by Taylor Emerson
(Ed. Note: Pelmorex Media hosted a panel at the recent CMA Conference in Toronto to discuss how the company has developed its brand and products across platforms and are transitioning from a television-centric to a consumer-centric operation.
We asked the company which owns The Weather Network and MétéoMédia to edit and reproduce what they told the marketers last month for Cartt.ca readers and Emerson, vice-president and general manager, interactive services, filed this informative piece.)
WEATHER HAS TRAVELLED far on the information superhighway – from television to web and mobile, desktop and mobile applications, e-mail/SMS alerts, Facebook, iTV and more.
It should be noted, though, that there are a few favourable conditions inherent in the weather business which have helped spur the growth of The Weather Network/MétéoMédia products and content across new platforms:
– As information, it is easily adapted, and applicable to, new media.
– It’s highly local and changing nature makes it very suitable to interactive and on-demand media.
– We own or have the license to distribute and syndicate all of our content.
In addition, there are a number of things we practice or have learned that have supported our efforts:
– Define your business. Pierre Morrissette, our CEO, stresses the importance of “defining the business” as a critical step to developing strategy. Pelmorex never defined itself narrowly as a ‘television weather business’, but rather in ‘weather and weather-related information services.’ This self-understanding has been core to our roadmap and evolution as it allowed us to move into the web in 1996 without hesitation, and each next distribution method has supported, as opposed to conflicted with, our business definition.
– Be consumer-focused. New features need to originate from the demands of the audience, not the needs of a specific media channel. In the past, product decisions were largely based on factors such as cost impact, technological capability, or attractiveness to advertisers. With a mix of instinct and perseverance, it worked surprisingly well; however, today, in order to continue to grow audiences we need to understand and deliver on the consumer’s needs better than anyone else. Furthermore, we realized that consumers would gravitate to new channels and we had to embrace change. We had to be there to retain that consumer throughout the day, or risk loosing him or her to a competitor. It is better to be eating your own lunch than allow someone else to eat it for you.
– Ask whether this new platform or environment will really improve your service overall and be valued by your customers. It’s important to question the urge to ‘build more’, ‘be everywhere’ or do what everyone else is doing to keep up with the industry. Not every platform will be valued or critical to your customers or will provide a return to your company. Being selective is key. We ask ourselves a few questions: can we provide a service in this area that meets a customer need? Does this platform or product have a specialty or do something new that can add value to our overall service? Is there a real ability to generate ad revenue, or alternatively to generate brand visibility to either drive traffic back or promote other products?
– Define how your product translates to the new platform or environment. Don’t try to fit an old product model into a new hole. What strengths and advantages does the new platform have, and how do you make use of that? Adapt and bring to the fore the aspects of the product that are best served by the platform. Differentiate and re-purpose your content to suit the new environment. For example, use the GPS in iPhone to display the weather for your location without having to search for it.
– Build centrally and make the user experience consistent. It took us a few turns to realize that we were duplicating efforts by building products independently for each platform. To be most efficient, build products centrally and in a manner that one infrastructure could deliver to new, and as yet unforeseen, applications. While the product execution may be different, the underlying experience and expectation of the user must be met from one device to another. Consistency of brand look and feel, user interface and data are key. For example, we’ve launched Microsoft’s Virtual Earth dynamic mapping platform for all divisions. While the core application – data, content and imagery – is one and built once, we have multiple services to present the content via different channels. In addition, all mapping services are available to be used by all business units.
– Cross-promote. An obvious point, but important to note that we have developed our audiences in new channels using our existing media platforms. Television ‘built the brand’ and has been a huge driver of audiences on the web, as web has been of applications and mobile. We know, as our advertising clients do, that our platform delivers – we’ve proven it with our own products. And the platform continues to grow in size and diversity as we add more channels and products.
– Organize for multi-platform. This is still a work in progress, but the key initiative underway is to put a leader in charge of each channel (who is not responsible to another channel) and to centralize all content and production functions so that all assets are available to all platforms and units. For example, people involved in news and active weather content are currently interwoven into television production. We are looking for a solution to transition these resources seamlessly to serve all platforms with this valuable weather content.
There are certainly more platforms and products to come – location-based services, automobiles, enhanced mapping, voice recognition, home automation – but, the multi-platform world is already well-established. Another opportunity, I believe, is to figure out how to connect these platforms in order to share user settings and preferences from one device to another. We aim to provide a single platform that will allow consumers the ability to move from their home or car, to work or leisure and have a desired experience both follow them and anticipate their needs.
