Broadband Strategies in a Converged World

September 1st, 2004

Peter Preston writing in the Observer comments on the rising success of the Guardian Online A newspaper virtually all over the planet

Some revolutions steal up on us so quietly that nobody feels the earth shift. Take newspapers. And then, perhaps, take them away. Here are some startling facts culled from a couple of downpage columns by Ian Mayes, the Guardian’s readers’ editor, charting the march of Guardian (and Observer) online.
In the past five years, writes Mayes, ‘the number of page impressions – that is, separate pages opened by readers – has risen from fewer than 10 million a month to more than 100 million with, for example, some 9 million unique users [separate individuals] arriving at the Guardian website in June. It has become one of the world’s leading newspaper-based websites, far ahead of any other newspaper website in the UK, and in the US second only to the BBC among favoured UK news sites.’
Such new readers, moreover, come from more than 180 countries, but particularly the US. Mayes points out that ‘last month more than 3.5 million people across the US visited the site, compared with just over 2 million in Britain’.

The Guardian’s Internet success is a clear indicator of the possibilites of combining old and new media. And with the growing penetration of broadband across the UK population, one can envisage a world, in the not to distant future where rich media content will be available to the masses rather than a few.

Broadband presents a number of interesting opportunities for companies

General observations
Technology via digital platforms has moved us from the having only the ability to push information to pull mechanisms.

The real value of technology is its role and meaning in everyday life. Commoditisation occurs when a technology is reduced to a series of impressive but irrelevant engineering benefits.

Broadband offers the opportunity to move a company’s branding and marketing communications much closer to and in-line with its business model.

For examples: Thomas Cook TV
Shifting ?150m inventory on a ?2.5m operation. Can improve marketing productivity costs.

92% of individuals who purchase from Thomas Cook TV and Broadband have never bought a Thomas Cook holiday before.

ROI is at the core of their digital content & marketing strategy taking content from Retail TV to broadcast TV to Web to mobile to DVD/Video joining up from one to the other to drive sales.

Customers use brands not the other way round
The response of consumers is to adapt their usage and behaviours to fit their own ends. Brands like eBay, Google, Friendster are all riding the wave of technology usage that could never be specified in a laboratory but is defined by its role in the human social and cultural context.

New digital platforms provide an unprecedented ability for businesses to talk directly with their customers offering ‘just in time’ rather than ‘just in case’ communication messages. Which can be developed as highly desirable customer services.

So we move from a one size fits all message to a more complex communication landscape where customers are demanding increasing customization – Mass Micro Marketing

Companies need to recognise that the value of their product or service is increasingly in the role it plays in consumers lives. It is in the every day that real value is found.