News Limited lagged behind the pack in developing a cross-platform ad unit, but believes its content creation hub will give the company a modern view. Paul McIntyre reports.
It’s probably apt that News Limited’s cunning plan to catch-up with its media rivals in launching a “co-creation hub” for advertisers and media and creative agencies was conceived at the Cannes International Advertising Festival – which has just been renamed the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity.
News Limited is at least three years behind key media players like Seven Media Group and Nine Entertainment Co. in developing a cross-platform advertising unit. And because of the lag, it has done away with the traditional notion of a cross-platform advertising group altogether.
Instead, News wants to leapfrog rivals with what on paper seems impressively innovative. On paper. News Limited’s well-earned reputation for divisional power tussles may yet hold back the NewsLab venture, which is headed by former McDonald’s marketer Joe Talcott, although the company’s all powerful chairman and chief executive, John Hartigan, has backed the development process from the get-go.
NewsLab sits outside the traditional
advertising sales and marketing hierarchy at News Limited and has a business blueprint which includes pulling in the untouchables from editorial. Editors and journalists will now sit around a table with News Limited commercial types, advertisers and agencies, concocting big commercial content ideas from a blank canvas.
NewsLab is meant to be different. In Talcott’s words, it is supposed to win business that doesn’t currently exist. “Winning unbriefed business is a less dramatic way of saying it,” says Talcott, who also serves as the chairman of the Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA).
“Typically what we do is build products and flog them to advertisers. John [Hartigan] has always said internally that News Limited is a creative company. It has buildings across the country filled with writers, editors, illustrators, photographers, reporters; people you would clearly state perform creative acts. And we weren’t tapping into that as strongly as we could.”
So NewsLab is about News Limited starting in a fresh paddock with none of the baggage of traditional media advertising sales mindsets. Think of it as News Limited 2.1. Rather than go to market with ad inventory to shift, NewsLab wants advertisers and agencies to co-create commercial content with its own creative types. It is, theoretically at least, a no-boundaries play.
Talcott theorises how NewsLab might work around the 2012 London Olympics: “The conversation will go something like we know we are going to cover the 2012 Olympics and we are thinking about doing something in London but we haven’t quite formulated it yet. But we think advertiser ‘x’ might be interested in London as well so how are they viewing the Olympics and what can we do together that is relevant to the advertiser and compelling to our audiences. If we get it right, we could make something bigger than if we were operating independently.
“I think we are going to get creative people energized by that because they
really have a voice on what the creation
is and you get us excited about it because we are talking at a level that is about the idea, not the cost-per-thousand.”
Talcott says NewsLab is not about challenging the old chestnut of editorial independence although he admits there might be some early push back. “We’re not building advertorials,” he says. “It’s not the intention of this, but we have
realised over the last couple of years that often advertisers are more tapped into our audiences than we are – what they are interested in and what compels them.”
While Talcott is clearly excited, he’s not giving any more details up. “I’m trying to give you an example that wouldn’t give anything away.”
He opts for a hypothetical in the real estate sector. “Lots of newspapers, including our own, build real estate sections around editorial content that would include rock stars buying harbour view properties or a design trend coming out of Belgium. We’ve discovered, partially from meeting with our advertisers, that it’s
interesting but not that interesting in
a real estate section. People want to know what is happening in their suburb; is the value going up or down? Should they stay or go and if anyone’s interested in investment property, what are the hot places to buy? The journos are saying that is interesting. They want to write stuff that is
interesting and that people want to read and sometimes advertisers have that
information. Maybe we can collaborate with them to get that information without violating journalistic integrity and by
doing it learn more about the customer and audiences at the same time.”
NewsLab is just weeks away from
the market, first to current “loyal” News Limited advertisers. The first “layer” of News companies in NewsLab will be newspapers, digital and magazines,
but 20th Century Fox, Foxtel and even the NRL “could be relevant”. “I say all this with the caveat that we haven’t done anything yet,” he says. “It has been hard in the past and I’m reporting before the event but this time at least we have that history. We recognise what the issues are. [News Limited] divisional CEO’s have sat around the table and said this is a place we need to be. I’m optimistic we can make it work.” <
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