SF - varför vill ni inte sälja biobiljetter?

I och med säsongens mörker fyller vi enligt tradition biografernas salonger för att njuta av påkostade äventyr. Och i biosalongens mörker möts man av de obligatoriska annonsminuterna innan filmen brakar igång. Under reklamen distraherar man sig antingen genom att påbörja godisätandet, avslutar en diskussion man tagit med sig in i salongen eller betraktar reklamfilmerna i tystnad. Eftersom ett biobesök ändå är en passiv och tillbakalutad upplevelse.

Inför mitt egna biljettköp på SF.se upptäckte jag häromdagen att nära på varje sida innehåller Google Adsense-annonser. Oavsett om det handlar om en vägledande sida som hjälper användaren vidare eller en destinationssida vars syfte är att driva till avslut. Till och med startsidan har annonser som Google tyckte passade mig, exempelvis "Gratis varuprover", "Jobba hemifrån" och "Rabatt med CSN-kortet". Helt utanför min fokuserade sammanhang. Men...varför?

Under årets stora bioperiod ökar antalet sidvisningar per besök jämfört med hösten med ca 30%. Ett ökat engagemang innebär ofta en högre intention till köp. Med andra ord, kan användaren stanna längre och/eller besöka fler sidor så ökar chansen till ett köp.

SF.se har över 30 000 besök om dagen till SF.se och över 32 000 sittplatser framför en bioduk med intäktspotentialen mellan 90-150 kr per stol. Google Adsense-annonserna har en potential på 7 500 kronor per dag (1), vilket motsvarar försäljningen av 80 biobiljetter. I detta läge är det sista man vill göra att distrahera användaren med annonser.

Annonser som en kompletterande intäktsmodell står i en uppenbar konflikt till försäljning av biobiljetter. Ju bättre annonserna fungerar desto sämre blir försäljningen av biobiljetterna. Om annonserna "lyckas" distrahera användaren till att lämna köpflödet och istället påbörja det nya flödet, som klicket på Adsense-annonsen innebär, så missar man en försäljning med högre intäkt (100 kr) till förmån för en betydligt lägre intäkt (5 kr, minus Googles andel på 40-75%).

Istället för att urskillningslöst upplåta de bästa ytorna på SF.se till annonser, en direkt motverkande intäktsmodell, borde SF bättre borde ta hand om och stödja biljettköpet. Om min vilja fick råda skulle jag göra följande:

1. Om det nu verkligen finns behov av en sidointäkt i form av annonser, skulle jag placera dessa på sidor som ligger efter avslut, exempelvis efter stora och små konverteringar (anmälan om nyhetsbrev, bevakning eller genomfört köp). Men undvika de sidor som syftar till att stimulera användarens intresse eller driva till avslut.
2. Ett ökat engagemang ökar mängden avslut. Därför jag låta de mest attraktiva ytorna på SF.se hjälpa användaren att snabbt få relevanta alternativ som bjuder in användaren till fördjupning. Både genom en ämnesorienterad navigation (med utgångspunkt i filmerna), platsorienterad navigation (med utgångspunkt i var man befinner sig) och genom social navigation (exempelvis andra användares rekommendationer, mest populära, osv).
3. Trafiken till och från de sociala nätverken talar sitt tydliga språk. Bioköpet är en social köpprocess - Vilken film ska vi se? Vilken tid ska vi gå? Vad ska vi göra innan/efter etc. Vilket styrks av att 20% av trafiken till och från SF.se går till och från sociala nätverk, däribland Facebook. Idag integrerar användarna mer eller mindre manuellt mellan SF.se, Live och Facebook. Jag skulle behandla filmerna mer som de sociala objekt de är och öka integrationen mot platserna där användarna idag når sina nätverk, var den sociala köpprocessen till stor del sker.

Det luktar som om man inom SF skapat en resultatenhet kring webbplatsen med krav på egna intäkter. När de kraven flög in, flög rimligheten ut. SF, med all respekt, det här är galenskaper.

Nej, nu får det vara slut på skrivandet och räknandet. Nu måste jag hasta iväg till Rigoletto och Avatar 3D.

/Patrick som härmed debuterar på Think-bloggen.

Disruption through low margins

For a long time, I’ve been writing about technology as the main source of disruption in the media industry. Yesterday I started thinking that perhaps I’ve been wrong. Technology plays a part, but perhaps it’s a factor rather than the main cause.

The most disruptive thing must be people that don’t play with the same rules as the rest of their peers.

Simply put, companies are judged on their revenues minus their costs and their desired profit margins. If there is money left over, they are doing better than expected. If they don’t make enough, the company is failing to meet its expectations.

Technology plays a large part in lowering the costs. This in itself has proved to be disruptive. But even more disruptive, is to lower the expectations and possibilities of the margins.

Take Craigslist as an example. According to TechNewsWorld in 2004, they took $65 million from the newspapers in the area (and that was five years ago). The same year, Craigslist was expected to make $10 million of their own. As they were taking most of the classified ads, it’s easy to see that they could have made more than the expected $10 million. But they decided not to.

Due to technology, they had lower costs. But due to not maximizing profit, they didn’t have to charge as much for their ads as they could have done. They even let most of them be completely free, and still do.

As the product was comparable – better than the competition even – there simply was no reason to use the classifieds page in the newspaper ever again. But even worse – the newspaper couldn’t accept such a low margin, and through that made it impossible for them to compete. Game over.

Open source works in a similar way. There’s no expectation or requirement to present a profit. Therefore the price can be zero. And that is difficult to beat, if you’re in a company that doesn’t accept zero as a margin.

Disruption comes in many forms. Technology has made it possible to create a lot with little. The internet as a whole has brought back the notion that for a lot of people and companies, it’s good enough to make a living, rather than getting rich. Combine the two and you have the most difficult hurdle to overcome for any profit-driven company today.

On the payment of news

Through Per-Åke I find a really interesting article written by Jeff Sonderman. You should definitely read all of it, but the key paragraph is this one:

“Consumers couldn’t care less how much it costs to produce a product, be it news, clothing or cars. They don’t inspect your production facility and balance sheets to determine whether the price is fair.”

Absolutely correct, and valid in every way. I could rant about journalism as non-profit, public service and all of that. I won’t as Sonderman says it better himself, only more succinct.

However.

I question whether this means that journalism can’t be funded through consumer payment. I’m not talking about projects such as Spot.us, but about well designed and packaged (paid) services that enable and enhances the news experience. I haven’t seen any, although I assume there are a few.

If the perception that people were paying for content in their newspaper subscription was wrong (they paid for distribution), why are so many experimenting with the charging of online content rather than everything else attached to it?

Whether you can charge for online content or not is irrelevant. What is interesting and important to pursue is if journalism can be funded – in any way – from consumer payment.

Worth thinking about

From Gareth Kay:

Given this volume of content generation, is our usual strategy of 'build it and they will come' one that holds water? Isn't it time we thought better about how we might swim with, rather than against this, tide? Think more smartly about how we bring online and offline marketing together as one (how do we promote our online content)? Realize a funny ad might not be funny enough (there might be funnier content in culture outside advertising)? Think that we need to either make something more magnetic and beautiful (craft) or be quicker and have a more disposable attitude to the stuff we make? Any way you loom at it, it's quite sobering to see how truly frenetic culture has become.

Tecken på förenklingar

För att förtydliga(?) mitt tidigare inlägg så tog jag fram ett par bilder på skillnaden mellan att generalisera sin situation istället för att försöka förstå komplexiteten och de möjligheter som finns bakom de alltför vanliga förenklingarna.

Detta är situationen hos många företag som väljer att förenkla sina egenskaper och sin omvärld med ett resultat som bara resulterar i konkurrens genom kommunikation.

En bättre analys av företaget och dess situation borde ge mer nyanserad bild och mer likna följande uppställning (också då med ett annat resultat :)

Don't read blogs like you read newspapers

I remember a sales call that I got a year or two ago. It was a news monitoring company that had a new sales pitch, since I had said that I wasn’t interested in their services previously.

Sales person: You know, now we even cover blogs!
Me: Really? What blog index are you using for that? [I was, admittedly, smirking]
Sales person: Index? We’re adding several hundred – every day!

She didn’t get a sale.

After the call, it occurred to me that the sales girl regarded blogs as any other media outlet: one that should be regularly monitored and followed on a daily basis.

An opinion is not an analysis

It’s hard to blog when you feel that you should add some sort of value to the ongoing conversation. Simply adding your two cents to a story is perfectly okay, but my firm belief is that the blogs that become influential are the ones providing analysis and insight rather than just opinions. You know what they say about opinions.

Because of this, many people start masking their opinions as analysis – and that’s where the trouble begins.

What corporates can learn from 24 Hour Business Camp

It’s been a long and tough week, and the weekend is looking to end in a not-so-good way either as I’m feeling a bit sick. But I feel I must write a few lines about an amazing event that I took part of this week.

I am, of course, talking about 24 Hour Business Camp that took place at Hasseludden Yasuragi, just outside of Stockholm. If you are not familiar with the event you can read up on it here. There has been so much media coverage of the event that one might think there is nothing add. Therefore, I wrote a few notes on the event from a more corporate perspective.

Producing is nice, aggregating is king

Just in case you forgot (we are going back to 2006, after all). Henrik wrote about it a year earlier than me even.

John Koten, Mansueto ventures:

Good Old Fan Club + How to make an Internet Strategy

If you're Swedish you might have read the news about Good Old merging with The Fan Club. This means I won't be CEO any more and can fully focus on internet strategy and advisory work. Yay! And maybe more blogging too. I haven´t quite decided how, where or about what I'll be blogging though. I'll get back to you on that. - UPDATE HERE :)