We are a small, experienced and proactive consultancy with unrivalled expertise in Press and PR management for advertising, media, design, mobile and technology clients. We also look after consumer brands in the food, drinks and fashion sectors.
Now is the Spring of our Dis-content
Good quality, entertaining, and absorbing content – be it film, editorial or music – is one of the most magnetic elements of our online world. It draws people in, engages them, keeps them on certain sites, or pulls them away onto others. And yet, all too often, the value of these incredible pieces of creativity is not only overlooked, but entirely undermined.
The ways in which we – as consumers – access and engage with content have fundamentally changed over the past decade, and even the last few years. Gone are the days when we twiddled around with video players to set a specific recording time (only to be greeted with a miserable grey fuzziness upon our return), or waited eagerly for the next issue of a favourite glossy magazine.Content is everywhere, and we’re consuming it with an insatiable appetite as and when we like. In today’s open-access world content consumption is – largely – on consumers’ terms. And it is expected to be free, no matter its quality or how much time and money it took to create.
The Huffington Post recently chaired a particularly pertinent debate around content, with representatives from the Evening Standard, Channel 5 and VCCCP on the panel. One of the points raised was that content owners need to start thinking outside and beyond the box when it comes to monetising it to recover its value. New models are needed, with multiple revenue streams, if the worth of quality content is to be reaffirmed.
With paywalls only really now starting to dominate the press in the UK – with The Telegraph announcing its so-called ‘metered’ model and News International recently explaining a free model is now ‘untenable’ for The Sun – there is a prevalent sense of entitlement amongst consumers. We have been spoilt for choice, and we have become greedy.
Paywalls are often thought of as barriers that keep quality content in, and potential readers out, therefore putting off advertisers. And yet there are a growing number of examples where payment models are proving a success, particularly in the US. According to the Pew Research Center report, nearly a third of American newspapers now have paywalls of one kind or another.
The New York Times, for example, is living – and thriving – proof that paywalls can bring in the pounds without putting off the punters, with the third highest readership in the United States. Despite charging for content, the paper is bringing in higher revenues from subscriptions than from advertising. Hard to imagine in the UK where newspapers usually rely on advertising for 80% of their revenue [source: The Economist].
These examples support the fact that it’s pertinent – and timely – to start charging for content. After all, people are far more confident shopping online than they were in the early noughties, or those dark years pre-2000.
Like any other product, content needs to be marketed effectively, and this includes using price as a tool for positioning its value. With content being in such high demand online, it is time for the bodies and people that create or produce this content to not only survive, but to flourish.
© Pumpkin 2013
Pumpkin Limited, registered in England and Wales. Company No 04253502. Registered office 27 Mortimer Street, London, W1T 3BL
Pumpkin Limited, registered in England and Wales. Company No 04253502. Registered office 27 Mortimer Street, London, W1T 3BL