2008/02/05 .. by
What makes Cross- Media cross?
How mainstream is Cross- Media?
Let’s take some time to review the top news of 2007 and exam the Cross-Media trends again.
1. The New Economic Opportunities
First of all, money is the most important factor. The emergence of new media provides a broader audience, which translates into more money.
Let’s look back at May 15, 2007, when it was announced that Canadian news and information groups Thomson Corporation agreed to a merger with Reuters group, a deal valued at US$ 17.2 billion.
Source: ABC News http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=3174768
This creates one of the world’s largest providers of financial news and information and as part of this plan ‘they are expected to liken the sector to the music industry, where the rise in online sales has quickly created new competitors’ (The Telegraph).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/05/14/cnthom14.xml
On one side, there is the merger of traditional media groups, whereas on the other hand companies like Google have built a Cross-Media empire across different platforms.
2. The Concentration of Cross-Media Ownership
Ownership and control of media are changing every day and Cross-Media ownership is becoming more common. An increasing number of Media Groups have restructured and established Cross-Media department to grasp the opportunities.
One of the most important news in media industry last year is ‘Rupert Murdoch Buys Dow Jones and Wall Street Journal’. In August 2007, News Corporation reached an agreement to purchase Dow Jones for an estimated $5.6 billion, adding the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) to its worldwide media empire.
The concentration of Cross-Media ownership provides the possibility and conditions for Cross-Media.
Source: ABC News http://abcnews.go.com/Business/IndustryInfo/story?id=3105688&page=1
3. The Rise of Social Media
New media provides technological tools and a community environment, which makes social media one of the hottest things in 2007.
Facebook, The Second Life, MySpace and Youtube
According to Forrester Research, these social media companies double their impact and reach every six months.
From a Cross-Media perspective the continued growth of social networking provides a broader audience, an effective tool and a new platform for building business.
Undoubtedly, 2007 is a Facebook year. By the end of the year, the company was said to be worth $15 billion. So it’s not a surprise that ‘Microsoft beats Google to Facebook shares’. Microsoft has beaten Google to be the first to invest in social networking web site Facebook, paying $240m for a 1.6 per cent stake in the company in Oct 2007.
Now, Facebook was supposed to be a PR practitioner’s dream.
It is said, 'A picture is worth a thousand words'. I think that the proverb for Facebook should have been 'one group is worth a thousand press releases'.
How mainstream is Cross- Media?
Let’s take some time to review the top news of 2007 and exam the Cross-Media trends again.
1. The New Economic Opportunities
First of all, money is the most important factor. The emergence of new media provides a broader audience, which translates into more money.
Let’s look back at May 15, 2007, when it was announced that Canadian news and information groups Thomson Corporation agreed to a merger with Reuters group, a deal valued at US$ 17.2 billion.
Source: ABC News http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=3174768
This creates one of the world’s largest providers of financial news and information and as part of this plan ‘they are expected to liken the sector to the music industry, where the rise in online sales has quickly created new competitors’ (The Telegraph).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/05/14/cnthom14.xml
On one side, there is the merger of traditional media groups, whereas on the other hand companies like Google have built a Cross-Media empire across different platforms.
2. The Concentration of Cross-Media Ownership
Ownership and control of media are changing every day and Cross-Media ownership is becoming more common. An increasing number of Media Groups have restructured and established Cross-Media department to grasp the opportunities.
One of the most important news in media industry last year is ‘Rupert Murdoch Buys Dow Jones and Wall Street Journal’. In August 2007, News Corporation reached an agreement to purchase Dow Jones for an estimated $5.6 billion, adding the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) to its worldwide media empire.
The concentration of Cross-Media ownership provides the possibility and conditions for Cross-Media.
Source: ABC News http://abcnews.go.com/Business/IndustryInfo/story?id=3105688&page=1
3. The Rise of Social Media
New media provides technological tools and a community environment, which makes social media one of the hottest things in 2007.
Facebook, The Second Life, MySpace and Youtube
According to Forrester Research, these social media companies double their impact and reach every six months.
From a Cross-Media perspective the continued growth of social networking provides a broader audience, an effective tool and a new platform for building business.
Undoubtedly, 2007 is a Facebook year. By the end of the year, the company was said to be worth $15 billion. So it’s not a surprise that ‘Microsoft beats Google to Facebook shares’. Microsoft has beaten Google to be the first to invest in social networking web site Facebook, paying $240m for a 1.6 per cent stake in the company in Oct 2007.
Now, Facebook was supposed to be a PR practitioner’s dream.
It is said, 'A picture is worth a thousand words'. I think that the proverb for Facebook should have been 'one group is worth a thousand press releases'.
Today is my birthday, and what I learned is how to cook egg fried rice well. It sounds easy, but for a terrible cook like me, it is not such a relaxing experience. But today, I found that the secret is to dry the rice first, before frying it.
That is it! Only use dry rice, which is the reason why I failed thousands of time.
Coming back to my topic ‘Cross- Media’, I think that the key to reach Cross-Media is integration.
Change or Perish：
The new role of PR agencies In the past, traditional PR agencies had a clear role: do research on the mass audiences, create attractive campaigns, and use their influence to get television and newspaper coverage.
But this simple solution doesn't exist anymore. Television and newspapers have lost their once so dominant position in the media market. A whole new world of new technologies, new media, new clients and new consumers means that PR agencies must devote more time to media evaluation and selection.
This means that they will be able to produce more effective media coverage, provide what the client wants and more answers to their marketing problems.
The integration of Cross- Media is not only to get media coverage of different media platforms, but also to make communication interactive to achieve win-win results.
Integration: Both Content and Corporate
In July 2007, Google launched the Expands Print Advertising Program in the USA. This is an expansion in size and scope of its existing Print Ads TM advertising initiative, covering more than 225 newspapers from an original 50 newspaper publications.
Recently, according to The Sunday Times, Google plans to expand its newspaper print ad business in the UK.
In general, advertisers can search for newspapers through Google’s system using a number of criteria, including their circulation and geographic region. They can then make an offer for a certain ad size and wait to see if the ad is approved or the publication responds with a counter-offer.
See, new media and old media are getting closer every day. Even Google as an icon of new media, the search giant also wants to integrate its technologies to be able to reach traditional media.
New media cannot just be seen as a cold-blooded killer for old media, the integration is the future.
New media is not a cold-blood killer for old media, the integration is the future.
That is it! Only use dry rice, which is the reason why I failed thousands of time.
Coming back to my topic ‘Cross- Media’, I think that the key to reach Cross-Media is integration.
Change or Perish：
The new role of PR agencies In the past, traditional PR agencies had a clear role: do research on the mass audiences, create attractive campaigns, and use their influence to get television and newspaper coverage.
But this simple solution doesn't exist anymore. Television and newspapers have lost their once so dominant position in the media market. A whole new world of new technologies, new media, new clients and new consumers means that PR agencies must devote more time to media evaluation and selection.
This means that they will be able to produce more effective media coverage, provide what the client wants and more answers to their marketing problems.
The integration of Cross- Media is not only to get media coverage of different media platforms, but also to make communication interactive to achieve win-win results.
Integration: Both Content and Corporate
In July 2007, Google launched the Expands Print Advertising Program in the USA. This is an expansion in size and scope of its existing Print Ads TM advertising initiative, covering more than 225 newspapers from an original 50 newspaper publications.
Recently, according to The Sunday Times, Google plans to expand its newspaper print ad business in the UK.
In general, advertisers can search for newspapers through Google’s system using a number of criteria, including their circulation and geographic region. They can then make an offer for a certain ad size and wait to see if the ad is approved or the publication responds with a counter-offer.
See, new media and old media are getting closer every day. Even Google as an icon of new media, the search giant also wants to integrate its technologies to be able to reach traditional media.
New media cannot just be seen as a cold-blooded killer for old media, the integration is the future.
New media is not a cold-blood killer for old media, the integration is the future.
Last night, I celebrated the New Year by attending a spectacular fireworks display organised by the Mayor of London, on the banks of the Thames.
From a PR view, it was a very successful campaign.
The objective of the event was very clear: to gain a worldwide reputation for London as being the place to be on New Year's Eve.
The campaign targeted Londoners and tourists, with an estimated attendance of 350,000 people for the fireworks display in Central London, as well as many millions of viewers over television in the UK and the rest of the world.
I guess the biggest winner is BBC One, with millions of viewers, although the campaign has generated a tremendous amount of print, online and broadcast media coverage.
According to the Daily Telegraph‘Olympic imagery was projected on to the Shell building, near the London Eye, marking the fact that 2008 is an Olympic year and that the Olympic torch will soon pass into London's hands.’
I thought of projecting imagery onto a building by the Thames for my PR Pitch, but I realised that it is impossible with a £40,000 budget, not to mention that it’s already been done before.
Anyway, I wish everyone a happy new year and best wishes in 2008!
From a PR view, it was a very successful campaign.
The objective of the event was very clear: to gain a worldwide reputation for London as being the place to be on New Year's Eve.
The campaign targeted Londoners and tourists, with an estimated attendance of 350,000 people for the fireworks display in Central London, as well as many millions of viewers over television in the UK and the rest of the world.
I guess the biggest winner is BBC One, with millions of viewers, although the campaign has generated a tremendous amount of print, online and broadcast media coverage.
According to the Daily Telegraph‘Olympic imagery was projected on to the Shell building, near the London Eye, marking the fact that 2008 is an Olympic year and that the Olympic torch will soon pass into London's hands.’
I thought of projecting imagery onto a building by the Thames for my PR Pitch, but I realised that it is impossible with a £40,000 budget, not to mention that it’s already been done before.
Anyway, I wish everyone a happy new year and best wishes in 2008!
A typical example of a Cross-Media deal can look like Michael Franzini's One Hundred Young Americans. According to the Publisher’s Comments, the purpose of the book is to capture ‘first-hand accounts of youth culture in America from 100 teenagers in 50 states’, although the key is that this generation is the first to have ‘grown up with unprecedented access to media and information’.
It combines a book publication with a gorgeous web site containing elements such as image galleries, video elements and blog articles, from which you can get an in-depth account of their story, as well as participating in the community through social networks like Facebook and MySpace.
Through this case we can tell that a book is not only a book anymore, when it is enhanced with other media to become a kind of social network.
Press releases, advertising and PR campaigns are all about telling a story. Cross-Media is a new way to telling your story and a big opportunity in the PR industry can be found in the emergence of Cross-Media storytelling using different platforms.
Visit 100youngamericans at:
http://www.100youngamericans.com/
It combines a book publication with a gorgeous web site containing elements such as image galleries, video elements and blog articles, from which you can get an in-depth account of their story, as well as participating in the community through social networks like Facebook and MySpace.
Through this case we can tell that a book is not only a book anymore, when it is enhanced with other media to become a kind of social network.
Press releases, advertising and PR campaigns are all about telling a story. Cross-Media is a new way to telling your story and a big opportunity in the PR industry can be found in the emergence of Cross-Media storytelling using different platforms.
Visit 100youngamericans at:
http://www.100youngamericans.com/
In the short video ‘The Break up’ (available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3qltEtl7H8), a man and a woman meet up in a restaurant, where the woman announces that she wants a divorce from him, although he has no clue what the reasons are for the divorce.
It shows the relationship between the advertiser who has gone off and done his own thing and the client who is not impressed that the things he is doing doesn’t seem to be in the best interest to her.
In my opinion, PR practitioners and agencies need to be careful to take into account the client’s view of things in a Cross-Media world. The quote ‘I’ve changed, but you have not’ sums up the fact what the PR industry needs to be able to adapt to client requirements as well as keep up with new media, otherwise it will end up just like in the video.
It also reminds me of Mark Borkowski in his talk last month. He claimed that a ‘generation of PRs will die if they do not accept the new media’.
This leaves us to think about the importance of new media in the PR industry, as well as what clients want and whether it is possible to sell them ideas using the Cross-Media way.
It shows the relationship between the advertiser who has gone off and done his own thing and the client who is not impressed that the things he is doing doesn’t seem to be in the best interest to her.
In my opinion, PR practitioners and agencies need to be careful to take into account the client’s view of things in a Cross-Media world. The quote ‘I’ve changed, but you have not’ sums up the fact what the PR industry needs to be able to adapt to client requirements as well as keep up with new media, otherwise it will end up just like in the video.
It also reminds me of Mark Borkowski in his talk last month. He claimed that a ‘generation of PRs will die if they do not accept the new media’.
This leaves us to think about the importance of new media in the PR industry, as well as what clients want and whether it is possible to sell them ideas using the Cross-Media way.
