Monday 24 September 2012

Do Holiday Notices Provide Monetization Opportunity to Publishers?

Most of the offices and business establishments in India declared a holiday on September 19, 2012 on account of Ganesh Chaturthi. It was not unusual to spot Holiday Notices on print dailies saying that the press will remain closed on September 19, 2012 and there will be no edition on September 20, 2012.

I also found a holiday notice on one of the daily online media and marketing portal, mxmindia.com, this was unusual for me. Here is the URL for the same.
When I saw the holiday notice on the portal, it struck me, yeah, why not, internet may be 24 X 7, but the content is being fed by real folks and not machines and if the folks are not around, the content won’t be refreshed on a holiday. I should admit, unlike print media, my brain was not trained to see a holiday notice on an online media, and it was a first for me to see it on mxmindia.com.
I thought, is there an opportunity for the media owners to monetize these holiday notices? Maybe these guys were closed on September 19, 2012, but there is a category which has its shop open 24 X 7, for example, online shopping portals.

I thought about the possibility of media owners cutting an annual deal for such ‘no edition days’ with online shopping portals. Think about it, if in a year, they have 10 ‘no edition days’, and on each such occasion they do a floating ad with the imagery of the online shopping portal accompanied with a smart copy, for example, “Our offices are closed today on the occassion of ‘…’ and the news stories will be refreshed tomorrow, but look who’s open today?”, this may not be the best example of a smart copy, but just to give you an idea.
As a media owner one achieves the following:
·         Communicate the new and repeat visitors not to expect the fresh stories today (on a holiday).
·         Monetize the holiday notice which otherwise was just a holiday notice.

Will print and online media monetize the Holiday Notices?
And, as an online shopping portal one gets an opportunity to put their brand for 10 days in a year on one such portal, probably at a price that is lower than the regular price.
Coming back to the example of the print ad pictured above, I don’t know whether print publications or even for that matter mxmindia will monetize holiday notices, and even if they do, will the advertisers go for it? Have they (both advertisers and media owners) overlooked this media property? Doesn’t seem so..., not sure!
They say, “There’s a butt for every seat”. For an advertiser who can’t afford an expensive media, it can be a dream proposition. Do you agree?

I’ll look forward to hear your thoughts on this one, please leave your kind comments on this post.

4 comments:

  1. nice idea to use space in such notice. Just a point may be not related to holidays. I have observed the air ticket site like goibibo, makemytrip, if you are searching for a flight ticket on weekend or a holiday the prices are higher than if you search for the same flight for the same day on a working day. so, basically if you shop on a weekend/holiday you pay more

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  2. Good thought! I haven't come across any website that has a holiday notice, it's surprising :) It makes sense to leverage website space to earn value. I agree that advertisers/sales group should have ideally thought of this lucrative idea. May be the advertisers can pay minimum to cover admin cost and then pay per click. This could be a win-win for both online shopping websites as well as the seller.
    May be you can continue to give these tips to your client companies :)

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