How Datafication Drives Legacy Newspapers to Change Their Advertising Model for Business Survival

Abstract

Technological advances have introduced changes in digital media business and funding models. Traditional “legacy” newspapers are reacting to the superior business performance of digital intermediaries such as Google and Facebook, which capture a big part of total digital advertising revenues. This work describes the change of focus of the Unidad Editorial, publisher of a set of leading digital newspapers in Spain, including elmundo.es. The company ceased perceiving other digital newspapers as its competitor and tried to learn from the advertising revenue models of major players in the digital arena. This study argues that the management of big data is deeply transforming legacy newspapers' advertising regime. Their advertising model is increasingly based on more sophisticated segmentation tools and programmatic advertising techniques. It finds that a strategy to attract revenue based on learning from competitive models of big platforms is efficient and logical. Hence, the ability to market the value of individual users in real-time is a key factor in the success of this model.