23 april 2013

Gratisavis efter schweizisk recept


NULLERNE VAR DET ÅRTI, hvor den danske ungdom læste avis. Med MetroXPress som spydspids lykkedes det gratisaviserne at nå to befolkningsgrupper, der ellers havde glimret ved deres fravær i læserstatistikkerne: Folk med indvandrerbaggrund – og dem under 30.

I de senere år er der imidlertid blevet længere mellem avislæserne i tog og busser, og især de unge dropper i stigende grad papirmediet til fordel for smartphones. Det skal der laves om på, mener schweiziske Tamedia, der købte MetroXPress kort før jul og fire måneder senere relancerede avisen på både papir og web … efter samme opskrift, som har givet koncernens gratisavis 20 Minuten succes på hjemmebane.


DET MED OPSKRIFTEN skal tages bogstaveligt. MetroXPress ser nu ud nøjagtig ligesom 20 Minuten, der er kun sprog og logo til forskel. Til gengæld er der absolut intet tilbage af det ”gamle” MetroXPress – lige bortset fra en chefredaktør og en gruppe medarbejdere, for hvem det må føles en smule sært at skulle levere et radikalt anderledes produkt end det, der trods alt var et af Danmarks mest læste dagblade, da de gik på påskeferie.

På indholdssiden ses det, at sigtekornet nu er rettet mod et yngre publikum. Natteliv, kendte, dyr og underholdning fylder godt i spalterne, ligesom der synes at være et øget fokus på sex; måske på baggrund af de erfaringer, den ny chefredaktør-nummer-to Niels Pinborg har taget med sig fra Ekstra Bladet.


DERIMOD VIRKER AVISENS DESIGN bestemt ikke ungdommeligt. Siderne er fattige på kontraster. Citater og faktabokse optræder yderst sparsomt, ikke engang mellemrubrikker er der til at peppe den store mængde grå brødtekst op. Og skriftvalget kunne næppe være mere traditionelt; kun ”skrivemaskineskriften” Jubilant skiller sig ud i den ellers helt neutrale typografi. Det er sådan set ikke grimt, det virker bare mærkeligt, at man ikke forsøger sig med noget lidt mere funky.

Det eneste, som med lidt god vilje kan kaldes moderne, er det ny handy format, der syd for grænsen er kendt som ”halvberliner” og benyttes af blandt andet Hamburger Morgenpost. Lille, men dog tilstrækkelig stort til, at tryksagen opleves som en avis. Det trækker imidlertid fra, om ikke andet så i miljøregnskabet, at formatet her i landet kun kan produceres ved at trykke en tabloidavis og skære en trediedel af papiret væk.


EN ØGET SATSNING PÅ NETTET er udtryk for, at læsermigrationen mod digitale platforme bliver taget alvorligt. I lyset heraf må det undre, at de to udgivelseskanaler slet ikke er tænkt ind i et fælles visuelt univers. Kun det blå logo – der både på print og web fremstår undseligt og karakterløst – antyder, at mx.dk er i familie med papiravisen.
Det meget enkelt opbyggede site synes i øvrigt designet til smartphonens lille skærm, hvor det fungerer ganske fortrinligt. Formen er dog ikke responsiv; mit gæt på en forklaring er, at såvel web- som printdesign sikkert har nogle år på bagen.

Nå, indtil videre er det naturligvis papiravisen, indtægterne skal komme fra. Og hvis den virkelig hitter blandt teenagere i Schweiz, må der være større forskel på de to landes ungdom, end jeg gik og forestillede mig. Man skal være varsom med at lege profet; men undertegnede vil ikke blive overrasket, hvis MetroXPress med sit ny indhold kommer til at vinke farvel til en del af sine mere modne læsere. Uden at få held med at løfte læsningen substantielt blandt de unge, som man så gerne vil have fat i.

21 april 2013

Beauty and the Beast

ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL – and simple – ways to combine visuals and words: Run a strong photograph, one which your audience simply cannot miss, and let the headline suggest how that photo should be interpreted. Thereby, the text works as a scalpel that removes unintended meanings from the image (basically, there are three different ways to perform the operation, as described in this e-booklet).

By a strange coincidence, two of my morning papers used the exact same formula for yesterday’s front page – even though the cover stories had no other similarities.



POLITIKEN’S TOP STORY, like most others’ on that memorable day, was about the suspected Boston terrorists. The AP pic shows Dzhokhar Tsaraev on a neutral white background, a mug shot or passport photo most likely, and the headline says ”Here is the new enemy image of the USA”.
The smaller, slightly more intellectual Copenhagen daily Information promoted a two-page reportage in the weekend supplement, discussing (quote) ”the new enemy image of Danish politics” – personified in the Danish Minister of Finance.
The white headline below the somber depiction of Bjarne Corydon translates like this:
”THE EVIL FORCE?”.


Both front pages carry a portrait of a man and a headline stating that this particular man is something more than just a man; that he is a threat, maybe even the personification of evil?
They both use a strong photograph to nuance their statements (to be fair, Information’s headline is in fact a question, albeit a pretty slanted one). But they use the scalpel – the headline – quite differently, almost in opposite ways.

POLITIKEN PLAYS ON AN ELEMENT OF SURPRISE. If Dzhokhar Tsaraev had looked like Mohammed Atta, we would find it easy to believe that he is simply an evil person. But this handsome youngster with soft brown eyes and casual hairdo, so much like the kid next door (the white background is, of course, adding to his pureness)? He can’t be evil. Someone must have been leading him astray. How could he possibly be our enemy?

Nevertheless, the article tells us that’s what he is. The beauty turns into a beast.

What the article does not substantiate – and I see this as a weakness in an otherwise strong piece of communication – is the idea that Tsaraev and his brother are not just two tragic individuals. The headline implies that their likes can be found elsewhere in the American society. Quite possibly, drawing such conclusions would be premature … but I still think that is what the headline says, and that the overall message suffers when it turns out not to be the point of the article. The headline ”promises” more than the package can deliver.
(In this particular case, that is of course a good thing, as nobody wishes to live in a world where every cheerful, good-looking, brown-eyed boy has to be viewed as a potential threat. However, if we focus on the communication, it is still a problem).

INFORMATION’S APPROACH IS LESS SUBTLE. Every pixel of Sofie Amalie Klougart’s portrait communicates drama, gloom, even horror. The background looks cold and dark, the lighting is hard, one eye staring, the other one scowling in the shadow: Sure, this guy could easily pass as the Prince of Darkness.
However, as hinted at by the headline’s question mark, this reportage actually discusses whether that is a fair designation. In the eyes of many Danes, Bjarne Corydon has become a symbol of all the things that are wrong with politics. This article makes an attempt to diversify the conversation, quoting experts who believe that our Minister of Finance is simply trying to do what he thinks is right and – maybe atypical for a politician – will not yield even when people start to hate him.

Hence the question mark. But is that enough?
All in all, the statement adds up to: Obviously evil man (image) + THE EVIL FORCE (headline) + question mark. Lots of evil, little doubt.
In the eyes of most people – even the well-educated, creative-class readers of Information – I am afraid the overall message will still be: You’re right, he’s evil.
The beast remains a beast.

SO, IF YOU FOLLOW MY DRIFT, how could the message have become clearer?
Well, in this case, the image is so powerful, and almost one-dimensional, that the headline might have worked better had it offered an alternative interpretation. Maybe even contradicting the image (which is in fact how Politiken executed their top story).
Try to imagine the same photo with a headline like, for instance, ”The Good Shepherd”. Could be pretty effectful, huh?
In any case, what is important is to let your audience understand, even before they start reading the article, if you are out on a different mission than the one they’ll expect. If you don’t, many will miss your point and just see what they have gotten used to seeing.

TO SUMMON UP: A newspaper story has two layers. In both the examples I have discussed today – strong as they are – there is a tiny discrepancy between the message of the top layer (photo + headline) and the bottom layer (the actual article). No big deal, these are still great examples of visual communication. But as the top layer defines the bias – it ”tunes me in” and implies how I should read the bottom layer – there is a risk that I won’t get the finer details of the message.
As we also know, some people rarely proceed from the top layer – and this part of your audience might simply misunderstand what you are trying to tell them.

15 april 2013

LinkedIn is catching steam


IT IS A JOB PORTAL! It is a debate forum! It is a social media! It is a news site!
It is
 … LinkedIn!

The ”Facebook of the Pros” used to be overshadowed by its more well-known big brother (who is in fact a kid brother, as LinkedIn can now celebrate its tenth anniversary). From the start, LinkedIn was known mainly as the place to flash your résumé in the hope that some rich employer would see it. And as far as dryness goes, the visual appearance of the site provided a perfect match to its contents.

In recent years, the level of ambition has risen – and with the 2011 signing of Dan Roth, former online director at Fortune Magazine, LinkedIn put itself on the map as a serious player on the publishing field. A position which last week’s acquisition of news-reader Pulse will only make stronger. LinkedIn now operates as an aggregator of news from more than a million publications worldwide, in a selection that accords to the preferences of the user, and as a discussion forum for professionals from all corners of the world. Last year, the presentation sharing site SlideShare was added to the network, showing us that LinkedIn also aspires to becoming a virtual conference room. 

IMPROVED CONTENT calls for more sophisticated design, and in 2012, new costumes were introduced for linkedin.com, as well as for the mobile and tablet apps. Everything now looks much better and more inviting. Not surprisingly however, LinkedIn’s constant expansions and changes in architecture end content has made consistency suffer. For the time being, not much more than a logotype and a black/blue/steel colour style is there to visually connect the different LinkedIn channels.
And one may wonder why the 
iPhone app feels so much more coherent, and even has more functions, than the one for iPad – in which the main division into three columns seems illogical (the mobile app has four, which makes much more sense), old notifications you’ve already read seem to keep popping up forever, and you cannot even edit your profile.

NB: In a flick of fate, this blogpost was published two days before LinkedIn launched a completely redesigned app for iPhone (as you’ll understand, I would have preferred them to take a shot at the tablet version). Anyway, this new one looks like it will take some getting used to. I’ll be back with more comments when I have decided what to think.

While the website’s new concept is clearly inspired by Facebook and Google+, and LinkedIn for iPhone looks more or less like a modern TimeManager – for instance, you can synchronize your calendar with LinkedIn and thereby get sneak peeks at persons you’re going to meet – the iPad edition seems more inspired by Flipboard, the main component being kind of a news gallery with no clear chronology or prioritization. Maybe soon the news section will look more like Pulse?
Anyway, I am not so sure that this rigid distinction between the three platforms corresponds to equally substantial differences in the way people actually use them. From my point of view, LinkedIn has been overdoing this part a little bit. And as already mentioned, one of the consequences is a lack of cross-platform consistency.
But then again, nothing prevents me from using my tablet to visit the website.

LINKEDIN IS MAKING MONEY. Last year’s 86% growth in revenue (to 972.3 million USD) ought to stir some interest in an industry where traditional sources of income seem destined to dry out. Allow me to quote Owen Thomas who predicts that ”LinkedIn is becoming the newspaper of the future”:


”(LinkedIn) sells subscriptions — high-end tools for professional recruiters, simpler offerings for job seekers and salespeople. It sells what used to be called classifieds ads in the form of job listings. And it sells ads to brands looking to target its audience of professionals. Pulse's apps expand the audience for that latter offering.
That mix of display advertising, classifieds, and subscriptions, all riding on top of one core product, reminds me of the newspaper business model of old, back when that was a highly profitable business”.

THIS IS ALL VERY INTERESTING.

For LinkedIn.

But hardly a solution to the overall problems of the newspaper industry.



Back in the late nineties, I listened to a talk by Kjell A Nordström – the author of Funky Business – about how to succeed professionally in the future. I remember Nordström stating that on a global business arena, ”the winner takes it all” (of course, a Swedish professor has to 
make an ABBA quotation).

Since then,
 I believe that his point has been proven.
There’s only room for one LinkedIn. One Google. One New York Times.
Why would you want to join the world’s second-biggest network when you can become a member of the number one, and what could possibly make you want to use the world’s second-best search machine?


Bottom line: In order to survive, every player on the future media scene will have to be original. Something special. Number one in their own particular ballgame.

Quite a challenge for all those among us who are just trying to do our job …