Until recently, going back to 1999, every real paycheck I’d received was thanks to digital content and display advertising. Now, I sell t-shirts.
I get that that sounds weird and may be a scary glimpse at your own future, but they’re really cool t-shirts.
The company is called BreakingT, and each shirt celebrates a trending sports moment. We put great care into tracking social data to generate ideas in real-time, getting the design (content?) just right, printing on quality fabric, and giving customers a great experience.
We also partner with media brands to promote the shirts and share the revenue. I guess that’s what matters here.
This year was a bloodbath — gory media layoffs everywhere, and talent flooding the market. One of the brands that fared well, though, was Barstool Sports. Look at what they did on Black Friday alone: “single-digit millions” in branded merchandise sales.
It would take hundreds of millions of page views (or even video views) to get to that level of revenue via traditional advertising.
Barstool wasn’t alone, either. BreakingT also had record-high Black Friday sales. And thanks largely to the media brands we’re partnered with, our annual sales were higher than ever, too.
We expect to double that in 2018, primarily because digital media brands need e-commerce now. Why not sell things that strengthen your brand while bringing joy to people and revenue to your company?
(Of course, this may work best and most consistently in the world of sports, but I’ve seen my share of “Friend of the Pod” shirts out in the wild, too.)
It’s new money, it delights readers/followers/viewers/listeners, and the merch can be content, too. When Justin Verlander and José Altuve wore our shirts during the World Series, it wasn’t just a great moment that ended up on SportsCenter, etc. — it also made for over-performing posts and great business for the publishers we partnered with (e.g., Houston Astros sites Crawfish Boxes and Astros County).
It created a closer connection with their audiences. Their readers now get to “wear the moment” and take their media diet into the world around them. It’s one thing to tell a friend where you’re getting your news and information; it’s another for them to see you wearing it.
So yeah, that’s all great, but what’s the prediction?
Simply put, most media brands will start selling merchandise in 2018, if they’re not already. That could be anything, but the most obvious place to start is with a combination of branded apparel (i.e., what Barstool and Crooked Media are doing) and trending apparel (i.e., what we do with others at BreakingT).
And hopefully it helps make it so that the people making the content keep getting real paychecks.
Jamie Mottram is president of BreakingT and former senior director of social content for Gannett.
Alastair Coote The year of self-improvement
Eric Nuzum Beyond the narrative arc
Justin Kosslyn The year journalists become digital security experts
Tim Carmody Watch out for Spotify
Rubina Madan Fillion Unlocking the potential of AI
Andrew Ramsammy The year ownership mattered
Tamar Charney We get serious about algorithms
Matt Thompson Here come the attention managers
Rodney Benson Better, less read, and less trusted
Dan Shanoff You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)
Juleyka Lantigua Women of color will reclaim and monetize our time
Adam Thomas Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor
Trushar Barot The Jio-fication of India
Taylor Lorenz Social and media will split
Caitria O'Neill The new court of public opinion
Emily Goligoski Looking beyond news for inspiration
Matt Carlson Attacks on the press will get worse
Monika Bauerlein The firehose of falsehood
Lam Thuy Vo Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest
Doris Truong Computer vision vs. the Internet vigilantes
Andrew Losowsky The year of resilience
Cindy Royal Your journalism curriculum is obsolete
Mariana Moura Santos Think local, act global
Rachel Davis Mersey AI, with real smarts
Aron Pilhofer We can’t leave the business to the business side any more
Alice Antheaume Are you fluent in AI?
Jennifer Choi Standing up for us and for each other
Imaeyen Ibanga Longform video leads the way
Dheerja Kaur Fun with subscription products
Michelle Garcia Navigating journalistic transparency
Carlos Martínez de la Serna The new journalism commons
Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
Yvonne Leow The rise of video messaging
Tanzina Vega It’s time for media companies to #PassTheMic
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
Borja Echevarría TV goes digital, digital goes TV
Andrew Haeg The year journalists become relationship builders
Lucas Graves From algorithms to institutions
Errin Haines At the ballot, it’s time to count black women
Nikki Usher The year of The Washington Post
David Skok Finding an information-life balance
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Seeking trust in fragmented spaces
Nicholas Quah Stop talking trash about young people
Kathleen McElroy Building a news video experience native to mobile
Basile Simon We need better career paths for news nerds
Vivian Schiller Pivot to tomorrow
Mario García Storytelling finally adapts to mobile
Feli Sánchez The year for guerrilla user research
Will Sommer The year local media gets conservative
Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Mary Walter-Brown Show a little vulnerability
Cory Haik Suffering from realness, pivoting to impact
Corey Ford The empire strikes back
Laura E. Davis Writing answers before you know the question
Damon Krukowski Reviving the alt-weekly soul
Amy King Let’s amplify visual voice
Vanessa K. DeLuca Women’s voices take center stage
Cristina Wilson The year of the Instagram Story
Corey Johnson The pro-fact resistance
Dannagal G. Young Stop covering politics as a game
Matt Boggie The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea
Zizi Papacharissi Women come back
Evie Nagy Pivot to mobile video frustration
Jesse Holcomb Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
Francesco Marconi The year of machine-to-machine journalism
Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age
Pia Frey Address users as individuals
Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
Mary Meehan Real lives are at stake in rural areas
Renée Kaplan The year of quiet adjustments (shhh)
Emma Carew Grovum Newsroom culture becomes a priority
Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
Hannah Cassius The year of the echo-chamber escapists
Ruth Palmer Risks will grow for news subjects — especially minorities
Gordon Crovitz Serving readers over advertisers
Pete Brown Push alerts, personalized
Mi-Ai Parrish Blockchain and trust
Jamie Mottram From pageviews to t-shirts
Sara M. Watson Feeds will open up to new user-determined filters
Carrie Brown-Smith Transparency finally takes off
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news
Manoush Zomorodi Self-help as a publishing strategy
Susie Banikarim R.I.P. Pivot to Video (2017–2017)
Kim Fox Audience teams diversify their approach
Nicholas Diakopoulos Fortifying social media from automated inauthenticity
Jim Moroney Newspapers have to be good enough for readers to pay for
Richard Tofel The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention
Mandy Velez texting is lit rn, fam
Caitlin Thompson Podcasting models mature and diversify
Rick Berke Value is the watchword
Jim Brady With the people, not just of the people
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
Joyce Barnathan It will be harder to bury the news
S. Mitra Kalita The arc of news and audience
Michelle Ferrier The year of the great reckoning
Jared Newman Venture funding and digital news don’t mix
José Zamora Revenue-first journalism
Amy Webb Listen to weak signals
Sydette Harry Listen to your corner and watch for the hook
Joanne Lipman Journalists inventing revenue streams
Alfred Hermida Going beyond mobile-first
Niketa Patel Live journalism comes of age
Pablo Boczkowski The rise of skeptical reading
Jennifer Brandel and Mónica Guzmán The editorial meeting of the future
Frédéric Filloux External forces
Jassim Ahmad Thriving on change
Matt DeRienzo A recession, then a collapse
Debra Adams Simmons And a woman shall lead them
Julia B. Chan Looking for loyalty in all the right places
Monique Judge Letting black women tell their own stories
Charo Henríquez Training is an investment, not an expense
Sam Ford The year of investing in processes
Federica Cherubini The rise of bridge roles in news organizations
Jessica Parker Gilbert Design connects storytelling and strategy
Elizabeth Jensen Show your work
Heather Bryant Building the ecosystems for collaboration
Mira Lowe The year of the local watchdog
Nushin Rashidian Publishers seek ad dollar alternatives
Julia Beizer A longer view on the pivot
Umbreen Bhatti The trust problem isn’t new
P. Kim Bui The reckoning is only beginning
Miguel Castro The arrival of the impact producer
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse
Jacqui Cheng Retailers move into content
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Publishing less to give readers more
Amie Ferris-Rotman More female reporters abroad (please)
Kyle Ellis Let’s build our way out of this
Craig Newmark Working together toward sustainable solutions
Michael Kuntz The only pivot that might work
Mariano Blejman News games rule
Jarrod Dicker Honesty in advertising
Sally Lehrman Trust comes first
Millie Tran and Stine Bauer Dahlberg (Hint: It’s about your brand)
Luke O'Neil The end is already here
Ray Soto VR reaches the next level
Marcela Donini and Thiago Herdy Collaboration is the way forward for Brazilian journalism
Rodney Gibbs Tech workers turn to journalism
Claire Wardle Disinformation gets worse
Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
Ståle Grut Reclaiming audience interaction from social networks
Lanre Akinola Making noise is not a strategy
Marie Gilot No assholes allowed
An Xiao Mina Memes and visuals come to the fore
Sam Sanders Shine the light on ourselves
Rachel Schallom Better design helps differentiate opinion and news
Jennifer Coogan The future is female
Helen Havlak Keywords, not publishers, power the world’s biggest feeds
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer Skepticism and narcissism
Tanya Cordrey Finally, the seeds of radical reinvention
Daniel Trielli The rich get richer, the poor scramble
Kristen Muller The year of the voter
Eric Ulken The year local publishers get smart(er) about change
Hossein Derakhshan Television has won
Felix Salmon Covering bitcoin while owning bitcoin
Kinsey Wilson Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up
Kawandeep Virdee Zines had it right all along
Christopher Meighan Passive partnership is in the rearview
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The Snapchat scenario and the risk of more closed platforms
Alexios Mantzarlis Moving fake news research out of the lab
Raju Narisetti Mirror, mirror on the wall
Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media