Analyse the thoughts of newspaper editors (that have occasionally had a reputation for cynicism around the ‘integration’ word) on what it means and we have the perfect roadmap for the Communications and PR executives trying to maximise our clients’ exposure.
The Guardian’s editor, Alan Rusbridger outlined his paper’s plans for a newly built newsroom organised into ‘pods’ based around content areas not publications.
At a regional level, it’s happening even faster. The Nottingham Evening Post has re-trained its newsroom which now outputs seven niche sites, 20 hyper local and one main newspaper website as well as putting out a daily paper – all this without one member of staff dedicated purely to one medium.
The underlying implication of the conference for sponsorship PROs is clear. Those at the highest levels of newspapers have now recognised that it is content not platform that is king and it is this content we are fortunate to have in spades. Don’t pigeonhole yourself around the type of media you’re targeting, rather the opportunities now lie in working your content through all parts of the system – your story must become a ‘content factory’ not just one hit.
Why will the media love you for this? Simple – last word to Rusbridger – “there is a lot of advertising waiting for [video] content…We just can’t generate it fast enough at the moment.”
By Dominic Curran on November 10th, 2008
Tags: Branded content, Media, Public relations, Sponsorship
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This is without doubt a great opportunity for PRO’s to gain exposure for their clients across multiple media platforms. However it is important to bear in mind now that we may now only be able to offer a ‘content exclusive’ as opposed to a print or online exclusive. As we see more newsrooms organised into ‘content pods’ the publication with the print exclusive is highly likely to want to run it on their website too.