If Users Won’t Pay for News, Someone Else Might

An interesting column by Simon Dumenco at AdAge.com called “How the $0 Netbook Might Just Help Save the Media Industry.” The thesis: To make money on low-margin netbooks, computer makers might have to gin up some bundles of add-on content to sell — perhaps including news and media subscriptions. In the process, they’d help jump-start the idea that said content is actually worth paying for.

I’m a little skeptical about the hardware people getting into this successfully, but it’s a reminder that there are plenty of people who might want to build packages of content, either to sell or to use as incentives for their own marketing. There are always combatants desperately trying to gain market share (Comcast vs. FiOS, Verizon vs. Sprint, Lexis vs. Westlaw, Starbucks vs. McDonald’s) — they need some of the proverbial (and elusive) “added value” to get people to switch. Why shouldn’t premium content (music, news, video) be part of the bait? Would you try using Google Chrome, or use a Verizon wireless data plan instead of Sprint’s, if you got access to premium news and music you’d otherwise have to pay for? If the offer were compelling enough, you might.

This isn’t a new idea. Why, back in 1996 when I worked at wsj.com, we got a big check from Microsoft to give Internet Explorer 3 users free access to the otherwise subscription-only Wall Street Journal (they also got some nice things from ESPN and MTV). Back then, Microsoft was trying to grab share from the then-dominant browser, Netscape. They did. This year (when they can force you to download IE8 in a way they couldn’t in 1996) Microsoft is giving the money to charity instead. The newspapers might need it more – too bad so few of them have come up with interesting services worth charging for.

Enough Opining about Journalism, Let’s Sell Some Stuff

When it comes to the nuts and bolts of selling online subscriptions, who knows more than Marketing Sherpa founder Anne Holland? Here’s Anne’s newest site, www.whichtestwon.com, with some fun quizzes where you can guess which online offer pulled the highest response. Good luck, Anne!

Selling Conferences in 2009: “How About If We Pay Your Airfare?”

I hate telemarketing calls, even from organizations I like and do business with. But I received one today that got my attention.

CALLER: Will you be attending [conference name] in [Sunny Location] next month?

ME: No, I don’t think so.

CALLER: How about if we pay your airfare?

This wasn’t just talk. The operator asked me the name of the airport I’d be flying from if I were to attend, and then sent a detailed follow-up e-mail with a proposal that took the basic conference registration fee, knocked off $200, and then also took off the round-trip airfare (they had looked it up between the call and the e-mail) from Newark to the Sunny Location of the conference.

Great telemarketing, or a sign of desperation for the conference business in tough times? Maybe both. But it got my attention at a time when people are reluctant to make purchases like this. I hope it works for them! (I’ll be in a Sunny Location next month, but watching baseball, not this conference.)

ESPN’s Hard-to-Read Brand Management

This is a little off topic, but I can’t stop myself.

Usually I am lost in admiration for the brilliant way ESPN has extended its brand into the cross-media juggernaut that it is. But lately, in two local Rite-Aids, I’ve seen large displays devoted to ESPN-branded … reading glasses?

ESPN Readers

I mean, far be it from me to question anyone’s quest for licensing income in these difficult times. But does putting one of the world’s hottest global sports brands on drugstore reading glasses make any sense?