It is important to extend the brand that everyone knows well, but not everyone pays to have.
It is important to show younger (and not so young) audiences that your brand moves forward, that it innovates, that it keeps up with the way they consume information today.
It is important to attract new audiences and new advertising clients.
And now I have found this piece from the Nieman Lab that describes how The New York Times goes about creating its new products. The article mentions five top criteria, all of which are worth reviewing:
The listing describes five criteria:
- “We anticipate but don’t require that the ultimate product will blend utility with editorial value and stand alone as a business”
- “Global potential”
- “A model that maximizes frequency through utility and habit building”
- “A model that has organic growth potential”
- “A product that leverages the brand, authority, personality and assets of the Times
But of the five, this one stands out fo me:
“We anticipate but don’t require that the ultimate product will blend utility with editorial value and stand alone as a business”
The best thing about new products under a traditional brand is that usually they don’t have to deal with the legacy issue which trips so many potential good endeavors in newsrooms everywhere. A new product has no grandfather or great-grandmother to stall progress. With the right team on board (usually not the top echelon execs who may be too ingrained into the local newsroom culture), new products can soar.
I often think that The Washington Post’s The Lilly is an example of what can be accomplished with a good idea that grows under the umbrella of an established brand.
Let’s hear it for new products and the teams that bring them to market. In fact, new product creation is such a fantastic exercise that even those new products that do not see the light of day can contribute to make people in the newsroom aware of what is possible.
Mario’s speaking engagements
Nov. 12
Keynote presentation: Business Information & Media Summit (BIMS).
Order print edition of The Story from Amazon
You can order the print edition of my new mobile storytelling book, The Story, from Amazon already here:
Pre-order The Story
The newspaper remains the most powerful source of storytelling on the planet. But technology threatens its very existence. To survive, the Editor must transform, adapt, and manage the newsroom in a new way. Find out how, pre-orderThe Story by Mario Garcia, chief strategist for the redesign of over 700 newspapers around the world.
Order here:
https://thaneandprose.com/shop-the-bookstore?olsPage=products%2Fthe-story
The Story will also appear in print
I am happy to announce that we will, indeed, have a print edition of my mobile storytelling book, The Story. I thank you for expressing your interest to our publisher, Thane Boulton, of Thane & Prose. Now the print edition will be a reality, and you can already see the cover and back cover here:
An interview of interest
http://www.itertranslations.com/blog/2019/3/11/fd60ybflpvlqrgrpdp5ida5rq0c3sp
TheMarioBlog post # 3092