A great piece of analysis applying Helmer’s 7 powers to the content business in order to establish if content has ability to maintain profitability and resist competition.
Scale is one such power – this chart shows there is a slight positive linear correlation between size of budget and eventual box office returns.
Network effects are also interesting – given the social dynamics of shared experience and discussing content. Franchises really shine here.
Great set of slides on the transformation at New York Times since 2011.
The company just crossed a milestone where digital overtook print.
This is also a fascinating read about what happened inside the NYT newsroom during the Trump years and whether this boost was partly responsible for its growing business success.
“[The] mission of the company is to be the most creative, the most innovative and the most efficient entertainment company — not interactive entertainment company, entertainment company — on earth,“
Spotify is transitioning and not just via their podcast investments.
They are starting to enter the world of advertising and arming artists with tools to reach audiences, at a price.
First via Marquee mode – mobile app pop ups to advertise new releases. These see 20% conversion rates, 2.2x lift on saved/playlisted tracks which itself leads to increased playing by 250%.
Second via a new Discovery mode – where an artist can boost a track in Spotify’s algorithm in return for a lower take.
Interesting post covers the logic behind this as well as price increases.
“Marc Pritchard, Chief Brand Officer at P&G, the world’s largest advertiser, dropped a bombshell at the ANA conference a few weeks ago. He said that P&G would be moving away from the upfront model of TV ad buying. With TV advertising going digital, it makes no sense to make massive uninformed bets just because that’s the way it’s been done for decades. Now they can apply data to those decisions and be more deliberate ” The Trade Desk CEO Jeff Green.
“A great meeting has three key elements: the desired outcome of the meeting is clear ahead of time; the various options are clear, ideally ahead of time; and the roles of the participants are clear at the time.“
“I think that’s the single largest source of optimization for a company: the makeup of their meetings. To be clear, it’s not about fewer meetings because meetings serve a purpose. Rather, it’s key to improve the meetings, themselves. A lot of my efforts focus on teaching people this framework. Ironically, I find that most people are just challenged by that stuff.“
A really insightful and bearish essay on Nintendo.
“However, the “Nintendo is Disney” thesis is deeply flawed. It feels more like a desire to apply a pattern than to find a real analogue. Elements of Nintendo certainly represent Disney, but they represent Disney insofar as both companies are best in class creators of four-quadrant, multi-generational content. Otherwise the businesses are fundamentally different, their management styles fundamentally different, and their approaches to content itself are fundamentally different, too.”
Their rise had a lot to do with a huge advertising campaign in the US
This stat is staggering – for a period in 2018 “nearly 22% of all ads seen by U.S. Apple device users on Facebook ad network came from TikTok and its Chinese counterpart Douyin”
As the article points out this actually provides more evidence of Facebooks dominance.
On culture – “part of daily life at Netflix with a daily Circle of Feedback and annual written and live 360 Assessments, in which you meet with the team to get ripped apart.“
