Brand extension helped The New York Times regain its readership and advertising sales. NYT Licensing & Syndication vice president, Alice Ting, explained, “We wanted to think more than just about our content. We own our logo, our trademark, but we also want to leverage our assets into brand extensions.”
“Brand extension is defined as the ability to leverage our brand in one category, which is journalism, and also leverage content in completely different categories,” she said.
After extensive research, the brand extension was redefined into four categories. “At the centre of everything is our core: journalism, and that will never change. Outside of that they have derivative products, such as books or ebooks and magazines.
“Beyond that comes non-derivative, and those are products more related to our reader’s interests, such as our store and product licensing. And the final extension of that is our experimental content, and here there’s a lot of two way interaction between us and our viewers [about what they like and don’t like],” Ting said.
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Creating content
Content, usability and performance are the keys to generating a greater online audience said Fai-Keung Ng, Group Country Manager, SE Asia of AT Internet. If a website is easy to use it will create a loyal audience. “User behaviour data is a goldmine,” Ng said.
There are, however, variables that must be considered, “Be very careful about targeting your editorial policy,” he said.
“Targeting: can bring in the numbers in the short term, but not in the long term. You start to produce unhelpful information, and worse than that, you could start to lose your [online] identity.”
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Mobile newsroom
“Your smartphone is your newsroom,” said video journalist entrepreneur, Robb Montgomery. He believes that innovative technologies are the future of journalism and helps news production gain greater reach and flexibility.
In a demonstration, Montgomery showcased a mobile video kit for journalists. It consists of an iPhone 6, a miniature rig that allows phones to be mounted on tripods and a cheap microphone. The costs (other than the iPhone) come to less than USD100.
The new style of reporting, Montgomery explained, is a hybrid article that combines video with writing, allowing audiences to read through the piece as a whole. “This is going to disrupt everything we [journalists] do. This is an entirely new experience – not only consumed entirely on mobile, but created entirely on mobile,” he said.
Montgomery believes this technology has the potential to change newsroom production because the reporter can produce, edit and upload content on the spot.
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Chat app potential
Messaging services have the potential to make news sharing a two way exchange and increase audience interaction said JV Rufino, the director of mobile and books for the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Messaging services began notifying its users about useful information and it has the potential to do more. “We now have over 300,000 subscribers on our chat apps. And we only started this year,” Rufino said. He believes chat apps will be a big part of social and multimedia formats during disaster management.
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Innovation from youth
Stibo Accelerator believes getting tech-savy young people involved in initiatives can create innovation and new technology. The Danish company is committed to bringing about digital initiatives, business models and ways of information sharing, which are ahead of the curve.
Stibo pairs students, who are on a three or six month study break, with media professionals who can mentor them in the realities of the media industry. They want to bridge the gap between the established and the new.
Kim Svendsen, Director of Stibo Accelerator says, “I like to hook them up with people in the media, and have them mentored through the process….[That way] they are able to try out their ideas in the real world.”
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