Out With A Bang

Of all the regional newspaper groups in this country, I have long had most sympathy for TrinityMirror.

Because, to my mind, there are individuals – and, hopefully, they know who they are – who have long ‘got’ where this world of ours is going and – to their credit – have fought the corner for ‘local’ from within what was once the very belly of ‘The Bailey Beast’. Their hearts have always been in the right place. It was certain heads in that there London town that weren’t seeing our world for what it increasingly is…

So couple this month’s news that Trinity’s Regional and National Divisions were merging to create a ‘One’ brand under new CEO Simon Fox with this weekend’s reports in The Sunday Times that DMGT were looking to ‘ditch’ Northcliffe completely with a fire sale to David Montgomery and I think we can claim a crossroads moment is nigh for the regional newspaper industry. Or rather another one.

NewsQuest have always been a US law unto themselves; Archant might see part-salvation from being the proud new owners of a ‘Mustard TV’ channel for Norwich; JP might, finally, have true digital natives at the helm – alas, they have the banks banging long and loud at their door.

GMG, of course, have long abandoned the regional news industry to its presumed fate; Andrew Miller and Co are off to play the volume ad games of a global variety. Let Eric Schmidt think the future is local; Cindy Gallop claim the future of advertising is ‘bottom up and collaborative’.

So, I think hope rests with TM. ‘One’ TM.

Who, with this one move, have a chance to think like a network, not act like a silo. Or, at least, not act like the two silos of old.

To, in short, try and join up a few dots while regional brands and local audiences are still on their side. And, given the smart new broom that Mr Fox appears intent on bringing to the corridors of Canary Wharf, they appear to be of a mindset to change. The $64 million question now is whether or not they see how their world might have turned upside down of late; that, in part, perhaps their salvation lies from the streets of Morpeth and Machynlleth up and not from the top of Canary Wharf down…

So his interview in The Evening Standard made for an interesting read. That the future wasn’t one of being a GroupOn clone, but rather of pursuing a more coherent and ‘joined-up’ approach to advertising…

“It was very obvious coming in as an outsider that it was not an efficient structure,” Fox, pictured, told the Evening Standard. “We weren’t presenting a joined-up approach to our advertisers…

Morpeth and Machynlleth interest me for a number of reasons. In one, far-flung corner of Mr Fox’s new empire we have long sat as a bottom up and collaborative advertising platform of the Gallop ilk; into another we would seek to go with our new, Welsh-language platform - now we can localise by both long-lat and language.

Because the challenge that sits on Simon’s desk is simple… does he buy the Schmidt idea that the future is local? And if does, how does he leverage 350 years worth of local brand development and, above all, local advertising sales experience into better monetising those vast swathes of local, digital advertising space he now commands?

Because to my mind, its the Mirror that’s the dead duck here; not the locals. That’s where your future lies; not defending your national titles in the High Court as the whole, phone-hacking scandal lands on your door-step – wiping 20% off your company’s value in an instant.

I look at that JournalLive site for Morpeth. ‘Morpeth news from Morpeth…’

And, see above, an ad for Deloitte. From Canary Wharf. No Morpeth ad from Morpeth…

In part, that is our failing as a self-serve ad platform; people aren’t taking the opportunity to place a fiver-a-week text ad into that space… no matter how simple and transparent we try to make that transaction.

Hence, why we firmly believe in the fact that the future has to be collaborative – local ad sales relies on local people selling to local merchants. Its a P2P world we inhabit; person to person. Salvation won’t come from an algorithm down; it’ll come from a familiar, trusted face selling from the streets of Morpeth up…

And if you haven’t got a field sales rep left on the streets of Morpeth; offer an automated commission for someone else in that community to sell for you. Or, alternatively, empower the ad agency that runs the WM Morrisons account to place an ad for their Stanley Terrace branch into that space…

A Morpeth ad for Morpeth.

And then repeat. Across a nationwide network. In a joined-up and collaborative fashion. Do local, as one…