Hopefully the last post on mobile for a bit – time to move on. But, before that, a quick view on how publishers look increasingly likely to make the same mistakes in mobile as they have on the web.
We say that, given mobiles will be defined differently from the PC-based internet only by the fact that it’s a smaller device (though that is quite important), we all have handy experience and lessons that could easily be applied to this new ‘channel’. But, as is always frustratingly the case, heeding the lessons of the past is something people in general seem absolutely rubbish at. And so it seems here.
Desperate scrabbling
In a session on mobile yesterday we finished off with the view that – since mobiles increasingly will merely connect to the same backbone (the internet) as everything else, then there’s certain truths we can apply. They include that user interaction needs to be valued by advertisers to garner ad cash (or the advertiser’s objective needs to be shifted away from direct response and back to awareness-based stuff like reach & frequency) and that ‘applications’ – or services (Hotmail/Google/Messenger/Facebook/YouTube etc.) – will gain much greater scale than content-based services.
As the web developed, traditional publishers continued to make hay in their well-understood fields, while failing to take steps to understand – and then invest – in the emerging opportunity. As a result, their traditional business models are utterly threatened and desperate scrabbling is occurring to replace those revenues on the web.
Stockmarket crash
When it comes to mobile, there is something to go on. So, will they take the opportunity to invest (wisely) to avoid a similar position? The signs are no. While, they are much quicker to seek to understand the new threat/opportunity – some of our recent briefs are proof they’re keen to do this – taking the next step, i.e. actually doing something about it, again looks beyond them. Margins are too tight, finances are structured around particular titles and divisions rather than company-wide initiatives, and – culturally – the fact that print still makes them the most money, hampers their vision. As someone once wisely told me, no-one is bonused more than one year in advance – so of course they focus on what’s going to bring in money in the short-term.
Of course, one of the lessons from the web the traditional media owners are keen to take on board is the negative one – that they spent loads of cash initially only to lose it all in the crash. But that was a stockmarket crash – not a market one. Indeed, digital revenues continued to grow (thanks to search) all the while.
The ‘size’ thing
What we’re saying is, yes, be clever about where you spend, but be brave and be in no doubt that, just as the web did, mobile will grow with or without legacy businesses. The truism that the impact of new technology is over-estimated in the short-term and under-estimated in the long-term is utterly relevant here. The joy of mobile is that we have something of a blueprint to work with thanks to the PC-based market (though the ‘size’ thing prompts some fundamental differences). Most ['traditional' media owners] will waste it – others will certainly not.
