Are Aussie publishers prepared for the invasion of the global hordes?
Last week some of the biggest digital players in the world presented their content and monetisation strategies to advertisers in New York. Nic Christensen sat through many of those Newfront presentations and fears many local media players aren’t ready to compete in the global race for scale and audience.
If I was to distill the most pertinent question for the Australian market from the dozen or so presentations I sat through last week at the IAB Digital Newfronts in New York it would be this: are our local publishers able and willing to “lean in” to video and embrace it as a core part of their future businesses?
If they aren’t preparing a clear and scalable digital strategy with a focus on local premium content they could soon find their lunch being eaten by global players like AOL/Huffpo, Buzzfeed, Daily Mail/Elite Daily, Vice, Vevo, Yahoo and most significantly YouTube.
Rest assured if they aren’t already here (and most are) all of these global players are coming down under and angling for a slice of the Australian ad market.
Global hoardes? Are those maybe hordes? Or possibly whoreds.
Hi Tony,
Absolutely right – updated that now.
Cheers,
Alex – editor, Mumbrella
Nice update.
Local publishers are going to get rolled, just like they have in every other digitally disrupted industry.
For some reason, many Australian companies think their man-in-middle looting strategy still flies in the 21st century. No idea why. Customers can now link directly with producers across nearly every industry, including publishing, and they don’t need some import based arse telling them how to consume and at what price.
But the politics of self interest will have a bunch of folks convinced their industry is immune, even though their industry is really just based on bringing some other industry on shore.
The pain is just beginning.
Alex,
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/.....3082378916
Local publishers are going to get rolled x2, agree with Jen. No Australian publishers can act like they really tried.
This invasion is visible for all to see through these 17 ‘MediaScapes’ which continue to map each channel in the Australian commercial media landscape – http://www.mediascope.com.au/m.....try-guides
Good article Nic.
The local “boys” are going to get smashed.
Perhaps with enough Globals playing in our pond, the competition will also do away with the “Australia tax” – perhaps one sliver of upside will be true equitable access to global content? Let’s see.
I’m with Jen too.
I’m going direct to the dairy farmer and I can get my milk for 95c a litre instead of being gouged a dollar at the big stores.
Milk can’t be digitised. All content can.
Holy shit Jen! That’s buggered up my plan. Thanks for pointing that out.
I sure hope the ‘tax-effective’ revenue shifting strategies used by global/US tech/media companies are addressed before this happens. Will be a bit sad to watch more of our ad $ flow out the door to Ireland, Delaware and the Cayman Islands.
May the best content win!
Nice write up Nic! What will be great is to see the ad buyers recognising the global news sites don’t need to sit in the “international or “US ” site budget box and that Australian users don’t see them as that.. they just want to ( and do in large and competitive numbers) consume and engage with their intelligent content.