Print media leaps to the battle of the brands

Two big media stories broke today. One was heralded in the Business section of the New York Times noting that 176 newspapers are partnering with Yahoo.com around online ads and content.. No financial details were disclosed, but the overall concept is to provide online exposure for newspaper content and advertising, and conversely to provide more localized content and advertising for Yahoo. The deal is almost certainly a response to Google's plans to extend its ad network to print advertising in 50 newspapers around the US.

In that same Business section, though, another print publication noted its own reshaping of its business model, also in response to the erosion of its traditional business by the Internet. Time magazine ran three full-page ads in the section with just the trademark red cover boarder of Time, surrounding a single word such as Bold or Leap, and simply provided an Internet URL address to go to. All of those addresses take you to this announcement by the publisher that changed its publication time to Fridays from Mondays, reduced its advertising rates, and guaranteed a minimum domestic audience of 19.5 million to advertisers.

Our take? This is the end of a nearly 50-year media cycle where there are too many producers of content chasing a fixed amount of consumer attention. Because of that overproduction, prices will fall, and economics will force media companies to consolidate around a few essential brands.

The companies that survive this consolidating media landscape will be those that do two things well:

1. attracting and retaining viewers and


2. building both brand that advertisers will flock to
.

Google has figured out how to do both activities well. Yahoo has a lot of work to do on the second half of that equation. Time Inc. is struggling on both counts. But with consumers facing an ongoing tyranny of too much media, companies that do half the job won't be around much longer. May the best brands win.

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Attention Economy, Branding, Google, Marketing, Print, Publishing, Time, Yahoo