between WESC and Slam City Skates, at Slam City Skates 43 Carnaby Street, London, W1F 7EA:

Interesting point in that by creating a paid for subscription model publishers will incur marketing and customer service costs:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/aug/06/rupert-murdoch-charging-for-content

“A sophisticated micro-payments service” will launch this autumn said Robert Thomson, editor-in-chief of Dow Jones and managing editor of the Wall Street Journal.

So it would seem that plunging ad generated revenue has forced the hand of one of the big players in publishing, to a paid for subs model. Interestingly it would seem that they are looking to adopt a model of  micro-payments for individual articles and premium subscriptions to WSJ.com, after years in publishing I would hope this isn’t translated as “all news based content free of charge, with all channel specific content and that deemed as high value paid for”. As the only attractive environments for advertisers within news sites being channel specific and premium content, this model doesn’t make for a great bed follow with an advertising business model as well.

It makes sense that news and topical editorial is free, as a driver for topical relevancy in search, but paying for the ‘good stuff’ or the ‘unique stuff’ limits the opportunity to generate revenue from advertising, as these environments are where advertisers want to be and not next to news stories highlighting topics such as economical doubt.

Anyway this is pretty much conjecture on my part, but will be interesting to see what the plan is when it comes into full effect

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Was looking into the old Freemium model this morning used by the WSJ and seemed like quite an interesting model for retailers and fashion brands. Succinctly the model offers ’social media mavens’ free content that they can blog about or socially tag, maintaining a decent SEO strategy alongside a paid for subscription model – a partnership that is not always thought of as compatible.

As more and more fashion and luxury brands are creating sites that are not just e-commerce focused and actually offer valuable and educational content, it would be possible to identify a brands social media brand advocate (social media maven) and offer a reward based scheme for covering content from within the brands site, on their blog or by social media tagging. This doesn’t necessarily have to be redeemable points in store but maybes access to exclusive events or one off pieces, to really entrench the blogger in the brand.

Early Jan ‘09 the Wall Street Journal wrote a piece about the ‘New Info Shopper’, those consumers that pour over information before making any purchase, from a £20,000 car (as you’d expect) all the way down to a tube of toothpaste.

With the internet close to hand at all times these shoppers can research from their desk at work, on their commute from mobile or from their laptop at home – my phone has a bar code scanner so I can compare where I can get the best price for that product. This easily accessible information makes the consumer very powerful and has the potential to create a shift in consumers purchasing on brand name alone to purchasing based on facts.

With the economic climate as it is these consider purchases highlight the need for brands to explain the stories behind their brand and why their product is a better choice over their competitor.

The WSJ showed that these consumers have become highly suspicious of TV ads, with 78% of this consumer group feeling that TV ads no longer had enough information in them. With the internet the new place to window shop, the WSJ has coined the phrase ‘Windows Shoppers’, the success of Net-a-Porter definitely demonstrates this.

The findings also showed that 92% of respondents said they had more confidence in information they seek out online, than that of a salesclerk or other source.

The WSJ also showed that 70% of Americans now say they consult product reviews or consumer ratings before they make their buying decisions. Sixty-two percent say they spend at least 30 minutes online every week to help them decide what and whether to buy, in the under 45s this audience made up 73%.

I believe that this research has shown that as part of a brands digital communication it must make available all information about that brands products, heritage or news. Consumers will find it, whether it’s on an unofficial fan page in Facebook or the blog of a brand advocate. With this in mind it is imperative that brands provide the most detailed assets for these social media PR engines e.g.  Product shots in the highest resolution or detailed insight to the product designer’s inspiration behind the new launch, so as to provide these unofficial brand pages or blogs with the tools to create the most detailed review of the brands product/history/news, minimising conjecture.

Within the luxury and premium sector this type of collateral is easily available, with great heritage and contemporary information that is always news worthy. If you then ad to this the emotive connection that these brands have with their consumers, it is possible to leverage these brand advocates within social media to provide detailed touch points for those ‘New Info Shoppers’.