Business

Online shopping insights: Why is the in-store pick-up option so popular?

Phillip Nones Advertising, Business, Marketing, Marketing Communications, Marketing Research , , , , , , , , ,

With online shopping so popular these days, why are consumers electing to pick up the merchandise they’ve ordered at the store?

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While it isn’t a pervasive practice, a study published recently by consumer analytics firm Connexity/Bizrate Insights finds that more than 30% of online shoppers have used in-store pick-up at least once during the past 12 months.

Even more surprising, perhaps, is that ~13% of respondents reported that they had considered abandoning a purchase because in-store pick-up wasn’t offered as an option.

As it turns out, people choose the in-store pick-up option for four major reasons:

  • To avoid paying shipping charges: ~55% cited
  • For the convenience: ~43%
  • Need to receive the order quickly: ~36%
  • Shopping online to ensure the item is available: ~29%

At first blush, I wouldn’t think that “convenience” means having to drive to a store versus having the product delivered right to the house. But perhaps “convenience” in this sense is related to product availability – avoiding a fruitless trip to the store only to find out after-the-fact that the desired product isn’t in stock.

But the other reasons cited make good sense, too. Everyone understands the desire to save money – if not on the product itself, then by avoiding shipping charges.  And if a quick drive to the store gets you the items compared to waiting a few days for the shipment to arrive, that’s understandable as well.

The Connexity findings underscore how important it is for retailers to align their e-commerce setups to allow for in-store pick-up – especially if the economics don’t allow them to offer a free shipping option. There’s simply too much competition from online-only retailers to afford losing sale to them based on any of the four factors listed above.

Tech meets traditional: Digital marketing drives more phone calls by far.

Phillip Nones Advertising, Business, Direct Marketing, Marketing, Marketing Communications, Marketing Research, Media, Media Consumption , , , , ,

CCIn a classic case of marrying tech with traditional marketing, digital channels are driving more calls to businesses than ever before.

What’s more, digital channels are now responsible for nine out of ten phone calls made to companies as a result of promotional efforts using the ten most popular marketing channels.

These findings come from the 2016 Call Intelligence Index published by Invoca, a phone call tracking and analytics firm that evaluates phone call activity across 40 industry segments.

Invoca’s 2016 evaluation covers more than 58 million phone calls generated from ten marketing channels — six of them digital and four of them “traditional offline” channels.

According to Invoca’s analysis, the biggest single source of phone queries is mobile search — representing nearly half of all phone call volume. But the next five channels that follow in line are all digital as well, as can be seen in this list:

  • INMobile search: Drives 48% of phone calls to businesses from marketing channels
  • Desktop search: 17%
  • Desktop display advertising: 11%
  • Content / review websites: 9%
  • Mobile display advertising: 3%
  • E-mail marketing: 3%
  • Total digital channels: 91%

 

  • Radio advertising: 3%
  • TV advertising/infomercials: 2%
  • Newspaper advertising: 2%
  • Directory advertising: 2%
  • Total non-digital channels: 9%

Comparing the 2016 results against a similar analysis conducted by Invoca in 2014, digital marketing channels have continued to rise in prominence — from representing 84% of the total phone call activity to 91% today.

The Invoca research also finds that phone calls are supplementing digital interactions, which is the result of consumers shifting between various different digital channels as they go about their research — often employing several different ones during the same mission task.

One of the biggest jumps in digital channel usage is in the automotive segment, where it’s clear that a big shift is underway from offline to digital channels — particularly mobile. The automotive industry experienced nearly a 120% increase in digital sources driving phone calls in the current Invoca research compared to the previous one.

So there’s no question that digital now “rules” when it comes to marketing channels. But far from causing the demise of a traditional channel like a phone call — as some people predicted not so long ago — digital channels have simply changed where the consumer might be just prior to heading for the (smart)phone.

Ad blocking goes big-time.

Phillip Nones Advertising, Marketing, Marketing Communications, Media, Media Consumption , , , , , , , ,

Adblock-PlusA new milestone of sorts has been reached in the ad blocking realm. Adblock Plus, the leading ad blocking tool, has just announced that it’s just passed the 100 million marker in active installations.

An earlier milestone – 500 million downloads – was reached at the beginning of this year. That means the active user base has now doubled in less than half a year.

If these figures are accurate – and there’s little reason to think that they aren’t – it’s a pretty big deal. No longer is ad blocking an exotic functionality that’s the exclusive preserve of techies or other geeky subgroups.  It’s gone majorly mainstream.

What’s driving the ad blocking business is the ubiquity of online advertising. For many viewers, it’s nothing short of intolerable:  obtrusive, irritating, and sometimes creepy (hello, retargeting).

So once a well-functioning and reputable tool like Adblock came along, it was only a matter of time before it would take on “snowball-rolling-down-a-mountainside” proportions.

AdBlock Plus promises “annoyance-free web surfing.”  But as with most any innovation, there are one or two hitches. For Adblock Plus, it’s something called “Acceptable Ads.”

untitled“What’s that?” you might ask. It’s a white-list program that allows certain advertisers through Adblock’s screen.  The company receives a cut of publishers’ revenues through that program.

Fundamentally, it’s how Adblock Plus makes money. But it’s also how advertisers can do an end-run around the very service Adblock provides.

AdBlock goes to great pains to “explain” its rationale and why the Acceptable Ads program makes sense for everyone.

But it isn’t difficult to see where this might end up.  Larger advertisers will see fit to exempt themselves from ad blocking by paying for the privilege of their ads being served.

Which gets us right back to where we were with advertising in the first place, doesn’t it? Pay to play.

What’s old is new again, I guess. And meanwhile, the online ads just keep coming …

In the Facebook-faceprint tussle, score one for the little guys.

Phillip Nones Business, Content Creation and Content Management, Government, Media, Media Consumption, Publishing, Security, Social Commentary, Social Media , , , , , , , , , ,
Is that Maria Callas? Check with Facebook -- they'll know.
Is that Maria Callas? Check with Facebook — they’ll know.

I blogged last year about privacy concerns surrounding Facebook’s “face geometry” database activities, which have led to lawsuits in Illinois under the premise that those activities run afoul of that state’s laws regarding the use of biometric data.

The Illinois legislation, enacted in 2008, requires companies to obtain written authorization from subjects prior to collecting any sort of face geometry or related biometric data.

The lawsuit, which was filed in early 2015, centers on Facebook’s automatic photo-tagging feature which has been active since around 2010. The “faceprints” feature – Facebook’s term for face geometry – recognizes faces based on the social network’s vast archive of users and their content, and suggests their names when they appear in photos uploaded by their friends.

The lawsuit was filed by three plaintiffs in a potential class-action effort, and it’s been mired in legal wrangling ever since.

From the outset, many had predicted that Facebook would emerge victorious.  Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University, noted in 2015 that the Illinois law is “a niche statute, enacted to solve a particular problem.  Seven years later, it’s being applied to a very different set of circumstances.”

But this past week, a federal judge sided not with Facebook, but with the plaintiffs by refusing to grant a request for dismissal.

In his ruling issued on May 5th, U.S. District Court Judge James Donato rejected Facebook’s contention that the Illinois Biometric Privacy Information Act does not apply to faceprints that are derived from photos, but only when it’s based on a source other than photos, such as in-person scans.

The Judge roundly rejected this contention as inconsistent with the purpose of the Illinois law. Donato wrote:

“The statute is an informed consent privacy law addressing the collection, retention and use of personal biometric identifiers and information at a time when biometric technology is just beginning to be broadly deployed. Trying to cabin this purpose within a specific in-person data collection technique has no support in the words and structure of the statute, and is antithetical to its broad purpose of protecting privacy in the face of emerging biometric technology.”

This isn’t the first time that the Illinois law has withstood a legal challenge. Another federal court judge, Charles Norgle, sided against Shutterfly recently on the same issues.

And Google is now in the crosshairs; it’s facing a class-action lawsuit filed early this year for its face geometry activities involving Google Photos.

Clearly, this fight has a long way to go before the issues are resolved.

If you have strong opinions pro or con about social networks’ use of face geometry, please share your views with other readers in the comment section below.

The Ugly Other Side of Entrepreneurship

Phillip Nones Business, Education, Employment, Human Resources, Social Commentary, Social Media , , , , , , , , ,

mA few years ago, I recall seeing a film made in India called Three Idiots. It’s a comedy about the college experience in India.  But there’s a serious undertone in that one of the issues dealt with in the movie is the pressure that many students feel about competing for precious few slots in top universities — as well as the pressure to excel once enrolled there.

In one scene, one of the students attempts suicide by jumping from a fourth floor dorm window.

The extreme pressures to succeed aren’t limited to India, of course. For years we’ve been reading articles about equally competitive environments in other countries like China.  Even the United States isn’t immune if one thinks about the elite private colleges and top public universities.

Unfortunately, the drive to succeed often follows students into the professional world in unhealthy ways. Several weeks ago, it was reported that a 33-year-old entrepreneur from Hyderabad, India named Lucky Gupta Agarwal took his own life after an app he had been developing failed to achieve the user acceptance and popularity he had anticipated.

The venture had started promisingly enough. After working for a number of years as a software engineer in a large Mumbai-based company, Mr. Agarwal developed a social networking app he named KQingdom that enables users to chat and photo-blog on the same app while earning rewards points for content created.

Mr. Agarwal believed that the features of his app were ones that were missing from Facebook and other social networking options.  He did many things right: He tested the app with fellow techies and social network users.  The app went through two years of development and alpha/beta testing to ensure that it worked smoothly.

When the app was listed on the Google Play store, it earned a 4.8 out of a possible 5.0 rating.

But Agarwal fell victim to over-rosy projections. He claimed to his family, friends and industry colleagues that the app would become more popular than WhatsApp.  He hired a staff of five to assist in the launch of the product.

As it turned out, after being launched in mid-2014 the app failed to garner the publicity or the engagement levels that Agarwal had anticipated. His financial situation deteriorated.  After having to lay off staff and downsize his operations, the entrepreneur sank into a depression that lasted for months before he ended his life several weeks ago.

In the wake of the news story, in the social commentary I’ve been reading on LinkedIn and elsewhere it seems that Mr. Agarwal’s situation isn’t an isolated one — even if the measures he ultimately took were unusually drastic. Clearly there are many, many other entrepreneurs who encounter a mismatch between their start-up expectations and the harsh reality.

Simply put, too many entrepreneurs don’t plan for failure even as they work for success. Even if a new product sufficiently fills a market need (whereas many of them fail for this fundamental reason), there’s still the challenge of implementing effective marketing and sales strategies, forging an efficient team of employees working together towards a common goal, and fending off nimble competitors who quickly react to new market moves with countermoves of their own.

And one other thing: Looking out from the safety of a job inside an established business, it’s very easy for a would-be entrepreneur to sense the shortcomings of staying in such an environment.  The siren call of becoming the head of one’s very own business is strong.

Unfortunately, many people are ill-prepared temperamentally to be entrepreneurs; it’s a big reason why so few ventures succeed. For every successful entrepreneur, there must be hundreds who fail — or whose efforts never even remotely achieve the level of success anticipated and hoped for.

Tragic incidents like the Agarwal news story remind us of the potentially tragic consequences.

Who are the World’s Most Reputable Companies in 2016?

Phillip Nones Branding, Business, Marketing Research , , , , , , , ,

I’ve blogged before about the international reputation of leading companies and brands as calculated by various survey firms such as Harris Interactive.

RI logoOne of these ratings studies is conducted by market research firm Reputation Institute, which collected nearly 250,000 ratings during the first quarter of 2016 from members of the public in 15 major countries throughout the world.

The nations included in the company reputation evaluation were the United States, Canada, Mexico and Brazil in the Americas … France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and Russia in Europe … India, China, South Korea and Japan in Asia … as well as Australia.

Approximately 200 leading companies were rated by respondents on a total of seven key dimensions of reputation, including:

  • Products and services
  • Innovation
  • Workplace
  • Governance
  • Citizenship
  • Leadership
  • Performance

In the 2016 evaluation, the top-rated companies scored “excellent” (a rating of 80 or higher on a 100-poinst scale) or “strong” (a rating of 70-79) in all seven reputation categories. 2016’s “Top 10” most reputable firms turned out to be these (ranked in order of their score):

#1 Rolex

#2 The Walt Disney Company

#3 Google

#4 BMW Group

#5 Daimler

#6 LEGO Group

#7 Microsoft

#8 Canon

#9 Sony

#10 Apple

Different companies scored highest on specific attributes, however:

  • Apple: #1 in Innovation and in Leadership
  • Google: #1 in Performance and in Workplace
  • Rolex: #1 in Products & Services
  • The Walt Disney Company: #1 in Citizenship and in Governance

VAt the other end of the scale, which company do you suppose was the one that suffered the worst year-over-year performance?

That dubious honor goes to Volkswagen.  In the wake of an emissions scandal affecting the brand internationally, VW’s reputation score plummeted nearly 14 points, which was enough to drop it out of the Top 100 brand listing altogether.

It’s quite a decline from the VW’s #14 position last year.

The complete list of this year’s Top 100 Reputable Companies can be accessed via this link. You may see some surprises …

High-performance sales personnel: They excel in the same ways they always have …

Phillip Nones Business, Employment, Human Resources, Sales , , , , , , , ,

spUnquestionably, technology has had a major impact on the way salespeople in the B-to-B arena go about doing their daily jobs.

Technology platforms and tech-oriented work practices have leeched into every aspect of sales management — from planning and execution to data mining and reference … sales call and results tracking … and compensation.

A fall 2015 survey of U.S. business executives conducted by Brainshark and Forbes Insights confirms the degree to which technology investments are occurring as companies make efforts to improve sales productivity.

Here’s what the survey, which included U.S.-based executives from over 200 companies with annual revenues exceeding $50 million, found in terms of the types of investments that are being made:

  • Sales enablement technologies: ~55% are investing in these tools
  • Analytics: ~54%
  • CRM systems: ~53%
  • Learning technologies: ~45%
  • Mobile sales support technologies: ~44%
  • Social platforms: ~32%

And yet … when those same business executives were asked to identity the #1 most important characteristic of their strongest sales team members, technology-related characteristics don’t show up all that much.

As it turns out, tech adoption is a relatively minor part of being a high-performing salesperson. Instead, this survey found that the most important key characteristic of high-performing salespeople is “the ability to sell value over price.”

Here is the relative importance of five characteristics evaluated in the research – and where tech adoption fits among them:

  • The ability to sell value over price: ~81% identify as a key characteristic of high-performing salespeople
  • Consistency of execution: ~74%
  • Time spent with clients: ~48%
  • Leveraging marketing and sales content assets: ~26%
  • Adoption of technology: ~22%

The takeaway is that even though technology tools are helpful, there’s no substitute for the time-honored selling behaviors that separate the star sales performers from all the others.

For more information on the study findings, follow this link.

The Federal Trade Commission vs. Native Advertising: Score One for the FTC

Phillip Nones Advertising, Branding, Business, Content Creation and Content Management, Marketing, Marketing Communications, Media, Media Consumption, Publishing, Social Commentary, Social Media , , , , , , , , ,

ptpbIt’s pretty much a given these days that “native advertising” has it all over traditional advertising when it comes to prompting prospects to try a new product or service. Study after study shows that positive recommendations and ratings from family members, friends, key influencers and even simply fellow users are what prompt people to try it for themselves.

These dynamics mean that suppliers are looking for as many opportunities to publicize their offerings through these native channels as they can.

There’s a bit of a problem, however. Bloggers and other influencers have become wise to this reality — and many are taking it all the way to the bank.  The market is replete with conventions and other events such as the annual Haven Conference, at which these key influencers congregate and “hold court” with suppliers.

While there is no prescribed agenda regarding what’s discussed between suppliers and influencers, generally speaking there’s a whole lot of quid pro quo going on:  Things like receiving copious free samples in exchange for publishing product reviews, receiving monetary payments for mentioning products and brands in blog articles and on social media posts, and more.

One can’t really blame the influencers for peddling their influence to the highest bidder. After all, many successful bloggers and other influential people derive most or all of their livelihood from their online activities.  It’s only natural for someone whose influences ranges widely and deep to expect to be compensated for publicizing a product, a service or a brand — whether or not they themselves think it’s the best thing since sliced bread.

But there’s a growing problem regarding the “pay to play” aspects of native advertising. This past December, the Federal Trade Commission reiterated its opinion that such sweetheart deals are tantamount to advertising, and therefore must be prominently identified as such in online and other informational content.

Of course, including a prominent announcement that payment has been exchanged for an influencer’s commentary significantly lowers the positive impact of native advertising, in that the commentary being valued by consumers precisely because of its inherent objectivity and credibility is no longer much of a hook.

Until recently, it wasn’t clear how strict the FTC was going to be about enforcing its stated policy about disclosing financial remuneration for brand coverage by influencers.

L+TLWell, now we know.  It’s in the form of a settlement reach this month by the FTC with retailer Lord & Taylor over a particular online ad campaign that contained native advertising and social media components.  It’s the first time the FTC has brought an enforcement action since its native ad guidelines were published.

The settlement pertains to a promotional campaign for Lord & Taylor’s Design Lab private-label line of spring dresses. The initiative reached more than 11 million Instagram users, and the particular sundress at the center of the publicity campaign sold out quickly as a result.

The native advertising portion of the promo effort stemmed from an article about DesignLab that appeared in the online magazine Nylon.  That article was paid for by Lord & Taylor, which also reviewed and approved the article’s content prior to publication.

As could be expected, no notification that the piece was a paid ad placement was included when the article was published.

Skating close to the edge even more, the social portion of the promo campaign involved the retailer giving the sundress to approximately 50 top fashion bloggers, along with paying each blogger between $1,000 and $4,000 to model the dress in photos that were then posted to Instagram.

The bloggers were allowed to style the dress in their own way, but they were asked to reference the dress in their posts by using the campaign hashtag #DesignLab as well as @lordandtaylor.

Furthermore, the retailer reviewed and approved these social media posts before they went live, which enabled them to make stylistic edits before-the-fact as well.

Here’s an excerpt from the FTC’s statement about the Lord & Taylor action:

“None of the Instagram posts presented to respondents for pre-approval included a disclosure that the influencer had received the dress for free, that she had been compensated for the post, or that the post was a part of a Lord & Taylor advertising campaign.”

Clearly, the FTC is now putting muscle behind its 2009 opinion (and reiterated last year) that failing to disclose that an endorsement has been paid for is a deceptive practice.

In this particular “test case,” Lord & Taylor is getting off somewhat easy in that there have been no monetary penalties levied against the retailer. However, the company has signed a consent decree that is in place for the next two decades, which would mean “swift and stiff” penalties if the retailer were to transgress in the future.

Other terms of the settlement mandate that Lord & Taylor require its endorsers to sign and submit written statements outlining their obligation to “clearly and conspicuously” disclose any monetary or other material connections they have to the retailer.

Clearly, the Lord & Taylor settlement is a shot across the bow by the FTC, signifying that it means business when it comes to alerting consumers of the financial or other material connections that exist between influencers who are making value judgments on products and services.  In effect, the FTC is saying to the marketing world, “Be very careful …”

It’ll be interesting to see how marketers finesse the challenge of figuring out how to corral the obvious benefits of native advertising while mitigating the dampening effects of “full disclosure.”

Perhaps bloggers and other influencers will need to re-think their own business models as well, seeing as how the “golden goose” of supplier perks seems to have lost some of its luster now.

Stay tuned — this new “lay of the land” is still unfolding.

Suddenly, GoPro isn’t so “Go-Go” …

Phillip Nones Advertising, Branding, Business, Economics, Employment, Marketing Communications, Sales , , , , , , ,

untitled2Most likely, I’ll never be a GoPro customer.

The only direct interaction I’ve had with the maker of action cameras was several years ago during the Great Target Credit Card Breach of 2013, when suddenly a half-dozen GoPro purchases mysteriously appeared on my card statement.

But other than that, my connection with GoPro and its line of cameras has been nonexistent — which isn’t at all surprising considering that at my age, I’m hardly an “action adventurer.”

Unfortunately for GoPro, many other people aren’t, either – and it’s one reason why the company’s financial results have been pretty ugly coming off of the most recent holiday season.

This past week, GoPro announced that it is cutting nearly 10% of its workforce (more than 100 people) because of weak sales during the 4th Quarter.

In a holiday quarter when product purchases should have grown revenues considerably, the weaker-than-expected sales volume of ~$435 million meant that GoPro’s revenues were far short of the $510 million originally projected.

From the financial market’s perspective, this news was sufficiently negative that trading of GoPro shares had to be halted briefly this past Wednesday.

untitled
GoPro shares over the past six months.

The company promises to divulge more information about its financial results in early February, but some observers are already beginning to paint the picture of what’s out of kilter:

  • GoPro misjudged the price consumers were willing to pay for its Hero4 Session cube cam, introduced in July 2015, resulting in two dramatic drops of the sticker price in September and December down to $199. 
  • Competitors are entering the field, putting further downward pressure on pricing. 
  • There’s a ceiling on the demand for action cameras because “action adventurer” consumers are such a small slice of the general population.

But does any of this come as a particular surprise?

Like in any other consumer electronics product category, the trajectory of high growth among early adopters leads to new market entrants, followed by the hardware becoming essentially a commodity.

… And the whole process is as swift as it is inevitable.

GoPro is branching into newer segments like camera drones — and not a moment too soon. But the reality is that in a product segment like action cameras, any supplier will always be just one step ahead of commoditization.  And for this reason, product mix reinvention has to be happening continuously.

Memo to newspaper publishers: Don’t ‘diss’ your print subscribers.

Phillip Nones Business, Content Creation and Content Management, Marketing Communications, Marketing Research, Media, Media Consumption, Social Commentary , , , , , , ,

nindA few weeks ago, the Boston Globe stubbed its toe in major fashion when it changed the company it uses to deliver ~115,000 hard-copy versions of the daily paper in the Boston metro area.

And the problems continue to persist even now.

No doubt, the decision to switch home delivery services was made out of a desire to save money rather than to improve service.  And one can understand why management might have been looking for ways to cut production costs on the print version compared to the “go-go” online/digital realm.

But focusing on solely millennials and other younger customers can come back to “bite you on the bottom line” – which is exactly what happened in the case of the Globe.

Evidently, the new delivery service was untested – at least in terms of taking on a client with volumes as large as Boston’s leading newspaper.

As it turned out, tens of thousands of papers weren’t delivered, sparking a cataclysm of loud, negative feedback.

The pique of customers went well-beyond failing to receive something that had been paid for. In the case of the Globe’s extensive Baby Boomer subscriber base, missing home delivery struck at the heart of the time-honored rituals of how they receive and consume their news.

Consider this: The average subscriber to the Boston Globe pays around $700 per year for their home-delivery subscription.

That’s more than $80 million per year in income for the paper – before factoring in advertising revenue.

Of course, the costs of producing and delivering the print product exceeds that of digital. But this subscription base is more loyal than digital news consumers precisely because they value how the news is presented to them.

Let’s not forget that for people born before 1965, most are emotionally attached to print far more than those in other demographic groups. As Gordon Plutsky, a director of applied intelligence at IDG, writes about the Boston Globe snafu:

“[It’s] not just the physical paper, but the ritual of getting the paper off their driveway or front steps and starting their day spreading out the broadsheet and scanning the news. They missed curling up with coffee or tea and working the crossword puzzle or cutting coupons.  It is easy to forget that until the mid-‘90s, this was the only way to read the news and, for Boomers, it is how they learned to read and interact with the world.  Their brains are wired for print in the same way Gen Z is wired for mobile.”

Perhaps the Globe’s business and administrative staffers lost sight of that fact. Maybe they treated their “unsexy” print subscribers as an afterthought while forgetting that this segment of their customer base is critical to the very survival of their paper – and the industry – in a period of transition.

True, delivering the news to print customers is more expensive than doing so digitally. But these customers are more predictable and loyal, versus fickle and finicky.

… But only if the product is delivered. Fail in that fundamental function, and the gig is up.

nosThe Boston Globe’s print readers are hardly unique. Recently, Pew Research Center surveyed consumers in three urban markets.  Despite the differences in these markets (geographic, economic, social), a highly significant percentage of respondents in all three metro areas reported that they read only the print version of their local newspaper:

  • Denver, CO: ~46% read only the print version of their local newspaper
  • Macon, GA: ~48% read print only
  • Sioux City, IA-NE-SD: ~53% read print only

This isn’t to suggest that Boomer audiences are a bunch of rubes who aren’t connected to the digital world. Far from it:  They tend to be better educated and more wealthy (with more disposable income) than other demographic segments.  Their attachment to print isn’t in lieu of digital, but more in concert with their online habits.

Unlike other generations, they’re not single-channel as much as omni-channel consumers. The keys to newspaper publishers’ continued relevance are bound up in how they serve this older but critically important segment of their customer base.

Speaking personally, I can “take it or leave it” when it comes to print.  I don’t subscribe to a daily print paper, and the bulk of my news comes to me from digital sources.  But there’s something quite comfortable about sitting down with a quality daily paper and reading the news stories therein — including long-form journalism pieces that are difficult to find very many places these days.

There are millions more people across the country that are happy to continue paying for the privilege of consuming the news in just such a fashion.  Indeed, they’re the newspaper industry’s most loyal readers.