Problems at Patch.com

Yes. Yes. This is exactly what I'm saying. I made a similar analogy earlier.

If even one franchised McDonald's was caught using horse meat, it would be devastating to McDonald's brand -- and their business (revenue).

The media would be all over it and no one would care that only one restaurant had served horse meat.

 

Yes and no. While you're probably right that most newspaper chains don't enforce high journalistic standards/ethics throughout their holdings, individual newspapers are named differently and thus are their own brands.

People don't associate the Des Moines Register with the Indianapolis Star, or the Cincinnati Enquirer, though they're all Gannett papers.

Patch consciously chose to name all of their sites the same. The sites look the same. There's one chain of command. It's all one brand. And it doesn't stand for journalism.

Look at it this way, Procter & Gamble and Unilever each own many brands:

http://www.pg.com/en_US/brands/all_brands.shtml

http://www.unilever.com/brands/

But, each of their brands has their own identity.

You don't associate Crest, with Ivory or Old Spice. Your opinion of Dove soap doesn't influence your opinion of (or decision whether to buy or not buy) Hellmann's mayonnaise.

 

You should stick to Andrew Breitbart and branding and leave the discussions of journalism to, you know, the journalists.

 

He's not a journalist? This Yankee Fan person?

 

Dispute something I said. Does Patch stand for journalism?

Whether you like it or not, whether you get it or not, brands matter. It's hard to build a brand, it's harder to redefine a brand. Patch doesn't stand for journalism now, and as a result, it's unlikely to ever stand for journalism. (And the HuffPo takeover makes it less likely they'll even try, let alone succeed, in re-branding it as a place for journalism.)

As for my opinion on journalism, give me a break. We've been over this. You never played major league baseball (despite your moniker), should you not give your opinion on baseball?

 

God no. Never was.

Small business owner. Sell & service commercial coffee & espresso machines.

 

God no?

You have contempt for us?

 

First off, journalism isn't a brand. Let's be clear on that. And very few newspapers have brands in the way you're describing. Patch is probably a lot like a small-town paper. The only game in town. Some probably have good reputations, some probably awful. But, no, I don't think the readers -- not customers -- they're aiming at are particularly cognizant of national "branding" vis a vis Patch.com. There's a pretty big media fragmentation going on, in case you haven't heard.

As to the latter, if someone pays me, I can cover a game and tell a reader what happened. I went to school to know how to do that and have practiced quite a bit. But that's not the analogous situation.

The analogous situation would be someone who's never swung a bat standing around the cage with a group of major leaguers and trying to tell them how to hit.

What's more, you know that instinctively, or you wouldn't keep trying to shift the discussion to "branding," which is, I presume, something you know something about, or once did. And that's fine. I am not going to lecture you on "branding" except as it relates to specific media ventures, and only then to say, "I don't think it's very important."

Try and do everyone here the same courtesy.

 

I didn't know I was wasting my time trying to have a civil discourse about this with a guy who ... what, sells coffee pots?

Thanks Mark McGwire, wicked, out of place and whoever else for your excellent points.

 

I get that Patch is a brand. It just doesn't matter at this point because there aren't many resources devoted to marketing and the general public, by and large, isn't aware of the sites.

As I've said, Patch will fail not because of branding issues, but because of problems with the original business model. There won't be enough time to build a brand that most people can identify.

 

Correct. If anything, micro-media ventures are anti-branded. How many tiny dailies and weeklies that have been bought by big chains "rebrand" themselves as "A Media Giant Paper"? None do. They want folks to think it's "their" local paper. I'd be suprised if the Patch sites want anything different.

 

You just couldn't be more wrong about this.

If you don't think Patch is a brand, you're ignorant. The New York Times is a brand.

The fact that customers/readers don't consciously think about it this way is irrelevant. Good branding doesn't require a conscious decision. Your reaction to a good brand is more Pavlovian that conscious.

There's a reason CNBC & MSNBC have "NBC" in their names. Same thing with ESPN2 and ESPNU. They're brand extensions the the corporate parents wanted the new brands to benefit from the reputation of the core brand.

(Now, MSNBC is an interesting case in its own right as it has since established its own unique brand separate from that of NBC News, which has caused some concern for NBC.

Not only has MSNBC established a brand, they're promoting it. Those ads with Ed Schultz walking among the shipping containers or with Rachel Maddow at the Hoover Damn; those are brand ads.)

You, "Mark McGwire", have your own brand. What does it stand for? If you can't answer that simple question, it probably doesn't stand for much.

I have a brand, so does my business. And you can be damn sure I'm aware of it at all times.