Differences Between Online and Print Advertising: It's Not That Simple.

Google Alert email tossed me a link to the article, Differences Between Online and Print Advertising', which is a well written piece about the differences between print and online advertising. It's well written, but it's not quite complete and it's certainly not that simple. Mind you, I'm not saying that TechnologyEvangelist.com got it wrong. It's just not completely right.

Transitioning

I've written similar things in the past; so have other people. Yet there are things a lot of people who write such things don't really understand - in comparing, they do not account for the transitioning. Only last year - a lifetime ago, it seems - I was looking at the same problem in a way to save my own job, back when I was working with SSC. In fact, one could say that I made the business case for the discontinuation of my contract because I was trying - like Willy Smith before me - to get LinuxGazette.com and A42.com to pay. It's been a while, and I can't go into the details of what actually transpired, but what I can do is present a hypothetical scenario that shows the practical problem of transitioning.

Dancing With Plebians

First, the background. Let's say you sell newspapers to Plebians - we'll call the newspaper or magazine 'Plebian Journal', and we'll say that it's been around since... oh, let's say 1900. During the period preceding the internet, the Plebian Journal became a newspaper of steady reputation. The circulation increased with population growth, and as such things go, the larger the readership the more content there is to draw upon. More writers were hired, editors of various sections came into being, and working for the Plebian Journal came with not only a good salary - it was considered a respectable job.

There was, of course, competition - and the competition wasn't just about selling newspapers, it was about keeping good staff. That's always a business issue. Then there were issues of space, and many other things. The money from all of that largely comes from advertising; most people who buy a newspaper only pay for the delivery mechanism. The advertisers pay the writers, they pay the editors, and they pay the mail boy who wanders lost in the hallways most of the day and seems to have sexual fantasies involving the smell of perfume on envelopes. But everyone gets paid, and the mail boy gets... promoted to Chairman of the Board in this fictional universe.

With a resounding 'whack', the internet comes along.

So here's the business problem: Maintaining the same staff that supports the physical Plebian Journal is impossible only on internet advertising. Your editor wants the new Jaguar XJ-O-MyGod, your star writer has a $3,000 a day espresso habit, and the mail delivery boy has been ogling Chanel Number 9 every time he walks into a department store (and envelopes are mysteriously disappearing). Does it sound ludicrous? Maybe it is. But this is a hypothetical story which highlights the issue of paying the staff. Nevermind that the business model that allowed you to move into the top floor of the Empire State Building has been flushed down the toilet by all these screaming bits and bytes all over the internet, and that all the guys who did good cartoons have retired permanently. You have independent auditors that show advertisers what your circulation is, and maybe it's not growing as steadily to population as it used to. Maybe it's because people can't read anymore because the passing grade has decreased, or maybe it's because more people are online - and maybe a lot of the people online prefer downloading Paris Hilton videos instead of your riveting Golf section.

You've got problems. So you're trying to leverage the internet 'thing', make it worth the company's while. And the checks and balances aren't checking and balancing. Nobody wants to pay for your content online; nobody can find it online if you lock it away and that means less revenue.

Oh dear. What to do? That, my friends, is the problem of transitioning.

In this case, you have to look at ways of reducing costs. The perverted mail boy should have gotten the axe a while back anyway, so toss him on the pyre of transition. OK, that was easy, and even had a disturbingly pleasant aroma, reminiscent of Chanel Number 9.

Are you going to walk into your editor's office and tell him he won't be able to fund the Jag because he's taking one for the team? Or your star writer, who even has her own blog and thinks she's the cat's meow? Nervous? You should be.

That's the dilemma. The dilemma is transitioning everyone to a more streamlined web structure while maintaining a print publication. Maybe you tell some people that they will have to work harder, with an inspiring speech by the bonfire. But at the end of the day, you know that things have to change but you don't have any idea how and you don't know how you're going to find a balance.

You could look at the markets as separate. Maybe people around the world want to read Plebian Journal, but with postage doubling the cost of your publication to them, the people of Timbuktu are demanding a digital version that they can download.

Digital publication is easy. Digital profit is fairly easy. Digital advertising isn't so easy. And the competition for reading has increased exponentially - perhaps exponentially^x.

It's not as easy as just switching to a web model. The main challenge for traditional print publishers on the web is realizing that they just can't charge the same amounts anymore, and that star writers can't get paid too much, and that the editor should save longer than a year to get a new Jag. The rules are different.

Is there an answer? I don't know, but there's a lot of money going toward the problem... even though the very nature of the business of print media is radically different on the internet, and business folk all over the world are running around trying to figure out how to get to the next level, yet not having an idea of where that level is.

It's not as simple as it looks. And even this example was an oversimplification.

Oh. And here's a random question: Does the last visitor of the day to a website turn the light off? Oddly enough, that question has a lot to do with the problem.