The New York Times recently decided to change their business model, at least where online content is concerned. Web visitors will be able to see a limited number of articles each month for free. After that threshold number of articles has been read, viewers will be asked to log into a paid subscription account. NY Times publisher Arthur Sulzberg has been savagely criticized for the move and touted as the genius who might just save journalism.
Which one is it? Is Sulzberg a visionary, clear eyed and sure about the best way to guide the NY Times forward in an era where print media is becoming increasingly irrelevant and digital media difficult to monetize? Or is this a Hail Mary pass—a last ditch, all-in effort to turn the tide in a game where not much has been going right?
What we have here is a rare opportunity to see a major brand, a dominant organization and established legacy brand, changing their model in real time. The tenets of Brand Modeling tell us that Sulzberg’s changes will be successful if:
- the Times continues to consistently deliver the content the paper’s best customers value the most.
- the introduction of the change does not irrevocably alter the emotional relationship the paper’s customers have with the Times.
- the changes strengthen and enhance the relationship that already exists with the Time’s loyalist, most active customers.
- the changes make the Times more appealing to people who are like the Time’s best customers, thereby increasing market share.
Brand Modeling is predicated on the belief that an organization’s surest, most effective way to grow and enjoy greater profitability is to identify the company’s very best customers (those customers who do a great deal of business, frequently, and are actively involved in promoting the brand to their circle of friends) and delve deeply into the quality of their relationship with the brand. Once we understand what makes the brand appealing to its best customers, we can create models that allow us to forecast, with a relatively high degree of accuracy, what will happen if we change the way we do business.
It is a tremendously valuable tool to be able to predict the outcome of changes ahead of time. Changes such as the Times is making do not come easily or overnight. At some point, Sulzberg must have had access to information and data that gave him cause to have confidence in his decision. Although defensive, he still sounds committed to his position here,in this Daily Beast article.
It’s clear that Sulzberg has put some serious thought into who the Times’ best customers are, and aren’t. He counters charges that the pricing plan is too complex with evidence that the Times’ print subscribers have handily navigated a similar system for years. The readers he characterized as “high school kids and people who are out of work” aren’t the customers he’s worried about keeping. Will the rest of the Time’s readership—or at least a significant portion of it—value the Times enough to make the move to a subscription based model a good decision?
If they do, Sulzberg comes out a winner.
If they don’t, he may just wind up being yesterday’s news.