A great strategy is, without question, the single biggest enabler of business success. In the absence of a defined strategy, companies will tend to be unfocussed in their approach to the market, and be more likely to be distracted by random opportunities that don’t move them towards their goals.
Having been a company director and a senior-level manager in a number of sectors, I have taken a great interest in the field of strategy, and have seen the impact of both good and bad strategies on business outcomes.
What has struck me is how ineffective many strategies are, and (when you dig deeper) the discovery that they aren’t really strategies at all.
A few years ago I was asked to privately comment on a strategy document a board had received. It consisted of dozens of activities that would be worked on throughout the year, broken down by market segment. My response was that this was just a list of planned initiatives, not a strategy; there was no evidence that any choices had been made about where to focus effort in order to win in the market. The following year’s annual report revealed that only some initiatives had progressed and none had been achieved. Most had not progressed at all, and several new competitors from adjacent markets had started moving into their space.
The purpose of this of post is to provide some thoughts on how to do a better job of the strategy process, using the media sector as an example. By media, I broadly mean companies producing story-telling on broadcast (in the broadest sense) platforms. This could be documentaries, news, instructional video, or special interest content, to name just a few categories, and in radio or digital channels.
I’ll start by presenting some historical context including the ‘big question’. Then I’ll look at the current strategy choices in common use, before looking at an alternative model and applying it in an example scenario.
The lessons are, of course, not unique to media companies, and could be applied anywhere.
Some Historical context
The current state of news and public media company strategy has been very much influenced by history—their formation, their evolution, and their relatively recent adaption to the internet and increased competition.
In recent times many of these organisations have broadened the number of channels where they offer content—print, radio, tv, streaming, social media, web—yet in many cases they are struggling to maintain existing, or develop new, audiences.
This struggle to stay relevant and competitive in a digital age has been the subject of much discussion and debate.
Another challenge for older, established organisations, is that their audiences are aging and literally dying off. In New Zealand, TV One was a dominant force for many years, and for a long time it was THE news channel. For many older New Zealanders it is still the ONLY channel they watch. The same is true for Newstalk ZB and Radio NZ. Many of their older listener’s radio dials will have seized from lack of use. This has been well-known in the local industry for a long time; I was party to discussions on this problem at least as far back as 2000.
In the 1980s I often heard it said that as younger people age, and as they became more interested in the world, they would shift to more serious content and public-style media, ‘our media’, replenishing audience numbers from the ‘bottom up’.
In a market with little competition this is almost certainly true, but today, the production of content has been democratised, distribution costs for small players are nearly zero making the barrier to entry low,and consumers have far more to choose from than they could ever reasonably browse in a lifetime.
On top of this, there isa whole new generation of consumer that does not even have a TV or a radio in the traditional sense. They consume most of their content on-demand as the need or mood arises, and, is the case with every generation, their motivations and uses of media are very different from the previous one. This is not even an age-specific behaviour; my consumption, and that of many of my early-adopted peers, follows a similar pattern. I cannot recall the last time I watched anything on live broadcast TV, and most of my focussed radio listening is on-demand.
The Big Question
The key question most media companies (and individual publishers) ask is, how do we keep existing audiences, and/or grow new ones, and compete in current and future markets? Put more succinctly, how do we win? (The definition of winning may vary depending on the type of business—non- or for-profit, or sector—but staying in business will always be a key part of that definition.)
If you aren’t running a media business, what is your big existential question?
How do we even start to answer that question? Is it even the right question?
I’d offer that since this is the same question we’ve always asked, and assuming we continue to use the same framing, processes and tools in creating a strategy to answer it, then we are certain to come up with the same sorts of solutions, and get the same results. A lack of progress, or failure.
In regard to tools, as Abraham Maslow once said, if the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. (This adage is the ‘law of instrument‘ and refers to an over-reliance on a familiar or favourite tool.)
Henry Ford put it another way, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”
Meeting customer needs are at the core of the question above, and market research and web analytics are often the tools of choice in the search to understand these needs. This kind of research can show us what consumers liked in the past, but it is not automatically a predictor of what they’ll like in the future.
Internal stakeholders are also often also used as a reference point, but you (and your staff) are not a good proxy for the customer.
Care is needed, as Lord Reith warned, “He who prides himself on giving what he thinks the public wants is often creating a fictitious demand for low standards which he will then satisfy.”
We want to avoid that trap, but before considering an alternative strategy model, let’s start by looking at some of the dominant models currently in use.
Each sector will have their own dominant strategies. As you read through the following, compare these with the choices that you and your competitors currently make in your own industry.
Current Approaches
I will cover four common approaches made in the media space that are used alone or together. With some of these, there is an explicit attempt to differentiate the offering from competitors. In that case the motive is clear: we differentiate to reduce competition; it is easier to make progress in uncontested markets.
In other cases, the approach is to do the same thing, but do it better. The motivation here is probably financial: the target market is bigger, therefore the potential revenue available is seen to be higher.
I am not convinced the logic of this assumption is always checked. For example, 80% of an uncontested 4% niche market is better than 5% of a 30% mass market, especially when the latter approach (fighting for customers) will almost certainly cost much more.
The chosen approach is usually based on a thorough analysis of existing information and data, and to use the knowledge to make changes to get better results. Simply focussing on getting better results will generally preclude doing anything innovative. Occasionally there is revolution though, or radical surgery, but from what I have observed this is usually done out of desperation and while there is always a plan, there isn’t really an underlying innovative strategy.
1. Expanding Reach
An obvious first choice is to try to extend the reach of our activities. Getting our content under the noses of as many people as possible increases the chance of more consumption. AKA marketing.
In the digital realm, extending reach is achieved by advertising, promoting content on social media, content sharing arrangements, and search engine optimisation (SEO), among other tactics.
You will have seen examples of the second of these in New Zealand, with content from RNZ, NZ Herald and Stuff appearing on each-other’s websites. Each player in this type of content sharing arrangement thinks that they are getting a good deal from two perspectives:
- I get more eyeballs on my own content if it is on another site. That also might result in visits to my site.
- If I carry quality content from another outlet, it increases the value of my site for my main audience, and they might read more of my own content.
The content sharing tactic is certainly sensible when viewed from almost any angle, but it does lack one important thing – it is not really finding many new consumers.
This was true in 2016 (based on the last statistics I saw) as there was a huge cohort of consumers who visit all the major NZ news sites each day, not just one. I suspect that this choice (sharing) has not provided above-baseline returns over time.
Supply-side tactics ensure that there is an adequate supply of your content wherever the potential audience might be, assuming that an audience is where you place your content.
Some advertising falls more into the brand positioning realm. That is way outside the scope of this post, but I will say that brand positioning is still important part of any strategy, and ‘slow and steady’ is usually a better choice in that it provide many small nudges that keeps the brand in the mind of consumers.
One thing that always amuses me is the huge advertisement taken out in daily papers each year proclaiming radio station X or Y to be number in their market. Is this marketing aimed at advertisers? Is it brand positioning? Is it there to make existing listeners feel good? Probably all three. I do doubt that it draws in new listeners, because ‘I want to listen to the number one station’ isn’t a realistic consumer goal.
Trying to do a better job in marketing and promotion won’t solve what is primarily a demand-side problem. This approach does not speak to the motivations of the consumer, content is just ‘there’ hoping to make a connection.
Content does have to be ‘out there’, but just because this does return some results, some of the time, that does not mean we should just double down on that approach and not explore other options.
2. Make it for a known audience
This choice takes some account of the customer’s existing content preferences, but not in a particularly sophisticated manner. These preferences may also be known to other players in the market.
We know that there is an audience for content about golf, for example, so let’s make content about golf. We know that there is an audience for reality TVs shows based on the concept of a contest, challenge or race, so let’s make some more shows that are a variation on that theme. And so on.
This seems to be fair enough, and occasionally we will see some innovation in this space. Any innovation that does occur is, of course, quickly copied by others, and the produced content inevitably becomes formulaic, predictable and bland.
The point with this choice is that there is a tendency to double-down on what has worked before, and to just ‘try harder’. Breakaway productions rarely maintain their initial momentum, and any headway made from a new innovation, is quickly lost to competitors. Innovative content makes a big impact the first time, less so afterwards.
One choice is to find a market segment or content niche that no one else is currently serving. The larger the market, the easier it is to find these niches, but most businesses are not happy to just reside in their own their niche, they always want to grow.
I should note that there might be a good reason why a niche is not already served by a competitor. Beware!
3. Make it and they will come
The third choice is to make something deemed ‘good’, or perhaps ‘adequate’, and wait, or do some marketing.
In the days when there was a high degree of vertical integration—with a few organisations controlling the collection, processing and distribution of news in largely monopolistic environments—this was frequently the primary model. For some in that position, the approach to content was “all the news that’s fit to print”, with a focus on quality. The others, well let’s just describe them with two words: tabloid journalism.
Either way, in times of limited competition, and/or when there is a high barrier to entry for new players, there is little need to change the approach.
In monopoly markets, perhaps a better name for this strategy is “the only game in town”. Consumers get whatever is created, and the job of selling advertising becomes order taking. The good old days.
Looking at non-commercial markets such as public broadcasting, Reithian principles were (and still are) often applied.
These principles were established by Lord Reith to counter the BBC’s complete monopoly (at the time) on radio and television broadcasting. He felt that the corporation should give equal consideration to all viewpoints, and demonstrate probity, universality and a commitment to public service. His stated goal was, “to carry into the greatest number of homes everything that was best in every department of human knowledge, endeavour and achievement; and to avoid whatever was or might be hurtful”. The highest priority was, “The preservation of a high moral tone”.
The BBC’s current mission, “to act in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain”, is a reflection of these early principles.
Recently, in March 2023, the BBC was issued a new and ‘modernised’ operating license, with a focus on digital services and being more accountable for what they produce.
All public broadcasters, and many commercial ones, still have these Reithian principles baked into their core DNA in varying degrees.
If you work in the media, I’d lay odds that you’ve seen many examples of this type of thinking in your organisation.
‘Make it and they will come’ is very much focussed on the supply-side—it is assumed that demand will follow the creation of the content—that there is latent demand—and this can certainly true where there is a monopoly, or where the quality differential is obvious to consumers. Even if a new offering would provide more value to consumers, it is hard to get people to switch if they feel (implicitly) that their current provider is ‘good enough’. Is it even worth the risk to change?
Over many years I often heard it stated: our content is really good, if we could just get people to listen, they would be hooked. Build it and they will come quickly becomes a problem for the marketing department.
This approach is very closely linked with journalistic principles about the public good and holding power to account. I’ve got no issue with that in the slightest. There is no question that certain stories should and must be told; it is a vital part of any modern and well-functioning society.
4. Copy others
This choice involves looking at what other do, and just doing the same thing. After all, there is plenty of room in the market for two, right?
An example is the NPR podcast Serial. Many have tried to copy the success of this show, leading to an increase in the number of ‘true crime’ podcasts, but the genre was not the only reason for its success. Serial had several advantages—an existing (NPR) audience to promote the series to, a subject that they had already reported on extensively, excellent production and editing, and foremost, a very clear sense in the story-telling of an injustice having been done. You simply cannot beat a really good story.
Podcasting has certainly exploded in the last five years, with everyone from major media companies through to people sitting at their dining table. I used to listen to a very good podcast that was literally recorded at the family dining table. Some podcasters have carved out very valuable niches, with emphasis on niche or unique.
The same applies to websites. Look around the web are you can see lots of copying, occasionally even whole designs. I have been in meetings where it was suggested that we copy aspects of another site’s design, or labels for content, or copy the style (‘casual and chatty, please’) because they were more successful, as if design or content style alone were the differentiating factors.
The ultimate act of copying is to poach individuals, or even whole teams, from competitors. This ignores the obvious—that what is produced is the sum of many parts, of which staff is just one component.
By all means learn from others, but copy very selectively.
Rethinking Media Strategy
How to be successful (to win) is fundamentally a strategy question: what choices will you make in creating and distributing your content in order to differentiate yourself from the competition and achieve your vision?
An integral part of this is gaining, and maintaining, an intimate understanding of your customer and their needs. In that regard stats and surveys are not enough, and I like the Jobs To be Done framework which gives a deep understanding of the forces at play in the decisions customers make in selecting your product.
If you don’t have an explicit strategy, then your strategy is whatever you are currently doing, and the choices you currently make. According to William James, when you have to make a choice and don’t make it, that is in itself a choice.
A good strategy ensure focus; the business has agreed on where and how it will operate to be successful.
A plan is not a strategy, and a strategic plan is not a strategy. A lot of what companies do is not strategy at all. This concerned Roger Martin to the point of writing a post in Dec 2021 about the lost art of strategy, and launching his strategy restoration project. He has been writing insightful and practical posts on the subject since July 2020, as well as giving dozens of interviews on the subject. I have been a fan (and user) of Martin’s work for some time, and now have a strong preference for his integrated strategy framework.
A fundamental point is that strategy is a creative exercise, not a (primarily) analytical one. As noted by Martin, coming up with a really great strategy requires creativity because no innovations in business ever arose from the examination of historical data.
What information do we need to take into a strategy session? There is no pre-work required for such a session, and while this seems at odds with current practice, it is for good reason.
The executives involved in strategy-making should already have enough information in their heads to start the process. They do not need vast folders of data and research; they should be able to come up with a first-cut of the strategy which can then be tested against relevant data, and iterated upon.
The process is not about planning—that comes later—it is about starting with a focus on the customer, and applying strategic thinking to invent the future. That is innovation.
With that groundwork in place, let’s start work. According to Martin, strategy is an integrative set of choices that position your company in the market of your choice in a way that you win. These are the five questions that lead to those choices:
- What is our winning aspiration?
- Where will we play?
- How will we win where we have chosen to play?
- What capabilities must be in place to win?
- What management systems are required to ensure the capabilities are in place?
These must be answered as a group, or system, as they are integrated and internally supported.
Our winning aspiration will always involve the customer, and the meaning of ‘winning’ may require some additional thought if we are in the non-profit sector, or in a natural (or regulated) monopoly.
Where we play is about the field of play—where do we position our business. How we will win speaks to the things we’ll do in the in the places we’ve chosen to play. Capabilities and management systems are about what we will do to empower the company to support the strategy.
I find this framework helpful because it provide structure within which we can clarify our thinking and ensure that the completed strategy is logical, and is actionable.
A caution: this is not a linear, once-through, process. It is an interactive, iterative and dynamic process, where answers will be swapped in and out, and comparisons made between different sets of answers (or strategies).
Martin has one brilliant test to apply when making choices: if the opposite of any choice is ‘just plain stupid’, then what we have chosen is not really a strategic choice at all. His best example involves the choice ‘being customer-centric’. The opposite of this is to ignore customers, and that’s not a choice anyone would rationally make. While lack of customer focus would certainly differentiate you from your competitors—and Fawlty Towers is a great example of this—it is not a winning choice.
During the process of devising a strategy, and especially when we think we have ‘The One’, we must ask the question, what would have to be true for this to be a good strategy? I often find myself asking this question during the process too, as it helps remove the chaff.
We can then use existing customer and market data in a more targeted manner to test our candidate strategy to see if the choices make sense. Think of the strategy as a hypothesis, and we are looking to see if the things that need to be true, are true, based on the information we have. This may raise questions we don’t have answers for, and this could lead to more targeted research being commissioned. This could be a market survey, for example, but given that you have a hypothesis to work from, and specific things you want to explore, this will likely be more targeted and thus more cost effective and efficient.
What would have to be true is a powerful question that draws out assumptions, and provides a chance to understand and resolve those. Unchallenged assumptions are likely to lead to bad choices.
How is this different from what we did before? For starters, it uses a primarily creative approach that is grounded in design thinking and only applies science in places where it is appropriate. Martin promotes the use of intergrative thinking, which helps us make generate new innovative solutions from pairs of opposing or conflicting options. These techniques (and others) push us to think differently, explore and debate options, to challenge assumptions, and to invent an innovative future using genuinely strategic thinking.
I highly recommend reading Martin’s book on Strategy, Playing To Win, and subscribing to his practitioner insights newsletter. I have yet to find a question about using the framework that has not been covered by these posts.
Putting it into practice
Now that we have a new approach, how do we start? As an example, I will walk through an example that shows how the process works and the kind of questions that get raised. This won’t be perfect; the point is seeing how the process works.
For my example I’ll use Today FM. For those not in the know, Today FM was a New Zealand talk-based radio station started by MediaWorks. It started on 21 March 2022, and was shut down after just 1 year on the air.
I have no knowledge of what Today FM’s strategy was, but I thought it would be useful to work through the five strategy questions from Roger Martin’s framework—using publicly available information—as an exercise to illustrate what questions can arise during the process.
This exercise won’t be exhaustive or comprehensive, it is illustrative, and is not in any way to suggest that they made the wrong strategy choices. One year is far too little time to be able to say if the actual choices made by Today FM were good ones, and sadly we will never know for sure. They simply weren’t given a reasonable chance.
In practice, we would normally iterate over these questions many times, toggling between different sets of options and weighing the results on the overall strategy. Rinse and repeat till done. In this case I’ll just go through once and examine the impact of certain choices on other questions.
1. Aspiring Vision?
We know from public information that the CEO was keen on politics, and Dallas Gurney, the newly appointed director of news, was quoted saying, “This is a long game for us. I mean, ZB has been on the air 30 years. We are not going to change things overnight… there is an understanding this is not a one or three-year project. This is a five, 10, 15-year project, and beyond. The will is there”.
So let’s start there: “In 10 years we will be to the go-to source for credible political news, insightful commentary, and engaging talk.”
This is a commercial business, so there is always an assumption that this will attract the revenue needed to sustain the business, and provide a return to shareholders. For commercial radio, this revenue is mostly gained through advertising.
2. Where to play?
The chosen field of play was primarily news-talk radio.
This format was introduced to New Zealand in March 1987 at 1ZB in Auckland, when Paul Holmes took over from long-time breakfast host Merv Smith who then moved to Radio i. 1ZB ratings subsequently fell from first to seventh as many listeners followed Smith, or left because they didn’t like the new format. It wasn’t until 1989 that the ratings recovered, and the current host, Mike Hosking, took over in 2008, with the station continuing to dominate ratings.
The New Zealand talk market is a difficult one to enter. It is still dominated by NewsTalk ZB, as acknowledged by Gurney, above. Many have tried to break ZB’s stronghold, without much success, although over the years a few appear to have carved out viable niches.
Magic Talk, Today FM’s predecessor, had started in January 2019 after the merger of Radio LIVE and Magic. Radio Live itself had been around since 2005, born after Radio Pacific split its racing and news coverage into two distinct stations. I don’t know if Radio LIVE was commercially successful. It may have ‘paid the bills’, but one thing is for certain, MediaWorks thought that they could do better.
Beyond news-talk, the other choices available are music formats, and there is already massive competition there. Choosing a format where there is no major competition (apart from your own existing offering) seems to be a sensible choice.
3. How to win
This was clearly intended as a long-term project for MediaWorks, and there were plans to differentiate themselves from other talk stations.
Gurney said in another interview that, “If we wanted instant results we would be doing something that played to the old talkback model with the same old names doing the same old things. We have a massive year planned out on station and we know our audience will grow as people discover us.”
In order to win against the single national competitor, the choices made need to be things that they lack the ability to do, or wouldn’t want to do.
Things that Today FM could do differently are:
- Balance of time between guests and talkback
- Talkback subject selection
- Screening of callers
- Music choice
- Frequency or timing of advertising
- The style of advertising
- Offering more flexible or innovate plans for advertisers
All of these are things that a competitor could do, but given their current position they may be very unwilling to risk making any changes at all.
There are many more things that could be considered in answer to this question, and in a strategy session the executive team would spent a lot of time here discussing options.
4. What capabilities are needed
One thing any new station needs is good talent; it needs to hit the ground running, with a strong offering. In this case they made a choice to select a strong leader, team, and hosts that would have good name recognition in the target market and with advertisers. Gurney was an experience leader, and was backed with a team of about 20 staff providing news.
For hosts, they managed to tempt Tova O’Brien away from Newshub, and she was joined by a veritable who’s-who of TV and radio talent: Duncan Garner, Rachel Smalley, Polly Gillespie, Leah Panapa, Mark Richardson, Lloyd Burr, Wilhelmina Shrimpton, Nigel Yalden, Robett Hollis, Mark Dye, Carly Flynn, Nickson Clark, Dave Letele and Dominic Bowden.
Obviously, a national radio frequency was needed, and MediaWorks used those previously occupied by Radio Live and Magic Talk, calling this a ‘rebranding’. A couple of changes to frequencies of other MediaWorks stations in Christchurch and Auckland were made, and they had a usable national radio network.
A website and social media are a must, but how these are used are linked back to the how to win question. You’d need web staff or a process (management system) to support publishing content quickly and seamlessly. This is a good example of how these questions are all linked. If we play in the web space, we need a website (and all that entails), we need processes, and then we have to decide how to win in that space.
In terms of staff capabilities, the hosts themselves need to be good interviewers, have broad interests and emotional intelligence.
What other capabilities can you think of?
5. What management systems
We could easily list things here that are table stakes for any business – being able to pay people, manager their contracts, pay bills, etc. The question here is what systems will be required to help differentiate Today FM.
This is a lot more under-the-hood, so we can only imagine what might have been needed in this case.
If they had chosen to use unknown talent, they might have a management system to identify, hire and develop talent their competitors might miss.
Perhaps there particualr choices around how advertising is approached require a particular type of sales process that requires an innovative pricing and scheduling tool.
The chosen management systems would need to support all the choices made above, and in total support the company in differentiating themselves.
Testing the Strategy
After iterating over these questions many times, the final step is to ask ourselves, what would have to be true, do the answers fit together as a working system, and is the strategy distinctive enough (compared to other strategies) to be successful?
So, what would have to be true for this strategy to succeed? Just a few suggestions:
- Listeners would have to be open to try out the new offering, and to stay if they like it.
- Advertising would need to be compelling enough to convince people to try the new station.
- Advertisers would support the new station, even if ratings don’t quickly go up
There are probably internal factors related to being part of a large company, such as:
- Executive and board support over the long term
- Solid funding, with the ability to get more as needed
We would also consider the strategy against everything we know: analytics, market research, JTBD information. This is also the point where we might commission the additional research needed to validate our choices and anything that would have to be true.
Do they fit?
In this example, they do fit and to work together, although there are clearly gaps. In a real strategy exercise you’d need to consider carefully whether all your choices link and support each other in a way that ensures the complete strategy is viable and has no major gaps.
Are the choices distinctive?
A distinctive choice is something that differentiates us from a competitor. One test we can apply here is to ask, is the opposite of this choice stupid? If it is stupid, then it is not a strategic choice, and certainly not distinctive.
For example, hiring people with skills and/or talent. The opposite is hiring people without skill, which is clearly stupid, so this is not a distinctive strategic choice.
What about hiring people who are known to the potential audience? The opposite of this is hiring unknown talent. That might not be stupid, given your other choices, or you might be willing to adjust your other choices to support this approach. We could argue that if politics is the focus, we need people known in the field. On the other hand, if they know politics, do they need to be widely known?
A well-known host might have the added advantage that people who know and like them might follow them, but it could also have the opposite effect.
For this exercise, I’d argue that having a lesser-known host who knows politics, or is from another discipline (e.g. an academic) and can quickly establish their credentials with the audience and guests is also a valid choice. It is a riskier choice, but one that could be mitigated by making other choices. For example, we may do training and testing to see assess their potential, and provide a mentor to give feedback on early shows. We could also choose to promote them as a ‘fresh new take’. This would certainly be a distinctive choice.
So, hiring carefully and developing your talent may be a cheaper choice than luring someone away from a competitor.
Perhaps there are greater gains (and lower start-up costs) to be made in the long run by starting afresh?
Again, I am not in any way saying that Today FM had the wrong strategy. The team there had far more knowledge of their context and the issues than we could ever have, and this is only a thought experiment to see what we can learn from exploring the various issues that arise.
Looking at another choice, having a website, vs not having a website, is not a choice that differentiates. Same with social media. You cannot really operate today without either.
Having just written that, I will still challenge it. If you chose to not have a website, what other choices would have you to make to be successful? What about social media?
I know of a popular podcast that does not have an email address. If you want to contact them, you have to send a letter. That is an interesting choice, and I leave it to the reader to think about why.
The Today FM website was pretty impressive given the size of the team. How the website and social media is used in concert with live broadcasts could be something that differentiates, but give that audio-on-demand, podcasts, show information, etc and all base-level requirements, and given limited resources, I suspect there wasn’t much scope to really innovate here.
We now know that Today FM was taken off the air in March 2023 after just over a year on air. It reached about 1/10th of the audience of NewsTalk ZB, which is pretty good. What could it have achieved after two, three or five years?
This underlines an important point—winning does not happen overnight. Strategy is a long game. This is a shame because the NZ market really did need a good alternative news-talk offering.
Closing Thoughts
The Playing To Win framework is powerful tool for developing a new strategy that works. It can also be used to evaluate the strategies of your competitors. You won’t be able to get all the answers that they got, and you probably won’t come to the same conclusions, but at the very least it may provide insights into what they are doing differently. I will add one caution: in developing a strategy with this framework, do not fall into the trap of shoe-horning your existing strategy choices in to it, and then saying ‘we are done’. This is a chance to start from scratch, do things differently, and innovate.
In this post I have covered a lot of ground—I’ve looked at current media strategies, a strategy framework, and run through a strategy exercise.
While I have focussed on the media space, and the example is a radio station, there are lessons here for anyone running a customer-facing business.
I hope this post has provided some food for thought, and I welcome any comments or feedback.
* Image credit : Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Alpha Stock Images
Stuff I'M Thinking About 
Leave a comment