‘Rip it up and start again’: Fairfax unveils new commercial strategy, moves away from Facebook
Fairfax Media is moving away from dependence on Facebook and avoiding “cheap inventory, sold by the kilogram”, as it unveils its new commercial strategy for its metro publications.
The publisher’s new strategy is built on improving integration capabilities, technology and design, and helping people understand premium publishers.
Fairfax Media’s metro newspapers are set to undergo some major product changes online
A bold change indeed: It’s a big leap of faith for any publisher still so heavily dependent on ad revenue to strip out most of their ads. Agree in principle with far fewer, but hopefully far better, more effective, more user-friendly ads, so wish them luck with this. Time will tell whether the market will pay the much higher ad rates that would be needed to maintain ad revenue .
Also, like that they’re Taking a real stand against FB as a publisher and really trying to carve out a differentiated space as a premium publisher, with premium environment. Lots of publishers talk the talk, few walk the walk by taking such decisive action
Aside from sacking people I believe we can now be certain that Hywood has reversed every strategy he imposed. Pity about the effect.
Tis very hard for publishers these days. In fact, so hard that they do not need to be around any more. An amazing journo can pen articles, run their own blog / website / news resource and if it is good / excellent / sensational; the people will share it. The strategy should always be an amazing user experience. Do that and the traffic will come.
Fairfax / News are mincemeat, surely? Journalism in the future is decentralized and niche. Perhaps?
I’m again surprised to read on how the mainstream press (Fairfax and News) are reinventing themselves for digital customers. Instead of ‘The Sky Is Falling Chicken Little’ these publications have deteriorated in readership and content since the internet’ became an issue for them.
One wonders whether this is a solution to their woes or another attempt to re-capture the readers they’ve lost. Will it work? Don’t think so
Brilliant move by Fairfax and let’s not forget the IAB is dumping most formats from the universal ad packages anways in favour of the Flex units. So this move is purely out of necessity, as bold as it may appear.
Sure, an amazing Journo can pen articles, run their blog etc. Up until they need to pay bills. Traffic isn’t the issue. Monetising it is.
And then there’s the cost of legal action. Try exposing a big corporation while defending a defamation suit