IMC 2013: Publishers need to evolve fast: Kreisky Media's Peter Kriesky

As the recently held Indian Magazine Congress, Adgully happened to catch up with Peter Kreisky, Founder & Chairman, Kreisky Media Consultancy (KMC), USA. His consultancy is a top management boutique consulting firm that specializes in strategy and business transformation issues in the media & entertainment industry, particularly on the interface with the technology.  Kreisky is recognized internationally as an expert on the media industry and is also a Senior Advisor to The Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

He spoke on various aspects of the industry and his insights really were a learning experience. KMC is set up as a "virtual firm" and draws upon a wide network of partners who bring specialized knowledge and capabilities to address specific client problems and opportunities. Some of the clients it has worked with include the BBC (UK) , BBC Worldwide (US),  Boston Consulting Group, Business Week, Condé Nast Publications, MTV Networks (Europe), Reader's Digest Association Rogers Communications (Canada), Starbucks Coffee Company, Time Warner (Corporate), Yahoo! Inc. and many others.

Speaking on the direction of the magazine industry, Kreisky says, “today we all are living in digital age and that is going to be our future. And with digital playing an essential role in every individual’s life it’s time for print market to adapt to this revolution. What Indian print industry is facing today, the USA faced it five years ago in the period 2007-09. At that time the US magazine ad to editorial ratio dropped to 35:65 resulting in a number of dropped ad pages. This affected the most news magazines that saw a decline of  65 per cent whereas newspapers saw a decline of about 60 per cent.”

There is a need for a new business model on which a publisher should remodel and build his publishing company, feels Kreisky. This new model should comprises of  B2C model, portfolio model, strategic control, customer revenue and last but not the least, B2B revenue. This is imperative today as with the launch of new mobile devices, smartphones and evolution of powerful digital gatekeepers the industry growth has slowed down. Publishers need to act, they will have to clearly define their role, work on business model for each platform and move from Publisher to a Magazine Media Company.

Says Kreisky, “currently there is a lack of awareness and acceptance level is low, so it’s tough to set right priority for publishers when we discuss about multi- platform existence.”

As for the success factors for a publishing brand to grow in the new digital era, Kreisky adds, “for any brand three aspects are going to exist – first a trusted magazine brand, second is engaging the communities and third giving curated & valued content. And a brand should stick to its core essence of business.”

So what needs to be done?

Traditional magazine industries have to start from the scratch as they need to map their digital future. Few key strategies that need to be undertaken are enterprise infrastructure, new breed of managers as a part of changes in management, company culture, new vision  and new mind-sets.

“In coming years we could see progressive publishers embracing on audience driven multi-platform model. The paid content models will co-exist with free model easily if differentiated clearly. We’ll have more digital distributors and publishers as constant innovations will open the door for new opportunities, ‘ says Kreisky.

Concludes Kriesky in the context of his role as a management consultant, “as a consultant our responsibilities lies in advising best strategies to our clients. But I feel today people understand the need of change, but they don’t want to experiment it nor want to believe  because it makes them worry about whether it will work or not?”