Facing Facts

The greatest American superstition is a belief in facts.

— Hermann Keyserling

Facebook is countering fake news by downgrading all news.

Beginning next week, users will see mainly the posts of friends and family in their feeds; publishers' posts will virtually vanish.

In the short term, the decision is harmful. 

Facebook's move will lower users' time on the social network, and lower the "referral traffic" publishers count on. The latter will force all publishers to scramble to make up for the lost eyeballs, and put a lot of them out of business, according to The New York Times.

In the long term, however, the decision is beneficial—to Facebook.

Under scrutiny for abetting Kremlin-backed trolls during the 2016 election, the company confronts the real possibility of government regulation, as it lacks AI's equivalent of a Walter Cronkite or Ben Bradlee to decide what's legitimately newsworthy.

Critics complain the company's move amounts to a news blackout, since nearly half of Americans get at least some of their news from the social network. 

But CEO Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook is merely "protecting our community from abuse and hate."

The decision signals a return by Facebook to its "college scrapbook" origins ("Look how my new brussels sprouts recipe turned out!")

Takeaway? Ten years from now, we'll chuckle to recall we once believed Facebook was a media company.

Darkest Hour

England's policy of "appeasement"―letting Hitler grab neighboring lands with impunity―provides the backstory of Darkest Hour, the new biopic about Churchill and Chamberlain.

As we watch the media under attack by right-wing Republicans, Churchill's warnings about the dangers to freedom of the press are as relevant today as they were in his time.

And so are his actions to sidestep thought control.

During the 1930s, Chamberlain favored appeasement, for an extremely practical reason: his party's rule hinged on the votes of working-class Britons, who opposed foreign entanglements and distrusted war profiteers (after all, they'd paid the price for militarism in the previous war against Germany).

In 1938, Chamberlain signed an accord with Hitler labeled the Munich Agreement, which let the Führer annex part of Czechoslovakia if he agreed to stop seizing more territory. Most Britons praised Chamberlain's coup; but of course it didn't stop Hitler, who provoked war with England a year later, when he invaded Poland. The pacifist Chamberlain proved within eight months an inept wartime leader, opening the door for Churchill's appointment by the king as his successor (the first scene of Darkest Hour).

Chamberlain's most fiery critic, Churchill had spent years protesting appeasement, using his favorite soapbox: the newspaper op-ed. When Chamberlain―in keeping with the Munich Agreement―moved to stifle all opposition to Hitler, he ruled out critical speeches in Parliament and threatened the newspapers with shutdown, citing national secrecy laws. Churchill, in response, promised to take his message to the streets.

In a November 1938 speech before the national press club, Churchill wondered aloud whether Chamberlain wouldn't rather live in a totalitarian state. "In those states they conduct foreign policy on the basis that the press say nothing but what it is told, and immediately say what it is told. It might be very convenient, no doubt, if we could suppress public opinion here, and everything was allowed to go on quietly without our knowing what was going on outside."

Churchill suggested England was in fact already experiencing a press blackout. With appeasement's critics in Parliament muzzled and the press censored, Chamberlain enjoyed carte blanch to bamboozle Britons. 

The situation left opponents like Churchill one choice: to resist the government's policy through the "public platform." And resist Churchill did. 

Between September 1938―when the Munich Agreement was signed―and September 1939―when Germany invaded Poland―Churchill spoke against appeasement relentlessly on the radio. He also repackaged 80 of his op-eds into a book―which became an immediate best-seller―and, with financial help from silent backers, erected billboards calling for his appointment to Chamberlain's cabinet. 

Churchill's cabinet appointment did come, three days after Hitler entered Poland and simultaneously with England's declaration of war with Germany.

Killing Marketing: Dead on Arrival

I'm a fan of Joe Pulizzi, coauthor with Robert Rose of the new 260-page book Killing Marketing. 

So I wish I could recommend it.

I can't.

The big idea behind the book―that businesses can convert marketing from overhead into profit―is preposterous; not because it's so wrongheaded, but because it's so thoroughly unrealistic.

Were the idea not preposterous, you'd find more real-world examples than the handful the authors can cite (although I'm flattered they include mention of the magazine I launched for the Society of Fire Protection Engineers, Fire Protection Engineering.)

The "killing" in the title, by the way, is word-play. The authors want you to kill your marketing operation and replace it with a killer media company. (That, or the authors are targeting Bill O'Reilly's audience.)

Killing Marketing argues you can profitably sell the content that drives your marketing, like any media company does.

Sell your content? At a profit? Hell, most organizations can't give it away.

The book further argues you can transform your in-house marketers into crackerjack journalists and media moguls who can "monetize" your audiences.

Fat chance.

When it comes to marketing their products, most businesses indeed "throw good money after bad," as the authors say: they deploy tactics without an underlying strategy; invest in tactics that do not work; and drop successful tactics without forethought.

But to ask every business to "create and distribute non-product-related content" is like asking your auto mechanic to produce Cars, your barber to stage Hair, or your lawnmower to publish Better Homes & Gardens.

Ain't gonna happen.

Yes, LEGO profits from LEGO Club Magazine; Red Bull, from Red Bulletin; and the Society of Fire Protection Engineers, from Fire Protection Engineering. 

But could a single additional organization in those markets replicate that success? Probably not.

A logician would say the authors have written an entire book based on the fallacy known as the "argument from small numbers." Arguments from small numbers go like this:

After treatment with our new drug, one-third of the mice were cured, one-third died, and the third mouse escaped. So if we treat 1,000 mice, 333 will be cured.

The gist of Killing Marketing goes something like this:

Marketing-campaigns-turned-into-media-ventures by six organizations became profitable. So if you mimic them, yours can be profitable too.

With apologies to Hugh Fullerton: Saying it don't make it so, Joe.

Why are Events Attracting Publishers?

While events are no easy money, publishers are onto them like white on rice.

Digiday reports that Forbes, in a move "symptomatic of an industry in change," is shifting from magazine to event production, firing print people and hiring event ones.

"Forbes’ struggles aren’t unique, given the carnage that befell both traditional and digital media outlets in 2017," Digiday says.

What's behind the carnage?

A new study by Reuters suggests readers are done with digital content—there's too much of it, both good and bad—and that content shock is slaying the golden goose digital publishing represented 20 years ago.

Today's readers spend only eight minutes a day on publisher's content—and most (92%) are  unwilling to pay for it. That's made it nearly impossible for publishers, reliant on advertising income, to sustain profits—no matter their investments in cool platforms and reputable content.

"The content bubble will eventually burst unless more robust business models are found," says Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, coauthor of the study.

One "more robust business model" may in fact be events, where margins hover around 30%.

Events No Easy Money

Disneyland is a work of love. We didn't go into Disneyland
 just with the idea of making money. 

— Walt Disney

Publishers find events alluring.

According to Hubspot, 26% of B2C publishers and 42% of B2B publishers say they're today's fast-growth revenue stream.

And why not? The publishing business model and the events business model seem quite similar on the surface.

But any resemblance is deceiving.

“Events are not the golden goose publishers think they are,” one publisher recently told Lucinda Southern, reporter for Digiday. "Events work when it fits into the publisher’s key interest areas, passion points and depth of knowledge.”

"Publishers are not just competing with other events companies, but any content provider or brand that claims to have a route to consumers," Southern writes. "Making money from events often requires a dedicated team and a different set of skills when selling event sponsorship packages."

Among the pitfalls:

• Events have sizable sunk costs (venue rental, speaker fees, marketing expenditures, etc.) absent in publishing.
  
• Sponsorship sales are tougher than ad sales. Salespeople need to understand event operations and must close sponsorship sales faster, often with non-advertisers. There's also more difficulty proving prospects' ROI.
  
• Events aren't a "bright and shiny" channel. They look old-school next to the latest digital "solution."

“They say events are like a sausage, wonderful to eat, but you don’t want to get involved in what goes into them,” another publisher told Southern. 

“You have to love the complexities, the highs and lows, embrace that passion. Publishing companies that dabble will not succeed.”

No Thanks

Why does a publication subscriber quit? Why does an association member?

Lapse research always shows she quits for one or more of these five reasons:

• Your product is irrelevant
• Your price is too high
• She's too busy to take advantage of your product
• She gets what she needs on line
• She had trouble renewing

Drunk on their own "look at all we offer" Kool-Aid, however, marketers forget a customer subscribes or joins for a specific reason―and quits for a specific reason. She does the former to fill a need; and the latter when that need is filled; is no longer filled; went unfulfilled; or no longer matters.

It's convenient to marketers just to shove a quitter into some segment like "medical device sales rep"―as if that had a whit to do with the reason she became a customer―and conclude, "Well, some medical device sales reps are quitters."

But that facile conclusion sheds little light on the difference between the quitter and the loyal customer, and none on the specific reason the quitter quit. To do that, you need to contact her on the phone and have a "frank and open" discussion with the goal of listening.

When you do, you'll discover, indeed, she quit for one of the above five reasons; but you'll also unearth a lot more―real-world intelligence you can use to improve your product:

• How―specifically―did your product become irrelevant?
• Why is your price objectionable?
• Why can't she "make time" for you in her day?
• What unique value do competitors provide her?
• Why is renewal a source of friction?

You'd be amazed at what in-depth lapse research will tell you.

One large national association I assisted discovered, in fact, it wasn't bleeding thousands of members every year, as it believed. Members were mailing their renewal payments to the local chapters, because no reply envelope was included with the renewal invoice. The chapters were banking the dues income―without reporting its source.

Magazines against the Wall?

A near-impenetrable wall once separated editorial from advertising.

But with ad-income in decline—and without hope of turnaround—magazine publishers are capitalizing on their editorial prestige to create new revenue streams, says Ryan Derousseau in Folio:

• Readers of New York trust its writers' recommendations about what's worth buying. So the publisher has started to rake in dough from affiliates via outbound links in the articles on its website. Whenever readers click to a partner's website, money changes hands. The publisher's policy: to plug only products "the editors or writers stand behind.” Affiliate revenue is growing 40% a month, and has inspired the publisher to open pop-up shops at festivals.

• The Atlantic has become advertisers' digital agency, exploiting its advantage in measuring readers' clicks. Besides audits, the publisher creates and runs entire content-focused, multichannel campaigns for advertisers. The campaigns can include sponsored pieces of original journalism. The in-house agency is the fastest growing division of the company. It expects its revenue to rise 32% this year.

• Time is licensing its portfolio of brands to retail outlets. Readers can find kitchenware, bed linens, rugs and other merchandise in stores that are branded Real Simple, People, Food & Wine, and Southern Living. Licensed products sold in Dillard's have grown to 110 in two years.

Does monetizing readers' trust in these ways endanger that very thing?
Probably not.

Audiences are so used to paid sponsorships, they give them no thought.

Nobody turned off the last NCAA Tournament because every other player's jersey has a Nike swoosh. James Bond's Omega watch didn't prevent Skyfall from becoming a box-office smash. Mentions of the Peninsular and Oriental Company in Around the World in Eighty Days didn't stop Jules Verne's novel from becoming a classic. And Esquire readers ate up David Ogilvy's take on oysters for Guinness.

Goodly Predicts Corporate Magazines Will Make a Comeback

WASHINGTON, DC, October 2, 2017—Corporate magazines will make a roaring comeback in 2017, according to a prediction by Goodly.

The blog bases its prediction on an unflagging belief marketing obeys the law of eternal recurrence.

“Corporate America is on the verge of once more of embracing the print magazine," says Bob James, owner and chief storyteller.

Although entire in-house departments and outside design studios were dedicated to their production during much of the 20th century, corporate magazines fell from grace in the late 1980s.

"The time is right for their inevitable comeback," James says. "The universe can only stand so much digitalization before it lashes out in ink and paper."

In October's edition of Chief Content Officer, Joe Pulizzi, founder of Content Marketing Institute, likens the brand-building power of print magazines to live events.

"We are in the experiences business," Pulizzi says. "We create those experiences through valuable, consistent content. While most of your competitors are focusing on digital experiences only, savvy brands see the opportunities offline."

Pulizzi notes that winning brands Red Bull, LEGO, Dell and Marriott all have splashy corporate magazines.

About Goodly

With 1,500 pageviews a week and climbing, Goodly is devoted to helping professionals express ideas precisely. Guest posts are welcome.

–30–

Beware of Geeks Bearing GIFs

Designers call it “Greek," but of course it's Latin.

Lorem Ipsum has served as designers' "dummy copy" since 1500, when a printer scrambled a page from Cicero's essay, “On the Extremes of Good and Evil,” to create a type-specimen book.

Lorem Ipsum distracts you from reading while you examine a layout.

But why Cicero?

As the most lauded of Roman rhetoricians, Cicero's works represent the pinnacle of prose in Latin. 

The passage the printer took to create Lorem Ipsum says:

Nor is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure.

(In brief, "no one likes pain without gain.")

Need to use Lorem Ipsum?

It's easy.

In Word, type =lorem() and press enter.

For a change of pace, you can also use another thinker's scrambled works as dummy copy by visiting Nietzsche Ipsum.

Also Sprach Mighty Copywriter.