Dating

Dating


5 Ways To Tap Ad Agency Funding

Posted: 31 Jul 2011 07:02 PM PDT

money image

David Rosenberg is Director of Innovation at LBi in the U.S., the world's leading independent global marketing and technology agency.

For startups, selling advertising agencies on your technology can be fraught with difficulty. As startups emerge from their development cycles, investors begin clamoring to get the prototype to market. What follows is a flurry of meetings with brand marketers and advertising agencies in an attempt to secure funding and a business application for the new product.

Many startups assume that their brilliant, game-changing products will sell themselves. It's at this point that mistakes happen, destroying any chance of meaningful funding and exposure. As someone who's been tasked with innovation on the agency side for years, and sat through countless meetings with startups, I've compiled a guide to make the most of each agency funding opportunity.


1. It's Not About You, It's About Them


This meeting is not about you and your idea. It's about finding a practical and profitable business application for your product. To avoid that glazed-over look as your audience tunes out, do yourself a favor: help them help you. Do your research on the agency and its clients. Have a look at their video case studies. Make an attempt to understand their brands and business challenges. In the agency world, this is called working back to the creative brief. Figure out why your service is best-suited to help the agency or a particular client.


2. Focus the Conversation on User Experience and Agility


Your pitch should emphasize how your product or service was designed with the end-user's needs in mind. Agencies need to know that your product is more than just a working piece of technology. You may even consider enlisting a UX designer to help with your pitch. Further, it's critical that you show your ability to manage the product or technology in an agile and flexible manner during the build-out process. Be sure to mention this — it will go a long way in reassuring the agency that it has a real partner.


3. Demonstrate Measurement and Support Capabilities


Make sure you have a sophisticated measurement and accountability system embedded into your technology. Analytics are essential components of the agency business, so be sure to address the topic in your presentation. Also mention your team, however small, in your pitch. Even though you may be a small startup, you have to reassure the agency that you and your team will be able to see the project through to the end.


4. Meet with Key Decision-Makers, Avoid a Run-Around


Many constituents in the agency world have overlapping jobs. While meeting with the CEO or president is ideal, don't neglect other important titles like the chief technology officer, innovation directors, emerging media directors and strategic planning directors. It can also be helpful to invite a specific account director (sometimes called business directors or management supervisors), as they often represent a direct budget connection, as well as the needs of a particular brand. Avoid the run-around by properly managing the follow-up. It's important to persist corresponding with the agency in general, but also to identify the appropriate decision-making advocate who will become your agency partner.


5. Entertain Multiple Business Opportunities and Models


Explore the many innovative business models and opportunities in today's marketing industry. The most straightforward method is piloting your service into a funded brand program. Be prepared to discuss the fees that make the investment worth your time and effort, as well as the costs you are willing to absorb to get the deal done.

Strategic partnerships can also help grow your business. Agencies can assemble many partners around a brand's table. Look for in-kind opportunities within agencies, for example, high-value media and promotions which would otherwise be financially impossible to you. Lastly, some agencies are now investing in new technology and services as revenue-sharing deals or equity plays. Consider that many agencies could see you as a long-term investment. The important thing is to be prepared for any opportunity and keep an open mind.


Image courtesy of Flickr, George Jonathan

More About: ad agency, business, funding, startup

For more Startups coverage:


Ts Dating

Posted: 31 Jul 2011 06:49 PM PDT

What are the do's and don'ts of dating in Japan? Is it similar to the west? for example on a 1st date yes, it's the same. dating wise.. the only differnce is less PDA.. (not as much kissing or hugging in public) when i lived in japan, everyone thought i was crazy friendly cause i hugged all my friends.. [...]

How long has 60 Minutes been on television?

Posted: 31 Jul 2011 06:40 PM PDT

September 1, 1968 was the date that the show 60 Minutes f...

When is the next Maloof Money Cup?

Posted: 31 Jul 2011 06:39 PM PDT

The dates for the 2010 Maloof Money Cup have not yet been...

When is the American idol winner Scotty McCreery gonna make his first CD?

Posted: 31 Jul 2011 06:39 PM PDT

Newly-crowned 'American Idol' winner Scotty McCreery is n...

Is Enrique Iglesias married, and if he is who is he married to or dating?

Posted: 31 Jul 2011 06:37 PM PDT

Iglesias has been dating tennis beauty Anna Kournikova si...

When is the video game infamous going to be released?

Posted: 31 Jul 2011 06:36 PM PDT

Infamous on PS3 has a confirmed release date in the Unite...

Is it spelled hoping or hopeing?

Posted: 31 Jul 2011 06:35 PM PDT

The correct way to spell the word is hoping. Hoping is a ...

Does JP win on this seasons the bachlorate?

Posted: 31 Jul 2011 06:35 PM PDT

Yes, on The Bachelorette, the Final 4 are JP, Ames, Const...

What season of greys anatomy is the episode "drowning on dry land"?

Posted: 31 Jul 2011 06:35 PM PDT

That was Grey's Anatomy: Drowning on Dry Land Promo 3.16;...

When will the winners of Your OWN Show air?

Posted: 31 Jul 2011 06:34 PM PDT

Kristina Kuzmic-Crocco and Zach Anner were the winners of...

Why is man kind doomed?

Posted: 31 Jul 2011 05:58 PM PDT

Mankind (n) the human race : the totality of human beings...

What area is close to Fiji?

Posted: 31 Jul 2011 05:57 PM PDT

Fiji is located in the Pacific Ocean, East of Australia, ...

Did Sergio Garcia get married?

Posted: 31 Jul 2011 05:54 PM PDT

No, but he is dating again Morgan-Leigh Norman, a graduat...

When I psu2 demo coming to xbox360?

Posted: 31 Jul 2011 05:53 PM PDT

That date has not been released yet, but there is a demo ...

How do you psychologically put a women "in the mood"?

Posted: 31 Jul 2011 05:51 PM PDT

Take her on a date. make her feel special. open doors for...

Is justin bieber going to come to virginia?

Posted: 31 Jul 2011 05:50 PM PDT

There are no scheduled concert dates shown for Justin Bie...

What are good ideas for dates to take your boyfriend or girlfriend on?

Posted: 31 Jul 2011 05:49 PM PDT

Send formal invitations to a murder mystery dinner. Pre-a...

What is the number to a dating connection that gives you phone numbers?

Posted: 31 Jul 2011 05:49 PM PDT

There are no dating services that give out private inform...

Inside Sports Illustrated: Building a Magazine for the Digital Age

Posted: 31 Jul 2011 06:02 PM PDT


Among magazines, Sports Illustrated has emerged as a leader in the digital age.

In addition to its print edition, the title has produced a tablet edition for the iPad every week since it debuted last June and more recently added to its roster weekly editions for Android and webOS tablets. Sports Illustrated also produces daily content for SI.com, highlights 10 sports photos every day on its Chrome web app, and offers more content on special cross-channel packages, including Swimsuit.

The numbers support the digital push. Sports Illustrated's digital revenue was up 22% between 2009 and 2010, and it is on track for double-digit growth again this year, says Scott Novak, VP of communications at Sports Illustrated Group.

Curious to know how and why the team could keep this pace, we visited editors, producers and operations managers as they put together a special double issue over a seven-day period.

It became clear that Sports Illustrated has alighted upon the best model for a print magazine in the digital age, not only in terms of content and design (i.e. the product itself), but also in the way the publication has organized its staff and workflow to produce consistently top-tier products across multiple platforms. Here's why.


There Is No "Digital Department"


If you walk into the offices of almost any major print magazine, you'll inevitably find a corner housing the so-called "digital department." The staff there will be diligently putting together a website that is sometimes only loosely tied to the print title. These departments are byproducts of the early days of the Internet when publishers weren't sure if a web edition had long-term potential. Magazine websites were treated like side projects rather than core parts of business and distribution strategies. The tablet edition usually ranks even lower on the priority scale.

Having a separate — and sometimes marginalized — digital department often leads to a discrepancy between the quality of the print product and the web product. Fewer resources are allotted to digital, in part because digital advertising revenues are far less than print.

This discrepancy is most apparent in women's lifestyle magazines. Glamour and Lucky run thinly staffed, independent web operations that churn out upward of 50 pieces of original content per day. These are short, image-heavy pieces that have proven successful on the web. Both launched "blogger networks" earlier this year, an advertising play that allows the publications to sell ads across a network of content, namely pictures of the bloggers wearing different outfits.

Although the blogger partnerships enable the publications to bolster their advertising revenues in the short term and broaden their readership, there's little sense that the content on these sites is curated. Rather, they feel like content farms licensed under the Glamour and Lucky banners.

At Sports Illustrated, by contrast, web and print are divided mainly by article length: the web is for shorter, newsier hits and print is a repository for long-form journalism. Quality is consistent largely because most of Sports Illustrated's staff touch every extension of the brand. Nearly all the writers (95%) produce content for both the web and print, filing short news pieces for the web while building out longer, weekly pieces for the print and tablet editions.

As a result, Sports Illustrated's brand and voice are consistently strong across platforms. But how do they do it and without substantially expanding or changing staff?


Producing More With the Same


It's surprising how long most Sports Illustrated editors have been on board. Most digitally savvy media companies (The Huffington Post and Gawker Media, for example) are relatively young, or many of the older companies have brought in younger staff to turn things over (both The New York Observer and The Atlantic Wire are run by thirty-somethings who got their start at Gawker Media).

Take Assistant Managing Editor Chris Stone, for instance, who is tasked with overseeing the development of Sports Illustrated on multiple tablets each week. He has been with the magazine since 1992. The pace of the production was much different in the "pre-web" days,when he focused on the production of one to two stories per week as the baseball editor.

"Once upon a time you had a few ideas in the course of a week and they held up. If something happened six days before close, well, it was six days before close," he recalls. "Now we deal with new ideas and three to four different ways to present a story every day."


SEE ALSO: Tablet Publishing: Why Sports Illustrated Is Looking Beyond the iPad

Stories are assigned for print, tablets and the web by the same vertical editors in conjunction with SI.com Managing Editor Paul Fichtenbaum and are then optimized for their respective platforms. When a large story breaks, for example, separate angles are developed for the web, for Sports Illustrated's social channels, as well as for print.

"Print is no longer separate," Stone says. "We're able to see the good idea that might just work better on the web because of the urgency of that story." When stories are conceived, the editors think how to enhance them for the web and tablets, sometimes by including multimedia like audio interviews, galleries or video.

Social media is included in the ideation process. During a Monday morning run-through of the print edition set to close that evening, editors debated what to do with an extra Charlie Sheen interview that would not make the print edition before it closed later that night. Should they release it as a web exclusive, or perhaps as a bonus for tablet readers?

They elected to publish it on both, accompanied by a series of 10 tweets titled "10 Pieces of Wisdom from Charlie Sheen." Although the print issue was the focus of the meeting, staff discussed the entire integrated publication: print, tablets, the web and social media.

Design is integrated as well. The design staff formats print and multiple tablet editions simultaneously, closing print Monday night, the iPad and HP TouchPad editions on Tuesday, and Android versions on Wednesday. The spacing in deadlines prevents designers from having to prioritize one version over another.


Editorial Workflow


"It became clear to us pretty early on that we needed to establish processes well beyond what we had in place for the print magazine," says Bob Kanell, director of operations. Kanell has been working at Sports Illustrated for 17 years, long before it started to make its digital shift.

The week now starts Thursday morning. "That's when we solidify what is going to be in the next particular issue. There are long-term stories that are in the works that we know we are going to run at some point, and our editors will decide when it is the right time to run that story," he says.

The editorial team meets again Fridays and Sundays to discuss the issue, which evolves over the course of the week as major events occur. Saturday is the one day the entire editorial staff has off. Each editorial member works four full days each week and takes their remaining off-time on different days so that the issue doesn't grind to a halt on weekends.

On Monday mornings and afternoons, the editorial team meets again to run through the print issue before it closes that same night. The issue is roughly 80% complete by the 9 a.m. meeting Monday, during which time Editor in Chief Terry McDonell runs through the entire issue on a large screen. He poses questions to Creative Director Chris Hercik about various design decisions and ensures that editorial layouts are properly differentiated from the ads.

The editorial team meets again Monday afternoon to review the edited copy and debate final photo selections. As articles are reviewed, McDonell inquires where add-ons for the tablet editions will appear.

At around noon on Tuesday, a mix of editors, designers and producers crowd around a single Mac in the production studio and walk through the nearly complete weekly editions for the iPad and HP TouchPad, both of which are formatted at a 16:9 ratio. Editors view the issues both on the devices themselves and using simulation software on the Mac, checking each button and function for potential bugs.

The same crew gathers again around 4 p.m. for the final review. The completed issue, once approved by Director of Imaging Geoffrey Michaud, is shipped to Apple's and HP's respective app stores around midnight.

At noon on Wednesday, the team runs through the weekly edition for two Android tablets, the Galaxy Tab and Motorola Xoom. Although the devices are different sizes, they run apps at the same 4:3 ratio, so there's no need to format separate versions. The final run-through for Android occurs at 3 p.m. The completed issue hits the Android app store around midnight.


Design Workflow


Although Sports Illustrated's editorial team had to adjust to meet the magazine's new digital demands, Kanell says the biggest adjustments occurred in the design department.

Designers must now reformat the issue in two different orientations — horizontal and vertical — for the iPad, plus a version for Android. (The iPad's vertical layout is also used for the HP TouchPad.)

Sports Illustrated uses a software program called WoodWing, which allows designers to lay out the issue in multiple formats (both print and tablets) simultaneously. If a change to the copy is made in the print version, for instance, those changes will be automatically replicated in the different tablet versions.


Side by side: The same elements rendered for print (left), iPad (center) and Galaxy Tab (right).

"Everything still starts with print," says Hercik, who has worked in the creative department of the Sports Illustrated Group for nearly a decade. "You work from scratch on every [layout] you do. There's few layouts where it feels like you plug in images and text."

Those problems are felt across the department. "Nothing that we do converts easily one from the next," Senior Editor Stephen Cannella explains. "Even after the iPad, you have to tackle a whole different aspect ratio with the Galaxy and Xoom," noting that tablet layouts also have to accommodate multimedia add-ons.


SEE ALSO: A Sneak Peek at Version 2.0 of Sports Illustrated's iPad App [PICS]

The design team is always conscious of file size when including additional images, videos and audio in the issue. Larger file sizes will take readers more time to download and will occupy a larger portion of their device's storage space.

"If an add-on is really important to the experience, like a video cover, we'll embed it," says Hercik, but otherwise the team will opt to stream large files, like video, to minimize the issue size.

Hercik says the tablet versions are complete when they achieve a certain flow. "You want to interact on every page or every other page. If you go through a story and you haven't had any interaction, you feel something is missing."


Room for Improvement


Although Sports Illustrated's tablet editions are strong by design and engagement standards, the editors have not yet examined any reader usage data.

Examining usage statistics would enable them to understand, for the first time, which weekly sections and stories are most popular, how long readers spend reading certain articles compared to others, and what multimedia additions get the most attention. For now, editors have depended on a mix of feedback from focus groups and the comments left in various app stores to help them improve their tablet editions.


Going Forward


Sports Illustrated has emerged as a leader among magazine publications because it doesn't think of itself as a magazine, but as a sports media company. "We don't compete with magazines, we compete with networks," says McDonell.

It's sentiment shared by Mark Ford, president of Sports Illustrated Group. "We think of ourselves as a sports media company, number one," he says. "We believe that we have got to reach our audiences and our fans wherever and whenever they're consuming content on sports, and that means making content available on whatever device they use. Hopefully that extends to TV at some point."

In fact, Sports Illustrated's video operation has already proved profitable, bringing in $3 million in incremental revenue in its first six months, says McDonell.

It's a mindset that other magazines would do well do emulate. Any publication, whether its roots are in the web, on TV, in print or even on tablets, is truly a media company. Any platform their audience is using should be treated as a crucial distribution outlet.

And that means dissolving those sideline digital departments and refiguring digital — and every other medium — as a priority on par with print.


More About: android, galaxy tab, hearst, hp touchpad, iOS, ipad, magazines, media, motorola xoom, Sports illustrated, Tablet, terry mcdonell, webOS

For more Media coverage:

Dating

Dating


Did Jamie Lynn Spears date any of her Zoey 101 co-stars?

Posted: 30 Jul 2011 06:47 PM PDT

The only Jamie Lynn Spears relationship that hit the publ...

What are some teen dating apps on the iPhone?

Posted: 30 Jul 2011 06:47 PM PDT

Didn't see an iPhone app that said for teens only but two...

Has justin bieber lost his virginity?

Posted: 30 Jul 2011 06:47 PM PDT

Justin Beiber has not disclosed whether or not he is a vi...

How many times has Nick Cannon been married?

Posted: 30 Jul 2011 06:45 PM PDT

Nick Cannon has been married once. Cannon married Mariah ...

E@ (yen) e $ (pounds) My boyfriend and I are really close, we have been dating for a couple of months now, and all we have done is makeout. I want to go farther but i don't kn?

Posted: 30 Jul 2011 06:43 PM PDT

Well talk to him and ask him if he wants to go further Fa...

Is Christian Fortune dating Caitlin Beadles?

Posted: 30 Jul 2011 06:43 PM PDT

It is a rumor that Christian Fortune and Caitlin Beadles ...

When was holy orders first celebrated?

Posted: 30 Jul 2011 06:42 PM PDT

I cannot find an exact date, but holy orders have been ce...

If a boy asks to paint your fingernails and does, does he like you?

Posted: 30 Jul 2011 06:42 PM PDT

Yes, he likes you. Unless he calls your house to ask your...

Disunion: The War Comes Home for Lee

Posted: 30 Jul 2011 06:30 PM PDT

Union forces make a big real estate move: taking over the Custis-Lee mansion in Arlington, Va.

When do you know its time to date agan?

Posted: 30 Jul 2011 05:46 PM PDT

If you feel like you miss dating and you have a yearning ...

Is Justin Bieber going to have a concert in California anytime soon?

Posted: 30 Jul 2011 05:44 PM PDT

At this time Justin Bieber does not have any concert date...

When is Phun beta 5 going to come out?

Posted: 30 Jul 2011 05:44 PM PDT

The release date for Phun Beta 5 still remains a mystery....

Who is zac efron datin?

Posted: 30 Jul 2011 05:43 PM PDT

Zac Efron of High School Musical fame is currently dating...

When does Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 come on DVD?

Posted: 30 Jul 2011 05:43 PM PDT

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 does not hav...

Does jeremy Shada have a girlfriend?

Posted: 30 Jul 2011 05:41 PM PDT

Jeremy Shada, who voices Finn on "Adventure Time", is not...

Is Travis McCoy married or dating anyone?

Posted: 30 Jul 2011 05:37 PM PDT

Travis McCoy was born August 5, 1981, in Geneva, New York...

luvsymbol

Posted: 30 Jul 2011 11:17 AM PDT


Gender: Male
Age:50

Bachelorette: Constantine Did Not Have 'Feelings of Marriage' for Ashley

Posted: 30 Jul 2011 05:00 PM PDT

Ashley's former suitor also reveals that he wants Ames to be the next Bachelor

Who plays Joe Miletto in the movie 'Date Night'?

Posted: 30 Jul 2011 04:50 PM PDT

Joe Starr plays the Character Joe Miletto in the movie "D...

How long does the average couple wait before they become engaged?

Posted: 30 Jul 2011 04:40 PM PDT

The time couples date before getting engage varies a grea...