T-Shirts and Suits Creative Enterprise Network
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New Business Models in the Creative Industries
Customers are more powerful than ever. Because of changes in technology, particularly the interactive internet (Web 2.0), there has been a fundamental and irreversible shift of power in favour of consumers.
Creative business that embrace this change will thrive, by using new business models such as crowd-sourcing, viral marketing, crowd-financing, buzz marketing and plogging.
The bad news is that businesses that deny or ignore these changes by continuing to regard customers as passive targets will fail.
'New Business Models in the Creative Industries' was the subject of my keynote speech to the Media and Message conference of indepedent TV producers and media professionals in Finland.
We need to be innovative about how we do business and devise new business models centred on demanding, talkative and creative customers.
Link to blog post and video of speech:
Short link direct to speech
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Examples, comments and disagreements welcome!
Creative business that embrace this change will thrive, by using new business models such as crowd-sourcing, viral marketing, crowd-financing, buzz marketing and plogging.
The bad news is that businesses that deny or ignore these changes by continuing to regard customers as passive targets will fail.
'New Business Models in the Creative Industries' was the subject of my keynote speech to the Media and Message conference of indepedent TV producers and media professionals in Finland.
We need to be innovative about how we do business and devise new business models centred on demanding, talkative and creative customers.
Link to blog post and video of speech:
Short link direct to speech
---
Examples, comments and disagreements welcome!
Tags: 2.0, buzz, consumers, crowd-financing, crowd-sourcing, customers, finland, marketing, plogging, producers
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Mainda Kiwelu on -
Thanks David. What are your thoughts on actual business structures? As it is getting harder and harder to raise capital, I have a feeling that individuals need to move away from the traditional structure of company plus employees, to self-employed people coming together to work on longer terms projects to form "temporary companies" where they lease their expertise in exchange for final payment on projects. This means that each individual has to take care of their own pension, sick pay, insurance, operating costs etc as I think individuals need the range of talent you get from established companies to win large contracts or perform big tasks for which there own expertise is needed but by each trying to operate as a going concern, money can be lost needlessly on the admin side of things.
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Permalink Reply by David Parrish on -
Hi Mainda
Thanks for your comments.
I agree with you that very often the best way forward is for individuals to come together on a project-by-project basis and form teams - or even companies for a specific purpose ('single purpose vehicles' or SPVs). Often, as businesses grow there is an assumption that they need to employ people formally, but this is not the only way forward. (Of course it sometimes is the best option, so we need to look at this on a case by case basis.)
There is more about organisational structures and a case study (Red Production Company) in my book 'T-Shirts and Suits: A Guide to the Business of Creativity'.
There's a free eBook version online here.
(p72 for Organisatial Structures and p78 for Red Production Co)
Let me know what you think
David
Let me know what you think.
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Permalink Reply by Lionel on -
Being creative in business operations is certainly the way forward particularly in today’s economic climate. I draw in freelancers for specific projects as and when needed and keep the process very simple. My clients like this as it also reflected in the cost for them, reduced overheads etc keeps prices very competitive and as companies try to make savings wherever possible this type of approach to offering business services is increasingly becoming accepted. However, the way that companies are categorised still creates barriers and stigma. My business is classed as a "micro business" due to the level of employees I have and this does deter new clients that do not understand the business model, yet in fact if the freelancers I use were all my employees, my business would in fact be much larger than many of the clients I manage and that those that snub the model. Businesses are still firmly judged on employee size and turnover before anything else.
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Permalink Reply by David Parrish on
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Hi Lionel
Thanks for your comments.
I agree that people often perceive success as being about how big your business is in terms of number of employees or turnover, rather than effectiveness or profitability.
See the discussion about "Business Growth - Does Size Matter?"
Best wishes
David
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Permalink Reply by Sean randles on -
Hi David
Technology is now making agile business models much more achievable in the creative sector. My business- www.webVM.co.uk - comprises me as the business owner and carefully selected business partners. We create, distribute and measure web video content for the UK Direct Marketing industry. We partner with a US software company to supply the platform which has all the very clever WOW analytics- and partner with video producers/creatives on a freelance basis to deliver the content. I supply the marketing/business expertise along with a small DM agency who I use as our 'back office'. We can therefore offer a web video direct marketing service to DM users and agencies- and have competitive advantage in terms of cost and innovative real time analytics- and our overhead is tiny. We get credibilty from the software, quality of the partners and our ability to offer measurable better response at lower costs to our clients- oh and having exclusivity for the software helps!. cheers Sean www.webvm.co.uk
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Permalink Reply by David Parrish on
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