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.
Millie Tran and Stine Bauer Dahlberg (Hint: It’s about your brand)
Mandy Velez texting is lit rn, fam
Amy Webb Listen to weak signals
Federica Cherubini The rise of bridge roles in news organizations
Emily Goligoski Looking beyond news for inspiration
Jared Newman Venture funding and digital news don’t mix
Dannagal G. Young Stop covering politics as a game
Aron Pilhofer We can’t leave the business to the business side any more
Kathleen McElroy Building a news video experience native to mobile
Claire Wardle Disinformation gets worse
Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
Jacqui Cheng Retailers move into content
Michelle Ferrier The year of the great reckoning
Dheerja Kaur Fun with subscription products
Tim Carmody Watch out for Spotify
Kyle Ellis Let’s build our way out of this
Richard Tofel The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention
Imaeyen Ibanga Longform video leads the way
Mario García Storytelling finally adapts to mobile
Susie Banikarim R.I.P. Pivot to Video (2017–2017)
Niketa Patel Live journalism comes of age
Tanzina Vega It’s time for media companies to #PassTheMic
Basile Simon We need better career paths for news nerds
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The Snapchat scenario and the risk of more closed platforms
Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age
Renée Kaplan The year of quiet adjustments (shhh)
Andrew Ramsammy The year ownership mattered
Mariano Blejman News games rule
Julia B. Chan Looking for loyalty in all the right places
Justin Kosslyn The year journalists become digital security experts
Damon Krukowski Reviving the alt-weekly soul
Cory Haik Suffering from realness, pivoting to impact
Gordon Crovitz Serving readers over advertisers
Adam Thomas Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor
Pia Frey Address users as individuals
Ståle Grut Reclaiming audience interaction from social networks
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Publishing less to give readers more
Michael Kuntz The only pivot that might work
Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media
Matt DeRienzo A recession, then a collapse
Vivian Schiller Pivot to tomorrow
Pete Brown Push alerts, personalized
Nicholas Quah Stop talking trash about young people
Nushin Rashidian Publishers seek ad dollar alternatives
Rachel Davis Mersey AI, with real smarts
Carrie Brown-Smith Transparency finally takes off
Eric Nuzum Beyond the narrative arc
Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
Rick Berke Value is the watchword
Charo Henríquez Training is an investment, not an expense
An Xiao Mina Memes and visuals come to the fore
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
Vanessa K. DeLuca Women’s voices take center stage
Craig Newmark Working together toward sustainable solutions
Tanya Cordrey Finally, the seeds of radical reinvention
Alastair Coote The year of self-improvement
Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
Tamar Charney We get serious about algorithms
Feli Sánchez The year for guerrilla user research
Jennifer Coogan The future is female
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer Skepticism and narcissism
Rachel Schallom Better design helps differentiate opinion and news
Daniel Trielli The rich get richer, the poor scramble
Molly de Aguiar Good journalism won’t be enough
Mi-Ai Parrish Blockchain and trust
Sydette Harry Listen to your corner and watch for the hook
Will Sommer The year local media gets conservative
Cristina Wilson The year of the Instagram Story
Sam Ford The year of investing in processes
Rodney Benson Better, less read, and less trusted
Corey Ford The empire strikes back
Mira Lowe The year of the local watchdog
Helen Havlak Keywords, not publishers, power the world’s biggest feeds
Trushar Barot The Jio-fication of India
Lucas Graves From algorithms to institutions
Kim Fox Audience teams diversify their approach
Matt Boggie The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea
Julia Beizer A longer view on the pivot
Cindy Royal Your journalism curriculum is obsolete
Evie Nagy Pivot to mobile video frustration
Sam Sanders Shine the light on ourselves
Jennifer Brandel and Mónica Guzmán The editorial meeting of the future
Emma Carew Grovum Newsroom culture becomes a priority
Monique Judge Letting black women tell their own stories
Rodney Gibbs Tech workers turn to journalism
Lam Thuy Vo Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest
Felix Salmon Covering bitcoin while owning bitcoin
Hossein Derakhshan Television has won
Miguel Castro The arrival of the impact producer
Eric Ulken The year local publishers get smart(er) about change
Yvonne Leow The rise of video messaging
Heather Bryant Building the ecosystems for collaboration
Carlos Martínez de la Serna The new journalism commons
Jarrod Dicker Honesty in advertising
Mariana Moura Santos Think local, act global
Jennifer Choi Standing up for us and for each other
Amy King Let’s amplify visual voice
Errin Haines At the ballot, it’s time to count black women
Andrew Losowsky The year of resilience
Monika Bauerlein The firehose of falsehood
Elizabeth Jensen Show your work
Alice Antheaume Are you fluent in AI?
Andrew Haeg The year journalists become relationship builders
Nikki Usher The year of The Washington Post
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Seeking trust in fragmented spaces
Jassim Ahmad Thriving on change
Rubina Madan Fillion Unlocking the potential of AI
Alfred Hermida Going beyond mobile-first
Sally Lehrman Trust comes first
Laura E. Davis Writing answers before you know the question
Jamie Mottram From pageviews to t-shirts
P. Kim Bui The reckoning is only beginning
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse
Jessica Parker Gilbert Design connects storytelling and strategy
Juleyka Lantigua Women of color will reclaim and monetize our time
Caitria O'Neill The new court of public opinion
Matt Thompson Here come the attention managers
Dan Shanoff You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)
Frédéric Filloux External forces
Michelle Garcia Navigating journalistic transparency
Corey Johnson The pro-fact resistance
Luke O'Neil The end is already here
Doris Truong Computer vision vs. the Internet vigilantes
Mary Walter-Brown Show a little vulnerability
Marie Gilot No assholes allowed
David Skok Finding an information-life balance
Manoush Zomorodi Self-help as a publishing strategy
Matt Carlson Attacks on the press will get worse
Hannah Cassius The year of the echo-chamber escapists
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
Pablo Boczkowski The rise of skeptical reading
Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Caitlin Thompson Podcasting models mature and diversify
Jesse Holcomb Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you
Joyce Barnathan It will be harder to bury the news
Lanre Akinola Making noise is not a strategy
Kawandeep Virdee Zines had it right all along
Kristen Muller The year of the voter
Nicholas Diakopoulos Fortifying social media from automated inauthenticity
José Zamora Revenue-first journalism
Zizi Papacharissi Women come back
Ray Soto VR reaches the next level
Alexios Mantzarlis Moving fake news research out of the lab
Joanne Lipman Journalists inventing revenue streams
Kinsey Wilson Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news
Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
Amie Ferris-Rotman More female reporters abroad (please)
Sara M. Watson Feeds will open up to new user-determined filters
Marcela Donini and Thiago Herdy Collaboration is the way forward for Brazilian journalism
S. Mitra Kalita The arc of news and audience
Ruth Palmer Risks will grow for news subjects — especially minorities
Jim Brady With the people, not just of the people
Debra Adams Simmons And a woman shall lead them
Mary Meehan Real lives are at stake in rural areas
Francesco Marconi The year of machine-to-machine journalism
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
Christopher Meighan Passive partnership is in the rearview
Jim Moroney Newspapers have to be good enough for readers to pay for