Gannett Goes Mobile Throughout the U.S.
Important Details: In a move described as “table-setting,” Gannett has formally launched mobile sites in more than 100 U.S. markets, 84 of them daily newspaper markets and 19 of them broadcast TV markets, in addition to its national site USAToday. The new sites are templated, with single photos, 10 top headlines, local weather, and a link to national news provided by USAToday. They also feature room for a prominent ad. The sites can be found at the urls of Gannett’s site, with a “m” prefix, as in http://m.tennessean.com (Nashville), http://m.news-press.com (Fort Myers) and http://m.wkyc.com (Cleveland).
Gannett’s goal is to put solid infrastructure under its mobile sites, as the mobile browsing moves from niche to mainstream. There are now some 22 to 32 million mobile browser unique users in the U.S., says Matt Jones, director of mobile strategy and operations for Gannett. That’s about one in 10 mobile phone users, he figures, and as such, it’s an early adopter group. “A lot of this stuff feels like ’95 and ’96 on the the internet,” he says. As home internet use moved to broadband, the web has become a household utility, and much of the early infrastructure built to support web businesses paid off, he says. And he believes the same is coming true in terms of the mobile web.
Already, Gannett is selling ads on the sites — national Best Buy ads, local realtor ads — and getting, Jones says, CPMs in the $30-50 range. He believes that such advertisers as airlines and florists see the utility of the current market. “Anyone who wants to reach 18-26-year-old markets” is taking a strong look. Jones also believes that “click-to-call” ads will have a bright future, as customers use both the mobile internet…..and the phone itself to do their business.
Gannett partnered with Third Screen Media to handle the ad serving and four different sizes of ads are now available. In addition, it has partnered with Nuance, a speech recognition company, to facilitate use of Gannett’s mobile products.
Gannett’s new program, which has been in soft launch since earlier in the year, is U.S.-oriented. Roger Green, managing director of Newsquest Digital Media (Gannett’s U.K. Newsquest unit comprises 300 titles, including 18 dailies), says that given the different mobile environment there, Newsquest is not part of this newly announced initiative.
Implications: Outsell believes this kind of table-setting, and what Jones calls “awareness creation,” is well-timed. The report from Outsell’s latest news usage study, “Targeting Power News Users,” pointed out that 12 per cent of news users now rely on phones or PDAs for accessing news, with higher income customers more than 20% more likely to do so. Given the telecom investment in mobile growth, the ascension of faster networks and mobile browser-advancing innovation of the iPhone, mobile news access is set to skyrocket over the next several years.
Building the infrastructure, building it centrally, and connecting it up to flexible national/local ad serving system are all steps in the right direction.
Gannett has a built-in advantage here, with local reporting strength and a national news organization in USAToday. It is smartly leveraging those assets in this launch.
Critical to next-step success, Outsell believes, is going beyond news to local information and data, especially, in city guide information. Cell phones and PDAs offer a wonderful way to find restaurants, movies, and clubs while in your hometown, and all of that and much more, when traveling. Many companies have taken steps to provide mobile city guides, from Yelp and Zagat to Yahoo! and Google. None has yet to become the go-to utility. City sites, associated with newspapers and TV stations, have a natural advantage here — they collect much of the data and do much of the reviewing — but that advantage will wane quickly unless it is translated to mobile.