Apologies if done already

http://www.bikebiz.com/news/read/singletrack-to-charge-for-showing-brand-produced-sponsored-rider-vids/019503

What do we make of this?
I can see the point but does Singletrack not bring the latest news and events from the MTB world, a new Akrigg or McAskill video for example is surely news, that they will presumably now not be reporting unless the video sponsors pay for it to be shown, is a click on a video from STW not better than readers migrating to other such websites to watch it

Where will it stop?
Are we also going to see logos photoshopped out of all the pics in the mag unless said clothing manufacturer etc has paid for an advert?
Is Fresh Goods Friday not a similar method of gorilla advertising I rarely see half the stuff featured actually reviewed

Fwiw I’m not really fussed either way as I tend to see such vids through other channels before they eventually showed up on STW but there does seem an element of ‘cutting your nose off to spite your face’, surely the exposure often works both ways and featuring the latest video can help increase website hits and therefore ‘sellability’ to advertisers

And whilst I’m on Mark stop advertising the back of the mag as ’16 page subscriber only articles’ when 4 pages of that are adverts 😉

The vast majority of these vids are advertorials.

I agree with Mark to be honest.

On Facebook, Alker complained that “another sponsored rider has just sent us their latest very pro/expensive video episode with a request to share it to the massive audience we’ve spent 15 years and a [load] of money building. No is the answer.”

The self-proclaimed “grumpy” publisher added: “If sponsored riders want to get exposure by creating their own content (presumably with the financial backing of their sponsors) then build your own audience to distribute it to, or pay us like all our advertisers have to so we can be around for the next 15 years. Our reach is available to buy.”

Or another way of looking at it would be:

“Here’s some free, relevant, high-quality content to publish on your website from which you get advertising revenue”

“Nah, pay me.”

I thought Mark’s logic was quite sound, tbh.

STW are the channel to an audience why should they not be paid for providing access?

Just because an advert is interesting and engaging with moving images doesn’t mean it’s anything more than a way for a company to get their product seen and sold…

Bit of a non-issue, I doubt the editz makers will be crying into their chips, and a lot of this stuff is members only anyway on STW.
I never watch vids on this site, they are available elsewhere.
Some of the 15m viewership is there due to the content which STW republishes, and now it wants to be paid to do so? Seems a strange approach.

I think this has been a long time coming.
All the sites just show every branded video in the same way as press releases.

Doesn’t leave any room for differentiation between sites and therefore I’m not sure the ‘click’ is worth anything.

The embargoed news releases are just as bad. 5/6 sites all sharing the same news on facebook simultaneously.

Comparing to the kind of advertising that is on STW is stupid though. The ads on STW are largely incredibly irritating and no-one wants to watch them.

These ‘ads’ we are talking about here are generally videos that everyone actually wants to watch, and could easily watch somewhere else if they wanted to.

Sorry, I can’t read the OP because a large pop up is blocking the screen. Apparently if I pay for a premium membership I am led to believe this advertisement will go away.

grum – the point Mark is makign is because companys spend all their budgets on videos stw are forced to deliver pool ads.

If someone could pay to have a feature at the top of the forum etc for their video for a day or a week it would make the sie more interesting and also give revenue to stw?

lol@

What we do get is more network ads and a poorer experience for the readers,

yup that’s right mark, that’s exactly what we get already. 🙂
hang on let me just sign in again to post this.

Mark and team seem to be working hard to define what publishing looks like in the online age and how it makes money. That may mean challenging the accepted norm from time to time and this looks just like one of those times. I suspect it will be an uphill struggle but hats off for having the balls to put this in place.

It’ll be interesting to see if the Forum will be more heavily moderated to remove such content from threads. I would assume so.

Paid riders (and athletes from all sports) have always got photo incentives for having photos in mags showing sponsors’ logos. It’s how it’s worked – get yourself known, do things worth photographing and printing, get paid.

vids are a step up in terms of time and budget, but essentially they’re the same.

I guess the difference is how much editorial control the mag has over the content.

But is there a real difference between Akrigg going out filming and submitting a vid and, say, Greg May (I assume he’s got a few sponsors – he does enough) going off into the hills on his own or with a photog, and submitting some ST-friendly whimsy to go with the pretty pictures?

It’ll be interesting to see if the Forum will be more heavily moderated to remove such content from threads.

be interesting if they go for the ‘daily mail’ type ‘we can’t stop you going there but here’s why we don’t want you to’ type page for certain urls?

I can see his point. It’s a better revenue stream than intrusive pop ups which everyone abdlocks. Good luck to him, although I suspect it will drive more people to the likes of Pinkbike.

On the other hand if he makes enough money from the videos and doesn’t then need to have forum ads, we all win xx

I thought Mark’s logic was quite sound, tbh.

STW are the channel to an audience why should they not be paid for providing access?

+1

http://singletrackworld.com/2016/05/behind-the-lens-patagonia-barney/

Here is one of the adverts (unashamedly – it’s a bike launch) which I assume Mark wants paying for?
So they want the Manufacturer (who I assume has footed the bill for this jolly) to pay to have it published AND the readers to pay to view this advert?

I think the difference is the editorial control Mark has over content?

The self-proclaimed “grumpy” publisher added

What happened to “not grumpy, not jumpy”?

(unashamedly – it’s a bike launch)

The story doesn’t read like a bike launch at all. Especially not in an MBUK manner – “This new specialized is the greatest bike ever” on left page, full page Specialized bike advert on right page.

Always find the griping about web adverts funny on this forum. It’s not a hobby site for Mark et al, this is their livelihood fair play to them for making an independent magazine that does slag off products/brands sometimes.

Edit: And I met Mark the other week and he wasn’t too grumpy, even after my mate decided to drukenly fall out of a bunk bed and stop breathing during the night!

It does what?, when was the last time a product got slagged anywhere, many builders from Bespoked mentioned on instagram being offered space for 1200 odd quid in certain publications.

People maybe dont trust any of the media controlling bike press anymore?

I do wonder what the future holds. Machine learning is getting freakishly clever now. Facebook, for example, seems to be getting better at serving up relevant content without having to tell it what you want to see, so maybe dedicated/specialist sites like STW will become less relevant. If I the latest Akrigg edit appears in my Facebook feed automatically, why do I need to come to STW?

It’s fascinating stuff and I don’t envy publishers right now, but at least STW are looking forward and not backward.

Here is one of the adverts (unashamedly – it’s a bike launch) which I assume Mark wants paying for?
So they want the Manufacturer (who I assume has footed the bill for this jolly) to pay to have it published AND the readers to pay to view this advert?

Wrecker – I wrote the story on the FP, and the mag article it alludes to in the latest issue.

I’m not going to wade in on this thread overmuch, except to say that yes, Santa Cruz paid for me to go to Patagonia. But I wrote and photographed this (as well as the story in the mag – well, some of the photos in that); it’s not advertorial supplied to me by Santa Cruz (the pics may well be of a higher quality if it was TBH, and some of them might actually have been of the bike in question).

But in terms of paying to view it, there’s also a free version on the front page as well as the Premier version (the Premier one has hi-res photos in a nicer format).

There’s a debate here, clearly – but I think there’s a difference between manufacturers sending you written or video material and inviting you to go on a launch where you’re free to make your own decisions.

Neither in this *nor* the mag piece – which the story you mentioned is much more of a promotion for, to be honest – do I (for example) mention anything about the bike at all apart from its name – that’s elsewhere on this site under ‘reviews’. Feel free to search.
But it’s a trip to Patagonia which we wouldn’t have been able access otherwise, unless perhaps we were sent a version of it by a Sant Cruz sponsored rider – which of course wouldn’t have had the editorial freedom I’ve been able to exercise.

It’s a question of where the line is I suppose. But I don’t think a story of my photos of an amazing place qualifies as an advert personally. Your mileage may vary.

Thanks for the response Barney. There is clearly a discussion, and IMHO STW needs to be careful. It may have a 15M viewership, but people are fickle (many long deceased forums can attest to that) and if the big firms get upset, cutting ads to ST will hurt the mag more than it hurts them. Also, there is the issue of not being sent kit to review or being invited to launches.
Is it an ad? I dunno. Did you pixellate the bike branding in the pics? 😉

Don’t particularly disagree with Mark’s standpoint, but then I’ve always seen Fresh Goods Friday as being empty press-release style promotion. It might be kit that’s going to get tested, but 9 arty up-close shots of the Orange Segment and captions like

that colour is totally gorgeous. We like, a lot.

Some very impressive bending of metal going on there, there really is

Love the Strange top cap.

isn’t journalism.

Fresh Goods Friday 290

when was the last time a product got slagged anywhere

The latest mag is entirely critical of some kickstarter magnetic pedals in the grinder section, for example.

I agree with Mark, make no mistake these vids are adverts, they may be entertaining adverts, but they’re still adverts.

If STW choose to only run these on their site for a fee that’s completely up to them, if RedBull et al, think that’s terribly unfair or whatever, they could always try phoning up Sky or ITV and saying “We’ve made this wonderfully shot, fun to watch short-film, but it quiet heavily branded will you broadcast it for free?” to see how far they get.

Whether it’s a good idea I guess only time will tell, maybe if the latest Brendawg vid is only on Pinkbike we’ll all migrate over there, but I doubt it.

He has a point. It’s advertising through the ‘Backdoor’ and that’s not fair

Crashtestmonkey:

Fresh Goods Friday isn’t journalism, no. It’s photos of the new stuff that came into the office, with some pointless and occasionally meaningless waffle written by me to go with it. Incisive and investigative it frankly ain’t.

People like to look at the pictures, and (to a lesser extent) read the waffle.

Feel free not to read it – thousands already don’t 🙂

barney – Moderator

There’s a debate here, clearly – but I think there’s a difference between manufacturers sending you written or video material and inviting you to go on a launch where you’re free to make your own decisions.

Also worth adding that if it’s (for instance) a new videogame or pharmaceutical, flying a load of writers/journos/doctors/etc. somewhere warm and sunny would be a blatant attempt to sway positive coverage, but when it comes to doing a global bike launch with journalists from all over the world, good riding destinations make a lot of sense and you’re hardly going to fly them to Swindon instead.

The Scalpel launch last week in Italy had around fifty journalists (of which I was one) from all over the world, and doing that has it’s own economies of scale compared to doing a launch in each country. It was all paid for by Cannondale, but as Barney says, we’re allowed to write and photograph whatever we want in these cases. It’s not a matter of just being spoon-fed content by a third party.

and if the big firms get upset, cutting ads to ST will hurt the mag more than it hurts them. Also, there is the issue of not being sent kit to review or being invited to launches.

I don’t think the big beasts send kit out and invite people to launches because they’re all best mates, I reckon readership figures, and the demographics of that readership, is possibly a slightly more significant factor. What with it being a business and all.

I don’t know the chap, but that Alker fella seems to be doing a reasonable job thus far with his little backstreet bike mag and associated website. Thus far, ploughing his own furrow seems to be working out okay.

I don’t think the big beasts send kit out and invite people to launches because they’re all best mates, I reckon readership figures, and the demographics of that readership, is possibly a slightly more significant factor. What with it being a business and all.

Of course, but in the scheme of international bike sales, I reckon manufacturers could probably survive without singletrack. Not sure it works the other way around.

RedBull et al, think that’s terribly unfair or whatever, they could always try phoning up Sky or ITV and saying “We’ve made this wonderfully shot, fun to watch short-film, but it quiet heavily branded will you broadcast it for free?” to see how far they get.

Depends if it’s good enough. Pretty sure I saw Imaginate on “real” telly not that long ago, red bull branding aplenty.

Come to think of it, those Redbull soapbox races are on telly fairly often, and those “throw yourself into a lake in fancy dress” things. All heavily branded, but all also offering something worth watching so a decent “sell” to a broadcaster.

I’m sure if people offer content to Mark that he thinks is worth putting the stamp of STW approval on for his readership he’ll listen, but not throwing up every sponsored “edit” that comes in is something that makes a lot of sense imo.

Facebook, for example, seems to be getting better at serving up relevant content without having to tell it what you want to see,

it’s very difficult to get your content on FB without paying unless you can really make something viral :(. We have to pay way more than I am happy about. It might look like fb have picked you but more likely the advertiser has. Fb have just identified you

Fresh Goods Friday as being empty press-release style promotion.

+1

Exactly what I was thinking, plenty of press releases are passed off as ‘News’ on here.

Although I see Marks’ point on vids I think his stance is wrong, with one danger is brands simply stop sending you product to test. And unless STW are going to start doing their own news content then people will move to Pinkbike and the likes of GMBN & GCN

Of course, but in the scheme of international bike sales, I reckon manufacturers could probably survive without singletrack. Not sure it works the other way around.

But there’s no incentive for them to, when they can continue to advertise, send kit, invite to launches etc. – that ‘blackballling’ singletrack wouldn’t drive, say, Specialized, out of business doesn’t give them any incentive to not advertise to their readership because Mark’s on the naughty step. Unless, I suppose, their business strategy is just “survive*” in which case, yes, I suppose they could drop their advertising a bit.

*Not being flippant, this can be a legitimate strategy for some products: Brasso – it exists as a cash cow only. I believe not a penny has been spent on advertising Brasso for something like 40 years. It still exists and it still sells (in gradually reducing quantities). Those who need Brasso know or find about it, they buy it. One day, the declining market for Brasso will dry up completely, but until then the Brasso people quietly make a profit from it. The moment you see MTB companies take this approach, you’ll know that MTB’s days as a growth market are over.

barney – Moderator
People like to look at the pictures, and (to a lesser extent) read the waffle.

People also like to watch videos

All MTB videos even the long play commercial releases such as Seasons etc are in essence adverts, they all have a long list of supporting companies front and back end

Will ST take a similar approach with covering events like the Red Bull Rampage, as I said earlier where do you end up drawing the line?

I’m with Mark on this.

People also like to watch videos

It’s funny actually because I prefer not to watch videos. Don’t know why really but prefer reading / static images. Pinkbike is a good example for me in this area. I love their photographic articles around the World Cup DH. I don’t think I’ve watched a single team video of the same races. I’ll watch the Claudio run and I’ll watch the race / highlights but all the “Behind the scenes at X team” not interested at all.

What’s Mark done wrong?!

So what happens when the vids get put on YouTube, and then someone starts a thread ‘latest Danny MacAskill riding a Santa Cruz around the red bull factory video ‘ with it on, will the thread be deleted if the right people haven’t paid the right people?