Newspapers Sharpen Their Sales Axes
Kate Kaye at ClickZ has an interesting story on newspaper publishers and local television stations that are sending their salespeople away to learn more about interactive advertising. As the media world in general moves toward many different advertising platforms (Web, print, mobile, video), it will become more and more important for sales forces to be able to sell integrated ad bundles.
Given increased competition for ad dollars and users’ eyeballs/mindshare, offering advertisers the ease of use and one-stop-shop advantages of a “continuity of services” bundle will become an important competitive differentiator. This will apply to newspapers, Yellow Pages and television stations alike. The bundled service battle that continues to heat up among telcos and cable companies both for consumers and advertisers is being driven by the same concept.
Elsewhere, Kurt Andersen wrote an essay in New York magazine about efforts at The New York Times and The Washington Post to integrate video content and advertising onto their Web sites. This follows a previous piece by Kate Kaye in ClickZ (that I riffed on the SEW blog) on newspaper efforts to integrate more video on their Web sites and, interestingly, how they are beating local television station Web sites at this (their own) game.
Lastly, onrec.com writes about this same trend.
