changing Media Summit, organised by The Guardian. It took place in March 2007 and pulled together old and new media types to listen to panels of experts – including senior people from Reuters, Habbo International, The Guardian, Second Life.
There were seminars to take part in and opportunities to network too – plus the whole event was being blogged live from the front row.
See more at http://media.guardian.co.uk/changingmediasummit
Emily Bell, director of digital content, Guardian News and Media, opened the show with an immediate dilemma – how to brands and companies navigate the new technologies and the quickly-changing media landscape? She said that new tools and behaviours are everywhere.
“If you surf in too much spume, you are going to get washed up…you need to see where the main body of water is moving,” she said.
Plus she had words for content-creators who worry about how they present media to ‘the punters’: “It’s not about giving your users what they want – it’s about them taking it”
Keynote speech: Geert Linnebank, senior advisor to the chief executive, chairman of the Reuters Foundation, Reuters
He explained how Reuters had taken a very risky leap to go from a business-to-business model to a business-to-consumer one, via website and other services.
He outlined today’s challenges which include, according to him:
· Changing audiences
· Brand promiscuity
· Communities
· Virtual people and environs
· Increasing amount of distribution paths such as mobile and IPTV
· Rapid brand creation and marketing activities
· Highlighting the right revenue streams
However, he said that the basic tenets of business hadn’t changed: service the customers well and be value for money, he said.
He said companies with a personal link to customers have the advantage, so therefore market to a niche of one. He added that companies need to have clarity about what they do best, they need to have partners and they need to have the best technologies available.
He talked about Reuters partnering with the Global Voices blogging network, ensuring this massive media company continued to have authentic voices in journalism.
And he concluded:
know/understand/engage/serve your audience
Roundtable - Care in the community: from new media to social media?
This panel session included:
Emily Bell, director of digital content, Guardian News and Media
Kevin Anderson, blogs editor, GuardianUnlimited
Gavin Newman, executive producer, Virgin Media Television
Joanna Shields, president, international, Bebo
Celia Taylor, director of programming, Trouble, Challenge, Bravo and Bravo2
Patrick Walker, head of video content partnerships, Google
The main discussion was over user-generated-content and how to make money from it.
The ‘rules’ of monetising UGC, as outlined by this session include:
Find brands that understand UGC and work with them
Create strategies to encompass UGC, such as two-way consumer communication, use of community-building and social networking tools, encouraging sharing and being viral.
Important points made include:
An audience is NOT a community.
Support interactivity and participation by and between your users
Brand is not the content – as longs as the content’s right, people don’t care which channel delivers it.
Panel - Game on: Gaming and virtual economies - players in control
This was attended by:
Ed Bartlett, vice president, Europe, In Game Advertising (IGA)
Justin Bovington, CEO, Rivers Run Red
John Burns, senior director of e-commerce, Electronic Arts Europe
Gavin Forth, head of entertainment, Orange
Timo Soininen, CEO, Sulake Corporation (Habbo Hotel)
Following a presentation by Timo Soininen on the teenage virtual environment Habbo, he showed that successful advertising/income methods in virtual economies included:
Billboards
Virtual events
In-game prize sponsorships
Home-page sponsorships
IM sponsorships
Click-throughs
Important points made include:
Stop advertising, start involving!
Brands only become content by adding value (and not over-branding)
Place importance on connecting mobiles to your web experience seamlessly
Remember it is the users’ space, not the owners’ space
Session 1A - Let's get engaged: brand engagement in the digital age
This was attended by:
Dominic Chambers, head of brand and marketing communications, Vodafone
Sue Elms, executive vice president, global media practice, Millward Brown
Martin Lundin, head of digital marketing, Sony Ericsson
Guy Phillipson, chair, AIB
Douglas Smith, strategy director, Lateral
Important points made include:
Understand where you fit into your users’ worlds
You need to think long-term and widely
Centre operations around the consumer
Be transparent – honesty is necessary
Have an immediate dialogue with consumers
Concentrate on giving service first, then shout about it.
Session 1B - Democratising content in the user-in-control era
Attended by:
Janine Gibson, assistant editor, the Guardian
Edwin Aoki, chief architect, AOL
Ben Hammersley, multimedia reporter, GuardianUnlimited
Tariq Krim, CEO and founder, Netvibes
Steve Olechowski, cofounder and COO, Feedburner
Important points made include:
Encourage people to love and share your content and they’ll love you forever – block them and they’ll never return.
Any syndication should be an extension of your brand’s values
Think of RSS as a TiVo for your website
What’s the business model for free content?
Difficult to find some concrete conclusions but…
Contextual advertising, upselling and cross-promotions are the main tools. Even if you think you’re giving away content, you’re encouraging purchases.
Important points made include
Do a good service above all
Create the conditions for a community to be built
If you don’t share, you lose your audience
Conclusions
There are bewildering new technologies…but the old tenets remain, like putting the consumer first, giving a good service and good value.
Make communication with and between your users easy
Encourage sharing of your content – make it easy for consumers to love your stuff
Monetise sites and experiences without over-branding – using traditional ideas like ads, click-throughs and good, old-fashioned product-placement.
Ensure your content can be platform-agnostic – make your content fit whatever platform your consumers choose to view it on
“The future’s already here – it’s just not evenly distributed” – BBC’s Tom Loosemore
Weblink
www.mediaguardian.co.uk/changingmediasummit
