Newspapers becoming the news

Continuing misfortunes suggest its not a great time to own a newspaper.The New York Times continues to suffer with the slump in advertising really hitting home.Marketing guru Seth Godin has posted a great blog article looking at the ways in which a newspaper could turn itself around in the current climate.As Seth mentions (and I have highlighted before) the mindset of a newspaper organisation is defined by the daily news cycle which in itself is defined by "cost of paper, the finite nature of paper, the cost of delivery and the cycle of a daily paper. You run enough articles to fit as many ads as you can sell. These are artifacts of a different age, one that today's consumer doesn't care a whit about."So Seth puts forward some great suggestions for newspaper organisations, mainly focused around understanding and utilising the assets the brand has at its disposable in the digital environment.This is all about not standing still. Moving with the times and realising that a business has changed or the society in which the business operates has changed.There is great, practical advice here for any business or start-up: build and optimise your best asset and build value around that. Then don't rest on your laurels. Stay ahead of the game and develop new ways to grow new assets or develop existing ones. For anyone marketing or publicising a brand, identifying these assets is vital. And an asset could be a great number of things, from the brand itself to a product, service, specicialism, thought, customer, idea, person, supporter....It is a theme that Seth also explores in his book, Purple Cow, which I also highly recommend.