Four Major Newspapers Form Local Ad Network: quadrantONE

 

The Tribune Company, the Gannet Company, the Hearst Corporation and the New York Times announced the formation of a new company called quadrantONE today. The company will allow national advertisers to reach local markets without working through a media buyer. In their press release, the company claims that they can reach 50 million unique visitors each month through a network of over 120 local news websites including the LA Times (click here for a complete affiliate list).

The move is likely in response to forward progress being made by the Yahoo Newspaper Consortium, although some of quadrantONE’s sites are also members of the consortium. The major advantage to advertisers is “guaranteed” inventory, something the Yahoo network doesn’t offer.  Each of the four newspapers has agreed to “transfer” a portion of the inventory to the new company, making the inventory available immediately to advertisers.

Here’s a few thoughts and ideas for local newspapers that this venture brings to light:

1. Keep focusing on LOCAL advertisers:

While quadrantONE may provide an outlet for national brands it still has yet to define what kinds of advertising it will be supporting. There’s no mention in their press release of contextual advertising or behavioral targeting so the company will most likely sell standard display(banner) ads. The list of sites does include “local” venues but many sites (e.g. LAtimes.com) have a significant amount of “national” traffic. Local newspapers should stay laser focused on acquiring local advertisers and revenue. Let the watered down national plays figure themselves out, there’s profit to be had at the local level. 

2. Leverage Technology Relationships:

Today in the Industry Standard Jeremy Kirk observed: “QuadrantONE is most notable for the online players that aren’t participants, such as Google, Yahoo or Microsoft. ” Without the support of a key technology partner, it will be difficult for quadrantONE to provide a system for delivering ads across all the newspaper sites on its affiliate list. By contrast, the consortium provides newspapers with access to Yahoo’s ad delivery systems which include some of the most sophisticated contextual and behavioral targeting programs available. Local newspapers need to keep looking for these types of partnerships and relationships on a “Local” level that allow them to borrow working technology and ideas from other companies.

3. Form Hyper Local Ad Networks:

Would it be that crazy of an idea to have local newspapers form their own local ad networks? There are hundreds of high traffic local websites and blogs in a given community. Many of these sites are not even supporting advertising units. Maybe it’s the chamber web site, the local golf association, High School, or the areas largest building products provider. Local newspapers can form partnerships and affiliations with these organizations and help them monetize their sites by selling advertising as part of a “local” network buy.

Jeremy Kirk couldn’t have stated it better: “…If newspapers develop better ways to sell their own online ads, they may not have to share revenue with their Web counterparts such as Yahoo and Google.”

“The Word Is Alive”

Newspaper Next Idea-Brainstorming Session 2

We held our second News Paper Next Brainstorming Session this morning.

Though we had 6 out of 8 teams represented (teams formed in Brainstorming Session 1), we were down to a total of 18 attendees. It was encouraging to see that we still had the support of key department heads and executives from circulation and sales. We had at least 5 new attendees, with a strong showing from the creative department. Still no sign of editorial, but it’s clear that next steps in the N2 process will rely on their involvement.

After a brief overview of the N2 Game Plan and framework for flushing out ideas, we spent a few minutes on 6 of the ideas from last month’s session. Team members in attendance were given time to elaborate and suggest next steps for each idea. Of the 8 original teams, only Team 5 led by our ad services manager came prepared with prototype web/print mock-ups , completed N2 Resume Idea Template & preliminary revenue projections.

As new committees/teams were formed to further explore ideas, it became clear that many attendees were reluctant to take on additional responsibilities. “How much time is this going to take?” was the question from sales staff present. While our goal is new revenue, the time investment from commissioned sales staff needs to be justified. With current commission structures focusing on core print revenue within a sales territory, it will be difficult and dangerous to pull talented sales execs away from their bread and butter to work on new “ideas”.

It might make more sense to rely on sales staff less for “hands on” participation and more for feedback as ideas develop. Better yet, in the true spirit of entrepreneurship that N2 fosters, we should consider a “bonus” compensation structure for those employees who spearhead profitable N2 initiatives.

At the end of our discussions we were left with 4 new teams charged with drilling down further into the following ideas/initiatives (for a more detailed description of these ideas see Newspaper Next Idea Brainstorming Session I):

New Team 1: Improving communications and customer service systems.

New Team 2: Coupon advertising program and Auto Display Ad Program.

New Team 3: Hosting industry events tied to publications.

New Team 4: Local kid-targeted special section.

Next steps were also suggested for the following :

1. Creation of a local Hispanic print product: We will be inviting one of our sister publications to provide a presentation on how they successfully launched a “new” Spanish print piece using N2 methods.

2. Alternative News: a prototype of an Alternative News section will be created for presentation at the next meeting.

The following new idea was also presented and accepted with enthusiasm by most present:

PS Weekly (Prep Sports Weekly):

This would be a new weekly print publication highlighting prep sports topics and information. The piece could be distributed free to all high schools and prep sporting events in the local area. With our current on-line dominance in the Preps category, we could also use the product to build out our on-line section. Advertising programs could be developed with the cooperation of schools who would benefit from a percentage of ad revenues.

We’ll be meeting again in the coming weeks to choose an idea to launch within the next 45 days.

“The Word Is Alive”