The issues aren’t paper at The Chronicle
Livingston Grim was a conflicted man and unhappy man.
He had spent his life improving himself. He began his business life in high school and before delivering papers for his local newspaper. He knew about a hard day’s work.
Now as he looked into the fire he thought about the correspondence he had brought home from the office. The emails and letters from people and employees who mattered greatly to him weighed on him. They had been the ones who had helped him build the Chronicle and while he was “the boss”, he knew he owed nearly everything to them.
In his laptop he also had perceptual studies for the Chronicle. In his ‘Target Practice’ matrix he has plotted in Q4 a decade ago, now he found the paper in Q2. Not where he wanted to be.
This week he was bound to come to grips with the issue of his professional career. The issue could change the lives of the shareholders of his company, all the employees and anyone else who owed any part of his livelihood to the newspaper.
He has asked you for help. He will retire at some time in the next five years. He knows that the decisions he faces involve technology more familiar to you, hence his request.
Note to teams: Read each email and communication in the file. Reflect on the books and readings you have had the benefit of studying. Take it all into account.
Be prepared to identify the problems facing the Chronicle and any potential solutions. What are the advantages and disadvantages the Chronicle has and any opportunities it might seize. Be careful not to deceive yourself or him with your conclusions, mistakes are costly and possibly fatal.
Your firm has a new analytical tool to assist in determining a course of action. It might be an aid in thinking through the problems and opportunities.
Revenue Producer
It was Saturda
y night. Tony Blabolota, Advertising Director, and his wife had been invited to a dinner party at a client’s home. He had spent the evening chatting with other clients and generally making nice for business purposes. Much of the conversation surrounded all the new ways advertisers could reach consumers and the fancy new methods for measuring effectiveness. He is not the kind of person who shies away from an argument, but the comments had made him uncomfortable.
John Wannamaker’s observation of half a century earlier rung in his ears. “I know half my advertising works, I just don’t know which half,” he had said. Wannamaker himself was a nationally known retailer.
Today’s internet sellers employ all manner of new terms like click-thru’s and clicks per page and argue from “metadata” that he as a newspaper person had never had nor used. He realized for the dinner party talk the advertisers didn’t really understand it either. He also realized he’d better learn about it or he would be a competitive disadvantage. He knew these new guys weren’t any smarter than he was; they just had a new way of reaching consumers.
When he got home that evening he sat on the porch alone and considered what he knew from life and the business he had spent his entire career pursuing. Could he sell differently? What did he need to compete with this new technology? What was his goal for his client’s? What did they really need and why couldn’t he deliver it as well as his competitors? He had been answering these questions all his life. So what was different now?
He had never run from a fight? Never!
Could he price his product differently? Newspapers had sold dollars per inch always. Some rates for some sections had been higher, but generally all rates had been the same. He knew television had priced differently for different times slots, but that was based on fluctuating audience levels throughout the day. Could he sell sections of the paper in another way? He remembered something the old boy had said about Maslow. Something about the value of information as it moved up the hierarchy of needs. Or at least he thought he remembered something about that. Were there other businesses which were more sensitive to their customers need than he had been that he might now learn from? This was something he promised himself he would pursue. He wondered how reliable his newspaper’s reporting had been. He knew every paper received complaints all the time about mistakes.
As he reflected on his challenge he also wondered if his staff cold both regular print product and the internet proposal as the same time. He wondered if he should have a separate staff. He thought briefly about newsmen in the past migrating from newspapers into radio and then radio into television and Broadway actors into movies. Would people really make that move? For a moment he worried they would all move to the internet and no one would want to stay with the traditional product. Tomorrow he would make a plan.
Content Producer
Sally Strong sat in her kitchen Sunday morning. She knew tomorrow she would face her staff and her boss to discuss answers for next year’s strategic plan. She had been the ME for ten years. She was the first female ME in the papers’ history. When she was appointed she couldn’t figure out all the fuss over her appointment as the first female, but she was glad to have the job. She knew also the financial constraints the business was operating within. It was tough on Mr. Grim, she could see it in weekly meetings.
What could she do to help the organization? What things did she know better than anyone else? She decided to go back to the basics. Why did people read the paper? What were they looking for? Why are those things different now that the internet was here? So what? What skills did her staff bring to the reader others didn’t and how could those skills be marketed profitably? What costs did she have that she might shed? Could she pay her staff differently and still keep them happy and coming to work each day? Was there another reporting style she might use for her staff’s content? Could the graphics be improved? What about the timeliness of her reporting, people still wanted information as soon as they could get it, didn’t they? And it must be reliable, right?
She began to consider her record. Had she listened to readers when they complained? Yes, she thought. But how did they know she had listened she wondered for the first time.
She found herself uncomfortable with the answers she was producing, but decided it was time to confront the issues. She was looking forward to the meeting in the morning.
The New Player at The Chronicle
Maureen Lehtinen, The Chronicle’s newest employee, stepped into the lobby of the newspaper. It was as if she’d entered the 19th century. It was charming and fascinating and comforting. She was glad to be there, she reflected.
Comfort wasn’t the only feeling she was experiencing. As she thought further, she became less comfortable. Finally she became excited, a smile came to her face she stood a little taller and the walked with greater authority as she approached the receptionist and asked for the publisher, Livingston Grim.
In the days that followed, her initial impressions were confirmed.
Maureen is the Chronicle’s newest employee and director of digital content. It is an assignment with an uncertain destination with as yet unspecified skills. This is your assignment.
She was hired in response to Livingston Grim’s conclusion the Chronicle must take some affirmative steps to head off erosion in circulation. While home subscriptions have not fallen sharply, the trend is sufficiently alarming to trigger some action. The in-house innovation team appears to be willing but ineffective in finding a solution.
Advertising support has declined however. The Chronicle’s lineage has gone from a high in 2007 to approximately 60% of “07’s revenue in 2011. 2012’s revenue to date has not altered that trend.
Lehtinin’s task to provide a more defined course of action for Chronicle staffers. She is warming to the task, but she needs all the advice she can get.
She believes in the old axiom, “it’s cheaper to keep an existing customer than to find a new one”. But she knows her future lies with readers for whom the print version is no longer viable. In short, she is conflicted by these wholly divergent views.
Are they divergent?
Her dilemma is supporting both the old model (it’s cheaper to keep existing customers than to find new ones) and pioneering the new one (news finds us everywhere and appointment media –PUSH media– simply doesn’t meet today’s needs any more).
You must choose which direction to take:
A. Reinforce the print model?
B. Move decisively into the digital space?
C. Create a hybrid?
D. Will this be price-focused, customer-focused or product-focused?
You must choose—force the decision to foster one, but not to eliminate the other.