The digital platform strategy of news publishers. How many publishers have a real platform strategy that focuses on the revenue opportunity? Too few. The result is collective uncertainty, veering from enthusiastic early adoption of Instant Articles to demanding revised anti-trust laws to allow news media to compete collectively with Facebook. This presentation of WAN-IFRA report "Making money with Facebook, reality check" is all about rethinking news publishers relationship with Facebook: is it a distribution platform or a marketing platform? Or perhaps even an e-commerce partner?

1. News business
in the age of
platforms
How to respond strategically
to digital disruption
Vincent Peyregne CEO WAN-IFRA, the
World Association of News Publishers
@vincentpeyregne

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3. WAN-IFRA members can
download the report here
wan-ifra.org/facebook_report

4. credit
Grzegorz Piechota
Senior research Fellow Green
Templeton College & Reuters
Institute, University of Oxford
Research Associate, Harvard
Business School. Former news
editor, Gazeta Wyborcza,
Poland. Author of “Reality
Check – making Money with
Facebook”, WAN-IFRA 2017

5. OUR
CONVERSATION
TODAY
vincentpeyregne
Publishers
need to
have a
strategy
with
platform
Analysing
publishers
business
model
worldwide:
4 typical
approaches
How
publishers
are taking
decisions

6. A Decade in the Driver’s Seat

7. Platforms have become the new mass media
Topnetworksbymilionsofactivemonthlyusers
Source: Statista 2017, Company data 2017
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
1 860
1 200
4
1 200
Messenger
1 000
877
846
600
550
500
317
1 1 860
2
3
1 2002
3 11 200
MessengerMessenger 7 600

8. Publisher’scontentdrives
dailynewsconsumption,
engagementonplatforms
Sources: Crowdynews, PEW Internet 2016
62%
U.S. adults
got their news
last week on social
media
62%
U.S. adults
got their news
last week on sociallast week on social
media

9. FAST FORWARD… in 2017 Google is sending more
traffic than Facebook to publishers
Source Parse.ly from some
2,500 publishers that use
its analytics service, 2017

10. Winners of the attention economy
aggregate largest audiences & capture
most of ad revenue
71%
USA combined
share in 2016
89%
their share in
new ad spend
2+3$!#45678/9:;75<=8>597?5

11. Who else captures $ in digital ad ecosystem?
Source: AEMII / Future Media Lab / European Magazine Media Association 2016
$1
$0.10
$0.05
$0.15
$0.12
$0.15
$0.14
$0.29
Advertiser Agency Trading Desk DMP/
Data provider
DSP Ad exchange SSP/
Ad network
Publisher
companies
Share of ad tech
61%

13. Average
monthly
revenue
Source: Digital Content Next 2017
What’s the distributed content revenue?
Benchmark 17 top U.S. publishers in 1H 2016
Share of payments
in average total platform revenue
$1.3m
60%
platform advertising revenue share +
syndication + production fees
of payments
in average total platform

14. $27.6bn / 50mFacebook’s ad
revenue in2016
Let’s imagine Facebook shares it all
Page
publishers
Source: Facebook 2017
= $552

15. What do publishers think
and do with platforms?

17. 1st wave of disruption: unbundling
News
sites
Opinion
sites
Niche verticals
(around topics,
personalities,
communities)
User generated
content
(blogs, boards)
Brand websites
(product, service
pages)
Marketplaces

18. … unbundling of individual stories
Headline
of an article
Visual elements:
e.g. picture,
video, graphics
Complements:
e.g. comments,
reactions
Text of an article
Text elements:
e.g. captions,
sidebars
Recommended:
e.g. related, earlier,
similar stories

21. eroding
Value
eroding
Value Value
eroding
Value Value
creating eroding
Forconsumer
Notice
ads
Consume
content
Visit a website Search
/ an app for content
Choose
medium / brand
Forpublisher
Value
creating
Value
creating
Value
capturing
Decoupling Platforms, ad-blockers letconsumers
avoid value eroding activities or minimise pains
XXXX

23. Strategic response?

24. Advocate on the regulatory
framework?
Launch your own platforms?
Form alliances on data,
technology,
single user
sign-in?

25. Take for granted that
platforms are not goingaway
Without reach,data & zero cost
content, it’s hard to competedirectly.
Consumers are not going to start
loving displayads
1
2

26. What about charging
other parties
for contentitself?

27. Who pays for digitalcontentat the NY Times?
Consumers
Content
marketeers
Retailers
Donors
Syndication

28. How much money may the Times make?
digital-only
subscriptions (2016)
branded content (est)
affiliated
marketing (est)
donors (est)
Source: NYT Company, Q4 2016; estimates Greg Piechota based on data reported in trade press
syndication, events,
e-commerce (est)
<$60m <$10m >$5m
$232m $77m

30. Platforms become fishing ponds for customers
and expand reach of branded content campaigns

31. Design the new content portfolio
Optimised foracquisition, retention, upgrade
Contentwithdifferentbusinessmodelsattached

32. Evaluation
Awareness & Trial
on & off-platform
Contribution
Referral
Repeated use
on & off-platform
Customer’s
need &
attention Purchase
Loyalty
Consideration
of the paid offer
Use continued
on & off-platform
Visitor Subscriber
Customer journeys strongly influenced by new
user behaviour

33. Howcometheairline
industry make record
profits at a time when seat
margins are dwindling
the grand vision of airlines as omni-channel
retailers - Ancillary Revenue represents a
264% increase from the 2010
Source: IdeaWorksCompany 2017

34. Mediaarebecomingshoppableand
retailersmediacompanies
Howcomemajor
supermarketchains lose
moneyon actualsaleof
goods?

35. How come music
revenue grows as
digital
downloads and
CDs fade
Streaming grows and Live music
thrives
Total revenue of the music industry
USD Million source LSE

36. Platforms
are not yourfriends,
nor enemies
Hire them to work for you

37. Develop
a platform strategy
What’s your business model?
What’s your end game
on platforms

43. If you want to chase reach
Go Beyond National Boarders
Go Beyond News
Go Viral

44. If you accept that you are
not mass media anymore
Forget about Chasing Reach
Explore your Niche
Communities
Grow ARPU

45. Source: GrzegorzPiechota based on NYT financial report

46. Data is key
Build your own analytics
capability NOW

48. Make Better Decisions
Test Value vs. Viability
Customer vs. Business Value First and
Foremost
Alignment with Brand & Strategy
Not all Platforms Play the same Role
Calculate collateral costs
Documented Process

51. Guiding Principles A PRELIMINARY CHECK LIST
Ingestible cross-platform user data
Publishers need the platforms to do more to connect user activities across platforms and
the publishers’ to understand path to engagement
Direct relationship with the customer
Publishers need ownership of the relationship with the customer, including contact data,
pricing, bundling, customer experience, customer support
Business drivers: branding, promotion, pricing, paywall
Control over branding and promotion, messaging, pricing of the publisher’s bundles,
levers that drive the business.

53. 14 web properties
35,4 M Unique Visitors
80% market reach
Ranks #4 after Google Facebook and Microsoft

55. 44 Mio.
unique users
in Germany
85% of
eComerce
users
Many fragmented Domestic solutions
do not reach the critical mass
Amazon portfolio DE First isolated single sign-in German Initiatives
vs. eCommerce
automotive
food retailer
media
logistics
mobile communications
44 Mio.
unique users
in Germany
unique users
in Germany
unique users
85% of
eComerce
users
Many fragmented Domestic solutions
do not reach the critical mass
Amazon portfolio DE First isolated single sign-in German Initiatives
vs.vs.vs. eCommerce
automotive
food retailer
media
logistics
mobile communications
vs.
vs.
vs.
vs.
vs.

56. Dominant global players use of central user accounts
to harness their market reach
Amazon account Google-id Apple id Facebook-id Alibaba-id
237
702
500
11 228
231237 300
22 482
500
800
228
1
228
11 591
407
0
750
1500
2250
3000
Amazon Google Apple Facebook Alibaba
+27%
+60%
+64%
+30%
+254
%
Amazon account for e-
commerce. Cross
industries
ID for access,
identification,
authorization of
specific services
ID for access and
authentification with a
large numbers of
other service
providers
All-in-One account
used to log in many
Apple Inc. online
services
Alibaba ID for e-
commerce proviseur
(BtoB, BtoC, CtoC),
sales services, e-
payment, search-
engine, Cloud services
active global users
(millions)

57. THE POWER OF MANY
Rethink your Alliances
….NEWS ….TV
….BLOGS
….TV ….NICHE
….NEWS
2+3$!#52*$+@@&#

59. MORE WAN-IFRA REPORTS
wan-ifra.org/reports
MORE MARKET INSIGHTS
blogs.wan-ifra.org
QUESTIONS ?
Vincent Peyrègne
CEO, WAN-IFRA
vincent.peyregne@wan-ifra.org
vincentpeyregne
vincent.peyregne@wan