"BuzzFeed Inc. has agreed to acquire Verizon Media’s HuffPost in a stock deal, the companies said Thursday, uniting two of the larger players in digital media as companies across the sector search for ways to jump-start growth." - The Wall Street Journal, November 19, 2020.
Many remember the heady days when HuffPost emerged as the liberal analogue to far-right Drudge Report. Then there were high -fives when AOL acquired it. At the time I was a contract columnist for AOL. Yes, we were all intoxicated with success.
But, as the old business adage goes, nothing fails like success.
There had been rumors that parent Verizon had put HuffPost on the block. Now this: It's over as a fairly distinct brand.
For decades, experts in public relations, media and marketing will deliver analytical case studies on how HuffPost had lost its way.
But, in this era when that kind of downward trajectory has become the new normal, such exercises in reverse engineering aren't necessary. The tipping points are all too obvious. And they all come down to one thing: The entity turned inward. Instead of connecting with stakeholders it focused on itself.
Yet, the fundamental of sales is mirroring. To establish the connection with the prospect and to maintain the existing ones with customers/clients/readers, it's imperative to get into their soul. And then integrate the major attributes in all operations. For HuffPost it no longer bothered to pick up what was going on in the changing audience. As with Ms. Magazine in its final days, HuffPost retreated into itself - and its hardened platitudes. The tone and content were all too predictable.
During my strange encounters as a potential vendor with search firm Heidrick & Struggles, I experienced a similar disconnect. Here is a snippet from that story.
Why the legal sector should pay attention to what is happening at Heidrick & Struggles is that among its units is legal search. Yes, lawyers could receive a call from the recruiters. They have to decide whether to return that call.
What I perceived in my dealings with Heidrick & Struggles is that it seemed to exist under its own bell jar, inhaling its own air.
There was no me.
Therefore, I have to question if there are other key stakeholders it factors in. For Q3 2020, Heidrick & Struggles had a net loss of $26.2 million. Here is the earnings release.
Promoted in that earnings announcement is that Heidrick & Struggles is restructuring. That will be expensive.
For investors, the elephant in the room is if those are funds well-spent. Does the business have a shot at transformation? Can this search firm reimagine itself for a future which is already underway?
From HuffPost to Heidrick & Struggles there are lessons in how easily it is to pivot into what talks to the world in a self-defeating manner.
It might be time to dig out that classic from another period of great change - "In Search of Excellence," co-written by Tom Peters. In the early 1980s, it documented how many big brandnames had ceased to exist. Then it articulated what businesses which were thriving had in common. Among those is staying close to stakeholders.
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