Focus on the User, Not the Brand

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Sept, 2000

It's dogma in publishing and many other industries that a strong brand solves all. That may be true, but it's a truism in which the tail is wagging the dog. If you're focused on your brand, building that brand's strength, and extending that brand, you're missing valuable opportunities.

It's not about your brand. Really. There are thousands of very strong brands out there, thousands of compelling propositions that consumer and b-to-b customers can choose from. This results in what someone I was talking to recently called Solution Smog. Solution Smog can only leave the consumer paralyzed. In the end, you need to make that consumer choose you. They don't do that merely because of familiarity, or even trust or other motivators. They choose you only because you have something they perceive to be of value.

This is what Cahners CEO Marc Teren is talking about in the Q&A in this issue (page 32) when he describes how in each of the company's markets, the goal is to be at the confluence of information and commerce, to deliver information that is intensely relevant in the decision-making process.

What if you're gung-ho on getting your content onto wireless devices, but only 4 percent of your users use them? What if you make all your archived stories available online, but your readers just want data and benchmarks, not profiles and opinion? Online, where Solution Smog is the greatest and the opportunities immense, most publishers aren't even close to unlocking the real value of their reader-customers. They're trying, and "failing forward"-- that is, after failing, they are closer to success than when they started, but still not yet there. So don't focus on building your brands anymore. Focus instead on learning how you can bring more value to your market, and then on delivering it. The brand building will take care of itself.

This is the 35th issue of FOLIO: produced since I became editorial director in June 1998, and the 34th time I've used this space to speak to you. It's been an extraordinary honor to share my thoughts with you over time, and I hope you found some insight from me along the way. I'm thrilled now to say that I've been promoted to the position of publisher of this magazine and will be taking on new, non-editorial responsibilities. I look forward to continuing to see all of you around the industry in the months ahead.

Before I finish, I want to say a quick word of thanks to Peter Goldstone and Roberta Thomas, who hired me two years ago and gave me the opportunity to edit a great magazine in the most dynamic and exciting industry there is.

Tony Silber