NY Times Going After Google?
From Marketwatch
:
“Speaking to analysts during a conference call, Martin Nisenholtz, senior vice president of digital operations, said it was more difficult for NYTimes.com to command premium ad rates for display ads during the quarter. As a result, the site will be increasingly designed for cost-per-click ads during 2009, Nisenholtz said.”
The NY Times moving into CPC? Doesn’t sound like a good idea to me. NY Times has a quality-content formula and deep experience in selling premium display advertising to major brands; that’s a segment of the media and marketing sector in which it could and should be a leader. The direct response CPC business requires a different set of muscles (and technologies) that I don’t think NY Times has.
When you’re losing in game you ought to win, I’m not sure the best move is to take up a new sport that’s heavily dominated by Google.
(Disclosure: The NY Times is an investor in Federated Media.)
UPDATE 1/29/09: Clarification from PaidContent
, it’s About.com rather than NYT proper that is moving toward CPC:
“Martin Nisenholtz, NYTCo’s SVP for digital operations, said that with display looking particularly weak at About.com, the company would begin a site redesign that’s intended to reduce its exposure to display. Instead, cost-per-click is a growing category for About, and the redesign would try to exploit that more.”
The NYT is a train wreck. Those guys are clueless over there on both the print and digital teams.
Completely agree. The best business advice I ever received was “look for the unfair fight.”. This is more like entering a lion’s den looking for a meal.