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This week was Advertising Week in New York, and there were 100’s of events around town for media and marketing professionals.
One panel discussion that caught my interest involved my former classmate Gwyneth Paltrow, on the topic of differentiation.
Most people know Gwyneth for her Oscar-winning acting, but she has also had a second successful career as the founder and chief creative officer of a digital lifestyle content and commerce venture called Goop.
The unusual name has Gwynth’s first and last initials (G and P) and two O’s, which are supposed to be deterministic for successful internet company names.
Goop is best experienced directly, so I won’t try to describe it here.
What I will say is that from the outside Goop appears to work well because it combines a few strong currents - an indefatigable founder, a commerce-driven business model, and a differentiated brand.
On differentiation, some of the wellness-related content can seem a bit far out (to me) but it brings alternatives into the picture. And I believe these genuinely reflect the views of the founder, and are labeled as such.
Regarding the business model, a recent study from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University listed Events, Ecommerce, and Related Businesses as top revenue sources for digital publishers … gaining ground on traditional lines such as Advertising, Subscriptions, and Paid Content.
Goop is a mini-case study for this, combining shoppable content with pop-up stores (in NYC, London and Montecito), in-person events (Goop Nantucket), even a docu-series on Netflix (The Goop Lab).
What also makes Goop interesting is what it doesn’t have.
Paid advertising. (Or rather, Goop is selective and not dependent on it.)
The whole thing works on revenue from reader/viewer/listener payments, business partnerships, commerce links.
It sounds counter-intuitive, but the commercial publishing industry could be heading in the direction of fewer ads, and having this conversation at Advertising Week 2019 shows that we are ready for it.
http://newyork.advertisingweek.com/schedule/-kargo-seminar-2019-09-25-1030
