Economics of crossmedia
What are the economic advantages of using crossmedia instead of a one medium approach?
The Wall Street Journal finds this in composing multiskilled teams around one subject or newsstory. The story gets input from the regular newspaper journalist but likewise from the internet journalists and off course bloggers will let their light shine on it. The economic advantage is that it all happens simultaneous and tasks can be shared instead of done twice (with twice the cost). Crossmedia is always about composing differential teams. Kim Dingler, former media manager at Heineken and recently started with her own company Thys thinks there are enough monochaistic approaches in the market, you don’t all have to be of the same bloodgroup to make excellent team work. Indeed, you’d better not be.
So different approaches affecting one another makes more excellent crossmedia work, better value is always better economics.
But for now there is a cost involved, because to get such a team working you need openmindedness, respect as well as the ability to harshly criticise one anothers boundaries of the medium you are coming from. In short, it will hurt.
How to use channels wisely, that is cost-effective and with the highest rate of return is another question to be answered. Approaches will have to differ from the current ones. Instead of coming from a mass approach and accounting number of individuals, maybe now you have to start with individuals and account when is your critical mass?
I am currently working on a model to get this better accounted for, so that when you move to crossmedia communication you may also know why you should!