In somewhat of a surprise move, MSNBC.com decided to go with SS&K, a traditional marketing company based in New York, over an interactive agency with online marketing experience. Catherine Captain, VP-marketing of MSNBC.com, said concerning her decision: "I was concerned about bringing in the interactive agency because I felt it would predetermine my plan."
While the overall purpose of their campaign is to get more visitors to the site while increasing the time spent there, another part of the job is to find out what MSNBC.com is branded as in the eyes of their visitors.
This is somewhat odd when you think of a site of this size not understanding what its purpose is in the eyes of its customers.
Now what all of that implies is that the news space is becoming commoditized; all of them are starting to look alike.
With 25 million unique visitors a month, there is something that is driving them there; and evidently MSNBC.com has no idea what it is.
There highest categories for traffic include news, movies, autos and health. They also rank No. 7 in online ad revenue with $188 million for 2005.
Another thing that is implied is that their core business - news and information - is being invaded successfully by competitors, which is why they are now hiring a company to help them to understand their core user so that they can differentiate from the competitors knocking at their door.
This is another one of those cases of a company sitting around complacent for too long. Why wait until the fortress is broken into before taking action? This should have been seen and prepared for from a long way off. It will be interesting to see if they can continue strong in this space, or if competitors will cut deeply into their dwindling strength.
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