The Problem of Media Brand Expansion

Baranova Ekaterina Andreevna ORCID: 0000-0003-1794-9936 Doctor of Philology Professor; Department of Communication Management and Relationship Management; Russian State Social University Correspondent; Komsomolskaya Pravda Publishing House 4 Wilhelma Peak St., Moscow, 129226, Russia kat-journ@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Introduction

The topic of the development of modern media brands is often considered by researchers in the context of creating a media brand model through the principles of its structuring based on the analysis of speech tools that are fixed in the recipient's mind ^{[1, p. 14]}. It is suggested that, for example, through the texts and style of the publication, "a brand identity is created" ^{[6, p. 557]}. In this case, style is "considered as the author's style of a journalist and as a tool for creating a brand identity – an image in the minds of consumers similar to a human character" ^{[5, p.7]}.

The perspective of other studies is aimed at forming a media brand on social media platforms, creating a positive image of the media on social media platforms and messengers; promoting content on these media platforms to improve user interaction ^[9].

Increased competition in the information market due to the development of the Internet and social networks has made it necessary to study media brands in the context of their expansion. For several years now, reviews of global press trends have been documenting "the problem of reducing traditional sources of income, in particular, income from print advertising and circulation" ^{[21, P. 17]}.

Due to the fact that it has become more difficult to sell both content and audience, media companies have to look for other sales products besides content and audience. Therefore, today the media are developing the sale of various goods on the site, looking for new products and services for sales, their connection with commercial production is becoming closer and closer: media companies are expanding their product line — a group of interrelated products produced under the same brand and sold by the same company. The topic of media brand expansion is increasingly heard in the research of Russian and foreign authors ^{[2, 13, 14, 19, 22]}. The system of interconnected products is designed to actively engage the audience and create a need for products and/or services.

Print media (primarily newspapers), which were the first to face the crisis associated with the advent of the Internet, were the first to come up with the "idea of brand expansion" ^{[23, p. 1]}. They sought to create revenue models that went beyond charging for content and selling audiences to advertisers. Their goal was to leverage the brand's value by expanding it to new products and services. Brand equity (or its value) is what a brand means in terms of uniqueness, importance, and audience preference. Thus, "brands can be one of the most valuable intangible assets of a company" ^{[15, p. 425]}.

The topic related to the use of brand extension in various sectors of consumer goods has not lost its relevance for many years, this fact is confirmed by numerous works by foreign and Russian authors ^{[7, 16, 18, 19, 22]}, etc. Researchers agree that in order for a product to make full use of the extension, it must be well aligned with the core brand's value. Otherwise, the extension will not receive enough capital to promote the product.

The topic of brand expansion in the context of the media industry covers research related to the media's search for alternative sources of income in the process of digital transformation. ^{[8, 11, 17, 23]}.

Using media companies' branding strategy

The branding philosophy means moving from product-oriented marketing to attempts to put consumer perception at the center and consciously plan and manage this perception using brands that promise satisfaction of needs at certain levels of quality and value ^{[23, p.1]}.

Media brands offer value-based insights into what their customers can expect in terms of content. For example, some media brands, such as Discovery or MTV, are associated by many with concepts such as "drive" and "innovation" ^{[22, p. 3]}.

Branding as a marketing strategy is aimed at differentiating a company's organization, service, or product from competitors. In addition, brands demonstrate a close relationship with competence, reliability, and quality.

The brand creates an image that leads to the development of consumer sympathy, and then loyalty to the brand. A positive consumer experience in relation to a certain brand increases brand confidence ^{[20, p.13]}.

The annual BusinessWeek and Interbrand "Best Global Brands" rating shows how valuable Coca-Cola or Microsoft brands can be, for example. There are very few media companies in this annual brand ranking (as a rule, there are always Disney and Reuters).

It should be borne in mind that only a few media outlets serve the international or global market and, therefore, can position themselves as global brands. It is not so much the opportunity to enter the international level as the connection with competence, authority and high-quality production that makes branding a suitable and promising strategy for media companies. Since differentiation is an important goal of branding, branding is a very common strategy in the media industry today.

The media began to explore the meanings that their brands carry in the late 1990s and early 2000s: to analyze the images and feelings that they evoke in the audience. In the context of digitalization, the media have developed various strategies to create brand capital ^[24], that is, a unique set of characteristics and associations that would provide it with additional value. Spanish newspapers were among the first in the world to expand the boundaries of their brand. The media company Unidad Editorial, which owns the newspapers El Mundo, Expansion and Marca, has taken initiatives aimed at testing the strength of the digital brand of the El Mundo website — elmundo.es — and the development of other sources income to expand the boundaries of the business. The media company's executives were particularly innovative in looking for possible brand extensions between 2002 and 2005, when most of the projects were implemented. They accounted for 35% of the total revenue of the publication ^{[23, p. 2]}.

E-commerce

One of the first striking examples of the search for new products and services to sell (in addition to content and audience services to advertisers) was e—commerce, the creation of media outlets with their own online stores. "In world practice, there are many examples of the creation of online stores on mass media websites (or online stores - independent resources launched by the media)" ^{[2, p. 88]}. Online media commerce has been engaged in since the late 1990s. The expansion of the media brand can be horizontal (let's call it media) and vertical (non-media). With the horizontal expansion of the brand, the development of the product range is achieved due to the fact that complementary products are added within the same product category. In the case of media brand expansion, these can be, for example, books, CDs, DVDs.

Vertical (or non-media brand expansion) involves the release of more complex products under their own brand name. An example of a non—media expansion of a media brand can be the release of a wide variety of products, from lawn mowers to perfumes. With the immediate expansion of the brand, the importance of the strength of the parent brand increases and has the greatest impact on the attitude towards the additional product. Consumers may feel insecure when making a purchase decision, so they rely primarily on their overall impression of the parent brand.

Today, you can buy completely different products on mass media websites (or online stores - independent resources launched by the media). On the Wall Street Journal online resource — https:// wsjshop.com — you can purchase various mugs, umbrellas, caps and other goods. As a rule, the media launch the sale of any goods in partnership with certain brands. On the website launched by the Daily Mail newspaper http://www . mailshop. co.uk you can see household and garden goods. Many media outlets sell branded products — products featuring the logo of the publication. For example, branded clothing and notebooks can be found in the online store of the New York Times newspaper. Russian media outlets also create online stores on websites selling branded products. For example, digitized books on various topics can be purchased on the Argumenty I Fakty website. "The Books project arose as a result of the cooperation of the AiF Publishing House with the LitRes company, the largest copyright holder of electronic copies of Russian—language books on the web" ^{[4, P. 50]}.

An interesting example is the experience of Spanish companies: almost all Spanish newspapers have implemented e-commerce strategies from the very beginning of their existence on the Internet. For example, El Mundo executives relied on the strength of the publication's brand when developing their e-commerce strategy: the newspaper's website was used as a platform to promote third-party products. E-commerce in this case is based on an advertising model. "We are talking about selling to the audience through payment for the purchase of goods by the client and a commission from the sale" ^{[23, p. 4]}.

Initially, sales were not even carried out through the newspaper's website: customers had to make purchases over the phone.

The partner provided products, determined prices, distribution, storage, delivery, and provided after-sales service. Website elmundo.es He was an intermediary who retained ownership of the business under the Tiendas del Mundo brand. There were several suppliers on the site, each providing different products and responsible for logistics. The newspaper could not consolidate the purchases that the user made from different suppliers, make joint deliveries, or create a single invoice that would include all these purchases.

The specific terms and percentages of sales that the publication received were agreed upon with each supplier, depending on the type of product. The percentage of sales was usually from 25% to 45% ^{[23, p. 4]}.

When the product was particularly successful, it was also sold as an advertisement from El Mundo at a newsstand.

The executives noted the strength of the El Mundo brand's influence: it lent its reliability to digital purchases.

The model lasted for three years. In mid-2014, the company decided to close the store because its conversion rate was low: users visited the media site, but did not buy anything.

Income from e-commerce on the website elmundo.es it was different. Knowledge of the original brand has a positive impact on forming an attitude towards the complementary product. However, the reader is less open to the "commercialization" of the newspaper.

Examples of the search for new goods and services to sell to the media audience suggest that in the digital economy, traditional economic mass communications are changing, the boundaries between them are blurring, and B2C, subject-object relations between business and consumers, and the audience are turning into subject-subject relations, acquiring features of equality between participants in the information process.

The issue of profits generated by creating your own online stores is quite controversial. There are examples of unsuccessful attempts to develop online stores. "MK tried to develop an online store on the site as a new source of income, but this project had to be closed. As practice has shown, people prefer large online stores with cheaper prices, since the work is put on stream there" ^{[4, P. 54]}.

Nevertheless, the global media continues to actively experiment with e-commerce. A striking example of this is the recent initiative of the Associated Press. In 2024, the news agency launched an e-commerce platform called AP Buyline in order to diversify its sources of income. In collaboration with Taboola, a company that promotes sponsored content on a variety of sites, AP Buyline initially focused on native texts, offering recommendations for various categories.: credit card selection, investment, insurance [The Associated Press is working on an e-commerce platform along with Taboola: Axios URL: https://www.ecommercenext.org/associated-press-is-working-on-an-e-commerce-platform-along-with-taboola-axios / (date of access: 03.25.2025)]. Then additional shopping categories were introduced, such as household goods, cosmetics and fashion, thereby the media company expanded its appeal to a wider consumer base.

The content on AP Buyline, including detailed product reviews, is created by a dedicated Taboola team.

"Together with the company, the Associated Press strives to create a sustainable model that not only diversifies its revenue, but also enhances its interaction with a consumer audience increasingly inclined towards online shopping." [The Associated Press is working on an e-commerce platform along with Taboola: Axios URL: https://www.ecommercenext.org/associated-press-is-working-on-an-e-commerce-platform-along-with-taboola-axios / (date accessed: 03.25.2025)].

Media holding as a publishing house: the experience of Komsomolskaya Pravda Publishing House

Komsomolskaya Pravda Publishing House has been selling books under its brand since 2005. Previously, they could be bought at periodicals outlets and offline stores. At that time, the publishing house offered high-quality book collections at a price four times cheaper than the market value. These were historical, often rare books, biographies, educational literature, as well as books by Komsomolskaya Pravda journalists.

In 2016, the website appeared shop.kp.ru . – electronic store of Komsomolskaya Pravda Publishing House. The book collections "Great Artists", "Great Composers", "Great Architects" were in great demand. There was a need to sell them directly to customers, bypassing bookstores and kiosk chains. Komsomolka had several offline stores of its own. However, already in 2014, the boom in book collections began to take place, and by 2021, all Komsomolka offline stores had closed.

Offline stores have been developing very well due to the collection boom, now books are no longer sold in such volume, so other products have been tested in the publishing house. At the end of 2018, the range of products in the online store section on the Komsomolskaya Pravda website significantly expanded: in addition to books, products such as lawn mowers, lamps, various clothes, cosmetics, etc. appeared. Komsomolskaya Pravda Publishing House decided that the consumer might be interested in these products. A year has passed, and it turned out that 95% of sales are books ^{[4, P. 54]}. The Books section was also the most visited. The ID completely curtailed the line of other products, since they accounted for a minuscule proportion of the turnover. The alleged positive influence of knowledge of the parent brand (Komsomolskaya Pravda Publishing House) on the formation of a positive attitude towards the additional product has not been confirmed. People understand the idea of buying a book from a publishing house better than, for example, a refrigerator or a lawn mower. In order to explain to the consumer why it is necessary to buy these goods on the Komsomolskaya Pravda website, it is necessary to spend a lot of time and money. The percentage of sales in the online stores of the publication is not so large as to recoup even half of the editorial expenses ^{[4, P. 55]}.

"After 2017, Komsomolskaya Pravda Publishing House began to expand its range of book products. On the website shop.kp.ru Books on a completely different subject have appeared, which provide good sales today. These are primarily culinary and medical books," says Svetlana Akolzina, Head of online sales at Komsomolskaya Pravda Publishing House. [The author's interview with Svetlana Akolzina, head of the online sales service of Komsomolskaya Pravda Publishing House. 04.03.2025]. One of the main bestsellers of the publishing house is "Deception of Substances" by Zukhra Pavlova. The book was published back in 2021, but interest in it has not decreased to this day. Another such hit is the book "Inspiration" by blogger Daria Levina, a collection of tips in the field of cooking, needlework, and creating a cozy home. The entire line of this author is in constant demand.

In the fall of 2024, a book by another well-known blogger, Aida Sinitsina, "The Lightness of Life and I. How to combine cleaning and self–love", "it also instantly became a bestseller: today we have several thousand pre-orders for this book alone!" says S. Akolzina. [The author's interview with Svetlana Akolzina, head of the online sales service of Komsomolskaya Pravda Publishing House. 04.03.2025].

Today, Komsomolskaya Pravda Publishing House has a special employee who is looking for authors and working with them. There are contractors, editors, typesetters, artists – they all create books that are produced and sold by a media holding. An agreement is signed with the authors, they receive royalties from sales. The terms of the contract are individual with each author and for each book.

To advertise books, Komsomolskaya Pravda Publishing House uses all the resources of the media holding: newspaper, website, social networks, radio. The authors of the books themselves act as experts in various materials and come to the radio. Many of the authors of the books are well–known bloggers: Daria Levina, Aida Sinitsyna. Thus, the media holding successfully uses such a product promotion tool as influencer marketing ^[10].

Thus, Komsomolskaya Pravda Publishing House operates as a full-fledged book publishing house that produces bestsellers. Other book publishers are contacting the media holding regarding possible cooperation with our authors," says S. Akolzina. [The author's interview with Svetlana Akolzina, head of the online sales service of Komsomolskaya Pravda Publishing House. 04.03.2025].

Komsomolka began working as a book publishing house in 2017, when the interest in book collections among the audience fell, and it was necessary to look for new sales products. So it was decided to launch a full-fledged book publishing house. All books that are in the online store on the website shop.kp.ru These are books published by Komsomolskaya Pravda publishing house.

Among the buyers of the media holding's books there are regular readers of Komsomolskaya Pravda, they often find out about the release of new books on the pages of the newspaper. But there are buyers who learn about books from other sources: Komsomolskaya Pravda's book products are often exhibited at various fairs, for example, Non-Fiction. There are books with circulations of more than 10-15 thousand copies, which indicates that the media holding successfully competes with reputable publishers.

"There are people who recognize the Komsomolskaya Pravda brand not as a newspaper, but as a book publishing house: they come to the Komsomolskaya Pravda stand to see what novelties we have. That is, the buyers of the media holding's books are not only people who know Komsomolskaya Pravda as a media outlet," S. notes. Akolzina. [The author's interview with Svetlana Akolzina, head of the online sales service of Komsomolskaya Pravda Publishing House. 04.03.2025].

A lot has changed in the book business over the past 10 years: The name of the publisher is no longer so important, people look more at the product itself, rather than at the brand that produces it. "Komsomolskaya Pravda, as one of the country's leading media companies with a 100-year history and an audience of millions, still has a positive effect on book purchases and is a sign of quality, but we must understand that it is mainly for an audience of 40+," says S. Akolzina. [The author's interview with Svetlana Akolzina, head of the online sales service of Komsomolskaya Pravda Publishing House. 04.03.2025].

The example of Komsomolskaya Pravda publishing House suggests that an online media store is not only an opportunity for additional communication with the audience, but also support for the media brand. Komsomolskaya Pravda media holding has actually built a sales department for third-party products. This is a different field of activity. In 2017, when the media holding began to turn into a full-fledged book publishing house, an online sales service appeared in its structure, which is engaged in an online store and conducts all marketplaces. The department's employees interact with customers, process orders, and maintain personal accounts at Vimpel-Market, Ozon, and Yandex.Market – sites where Komsomolskaya Pravda publishing house book products are also distributed and sold.

The club system as a new service of media companies

The club system can be considered as a new service sold by modern media, based on the strength of the brand.

"The Guardian daily newspaper has collected over 800,000 paid subscriptions, without limiting access to its materials. However, in order to access the content of the online version of the newspaper, the user needs to create a personal profile on the website. By becoming a member of the club and a regular reader of the newspaper, you can make regular donations. So, 300 thousand users of the site are regular sponsors of the publication." [Industry Report. Russian Periodical Press, 2018. URL: http://www.fapmc.ru/rospechat/activities/reports/2019/pechat1.html (date of access: 01/10/2025)].

The club system may also involve holding paid seminars and other events for the readership within the walls of the editorial office. "In the fall of 2016, the American magazine Atlantic launched such a system. Users who have paid $12 per month or $120 per year, in addition to access to exclusive materials and web page views without ads, get the opportunity to enter the editorial kitchen or meet with renowned authors" ^{[1, p.89]}. For example, the magazine organized a teleconference for the club members with journalists working in the White House.

To launch such club programs, readers devoted to the brand of the publication are needed.

One of the most expensive for Russian—speaking subscribers is membership in Snob. As of January 2025, the subscription is 35,000 rubles. For this money, you can get the opportunity to comment on all the materials on the site and attend various events organized by the editorial staff.

In 2001, the new media division of Aftonbladet, Sweden's largest newspaper, began looking for new ways to attract users to the site and new sources of revenue. It was decided to launch the Viktkaben program, the Weight Loss Club, which attracted 115,000 subscribers in May 2003 ^{[3, p. 240]}.

Being overweight is a big problem in many Western European countries, so the project immediately began to attract interest. Subscribers paid membership fees from 25 to 30 euros per year. The project was developed with the assistance of weight loss specialists from the Stockholm clinic. The site has extensive databases on food, cooking recipes, and fitness. The exercise programs were presented in the form of videos. Club members could anonymously talk about their successes. In addition, the Weight Loss Club earns money by selling books and pedometers, but the income from these activities is small ^{[3, P. 240]}.

Conclusion

When expanding a brand of non-news media products, the importance of the original brand is greater than when selling media products. It can have a greater impact on the attitude towards an additional product, as consumers rely on their impression of the original brand ^[17].

The implementation of non-branded products is more complicated and advisable only for strong brands with a strong image.

It is necessary to take into account not only the conformity of the product, but also its conformity to the brand image. When expanding the brand of non-news media products, the importance of the original brand is greater. It can have a greater impact on the attitude towards the complementary product, as consumers rely on their impression of the original brand. The implementation of non-branded products is more complicated and is advisable only for strong brands with a strong image.

It is necessary to take into account not only the conformity of the product, but also its conformity to the brand image. Strong media brands are positioned in people's minds, even when they are not consuming them. Media companies occupy a unique position in creating and expanding their brand equity. The fact that they own and control communication tools that reach thousands or even millions of consumers every day is a huge asset.