Media & Entertainment: Strategy Consulting Projects
Update: 12.14.15 revised
Course number: B8213 section 1
Schedule: Monday nights, 5:45pm – 9:00pm
Room: Warren 416
Adjunct Associate Professor Ava Seave
Phone: 212 222 0025 (off campus office)
Office: Uris 315 (Greenwald’s office)
Office hours: By appointment
Email: as2486@columbia.edu
General Course Description
Highly encouraged: One media course and/or one strategy course and/or professional experience at a
media company.
In “Media & Entertainment: Strategy Consulting Projects,” the concepts and theories introduced in
previous media and strategy courses will be applied in a practical way to problems brought to the class as
projects from real companies and their managers.
The ultimate goal of this class is for students to have team experience in helping companies recognize
and solve strategic media problems.
Among the techniques the students will work on

Industry mapping

SCP: Structure/Conduct/Performance analysis

Market sizing

Defining the goals of a project

Defining and understanding scope

Value propositions and Value curves


Mapping Business Systems
Introduction to Business Canvas and Minimal viable product
The six- week course will introduce techniques to perform strategy consulting for media companies and
teach students how to apply these techniques to real projects from real companies. In the seventh week,
the teams will present their findings to the sponsoring companies.
To master these skills, each week students will be given specific tools to work through each concept and
will to apply these concepts in several ways:

to case histories of well-known companies and industries


to a case about an evolving media SaaS company
to the company project they have been assigned to
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The class is limited to 24 students. There will be four teams of six members each. Team work, and active
participation in each and every class will be required. Check in meetings (physical or by phone) with
sponsor companies are required each week. Collaboration is expected and encouraged throughout the
course.
The class will be assigned some readings throughout the class which will be applicable to certain
problems we will be discussing. There will be some reading that required before the class starts. Optional
textbook for this class is: Curse of the Mogul: What’s Wrong with the World’s Leading Media
Companies (Knee, Greenwald, Seave; Penguin 2009.)
The four companies supplying projects are confirmed. They are




Forbes Media,
Machinima,
eMarketer and
Major League Soccer.
eMarketer and MLS are formulating the projects now. We will update the syllabus as the specific projects
are worked out with each of the companies.
Before the class begins
 Pre class reading: Introduction and Chapters 1 and 2 of The Curse of the Mogul: What’s Wrong with
the World’s Leading Media Companies (Knee, Greenwald, Seave; Penguin 2009.)
 Read the case Contently: Evolution of a Media Start-up
Classroom expectations
 Attendance at the first two classes is mandatory, with companies visiting the classroom on Class 2
 Attendance to all classes is strongly encouraged, and is expected
 Except for the first class, each class will consist of presentation to the professor (and one other team)
of the week’s assignment, team work time and lecture/discussion of the next week’s assignment.
Starting in week 3, there will also be presentation of elements for the final deck.
Class Project
 Students will be assigned projects by the professor based as much as possible on student
preferences.
 Project assignment mechanics:
o Before class begins, I will send a detailed description of the class projects, students can
prioritize your preferences, and I will try to honor them as much as possible.
o Once assigned to a team, if a student would like to try to switch to another team, he/she
has 24 hours to convince someone on the desired team to switch. However, no one is
required to switch.
o Only contact me after the switch is made to let me know. Do not involve me in any kind
of discussion or negotiation.
 The presentation to the company will consist of a presentation deck plus any back up analysis and
research that is appropriate
Grades
Grades will be based on class participation during the full class, collaboration during other groups’ weekly
presentations, weekly completion of assignments that will be presented to the class and the final
presentation (group, type A) to your company’s executives in the seventh/exam week. That deliverable for
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the presentation will consist of a presentation deck plus any back up analysis and research that is
appropriate.
Class Dates
Class 1
Class 2
Class 3
Class 4
Class 5
Class 6
Presentations
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Friday January 29
Monday February 1
Monday February 8
Monday February 15
Monday February 22
Monday February 29
March 1 through March 13
5:45 – 9 pm
5:45 – 9 pm
5:45 – 9 pm
5:45 – 9 pm
5:45 – 9 pm
5:45 – 9 pm
5:45 – 9 pm
CONFIRMED PROJECTS
Machinima
http://www.machinima.com/
https://www.youtube.com/user/machinima
About Machinima
Machinima is the most notorious purveyor and cultivator of fandom and gamer culture. The FIRST! Many2Many
programing service (M2M), we create, curate and celebrate the best fandom and gamer content across multiple
video platforms. As one of the largest online video platforms in the world, Machinima programs to a community
passionate about video games, animation, movies, TV, and the other endless forms of pop culture. With a
focus on scripted, topical and gaming programing, and a talent network of thousands of programmers,
Machinima reaches over 165M viewers each month.
The company was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. They are backed
financially by numerous companies including MK Capital, Redpoint Ventures, Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
and Google Capital.
The project
We are in the process of building distribution "off-YouTube" on platforms like Verizon Go90, Playstation VUE,
Vessel and Comcast Watchable. Those platforms seek partnership with Machinima because of our ability to
produce premium original content that can create consumer preference for a distribution partner's platform.
What makes Machinima uniquely suited to create content that drives consumer preference for fans of gaming
and fandom entertainment are two things:
(1) We partner with rights holders of globally recognized IP such as Transformers, Robocop and the DC
Comics universe to create re-imagined narratives in a way that Machinima is known for
(2) And/or we leverage our network of content creator influencers to either create content or to be cast in
our original productions, bringing along with them their audiences.
Overall, we want the class to evaluate our thesis as mentioned above and assess the feasibility via best
historical examples and best practices (including Machinima’s) for triggering audience call to action from one
platform viewing location to go consume a piece of content on another platform location.

Two general examples of this might be: (1) Twitter --> YouTube or (2) YouTube --> App Store. And
Machinima will provide historical examples of its past campaigns.)
To get the project started, among other information Machinima will provide

Historical examples of its past campaigns

A list of its top 100 content creators and their social media stats
The main question that we would like answered:
What are the top 5 to 10 Best Practices for driving consumer preferences to a new platform that will work for
Machinima’s project?
The information that we would like to see leading you to this answer are:
1. Identify what succeeded or failed in the Machinima case histories we give you
2. Identify at 6 to 10 additional non Machinima campaigns, successes or failures
3. Name the characteristics of campaigns that work
4. What have been the objectives of the most successful campaigns?
o Awareness?
o Download something?
o Buy something?
o Watch something?
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Forbes Media
http://www.forbes.com/
About Forbes Media
Forbes Media is a global media, branding and technology company, with a focus on
news and information about business, investing, technology, entrepreneurship,
leadership and affluent lifestyles.
The company publishes Forbes, Forbes Asia, Forbes Europe and ForbesLife
magazines, as well as Forbes.com and ForbesLife.com. Brand extensions include
conferences, real estate, education, financial services and technology license
agreements.
The Project:
Forbes Media wants to think about how to reinvigorate its print magazine. Published 24
times per year, Forbes magazine maintains a unique voice in its coverage of global
business stories and is positioned as the business read especially for those who don’t
want to read piles of business facts but need to know what to make of them. The
publication sells on the newsstand, and by subscription, and has a rate base
(guaranteed circulation for advertisers) of 900,000. A one-year subscription costs $20
for new subscribers. The median age of the reader is about 42 years old, and
men/women readers is 65%/35%.
Forbes is interested in developing a strategy to increase the number of subscriptions for
the North American edition of Forbes. Specifically, Forbes is interested in attracting
Millennials to be loyal subscribers. These readers may work in a variety of business
functions and industries to be developed.
The project will answer the following questions:
1. Looking at internal Forbes research, why did current customers subscribe to the
print version of Forbes? Does this differ by age? Why did former customers drop
the subscription?
2. What print products, if any, are attractive to Millenials?
a. What business media in print, if any, are attractive to Millenials?
3. Qualitative In depth interviews: What ideas can we benefit from through in depth
interviews with 3-4 publishers in non-competitive print/digital media properties
which are successful with this age group about why they think younger readers
like them?
4. Through fielding a qualitative field survey, find out what Millennials say about
a. What business publications they are reading that are in print
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b. What might make a print magazine such as Forbes appealing. What
promotional messages
5. Looking at Forbes’ current promotion and sales techniques, what can you
recommend to test that might improve the yield with Millenials? (price, promotion,
creative, etc.)
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eMarketer
What would be a potential acquisition target or deep partnership?
http://www.emarketer.com/
About eMarketer
eMarketer is a leading research firm, providing data, insights and perspectives for marketing for the digital
world. They collect virtually every study related to their coverage areas from thousands of sources
worldwide including other research firms, measurement companies, media and marketing agencies,
academic institutions, governments, and many more. They also interview hundreds of the most
successful and influential subject matter experts.
The company’s research helps marketers answer three essential questions: how consumers spend their
time, how consumers spend their money, and what marketers are doing to reach them to help customers
make decisions about strategies, tactics and budgets. They specialize in providing research about digital
marketing channels such as mobile, social media, email, display, video and search, as well as media
usage and demographic data, ecommerce insights, industry analysis and global metrics.
The Project
eMarketer has been growing substantially both in the number of clients we have, the number of
individuals within a client who access our research, and the industries where the clients work. We are
considering an acquisition or an exclusive partnership with an appropriate company that could help us
expand our client base, acquire more users with our existing pool of clients, provide more products for our
clients or help with our staffing challenges.
For this project, students will recommend which company or companies eMarketer should acquire or form
an exclusive partnership for a particular area of business which will be revealed to the team just before
class starts.
This will not be an exercise in valuation and banking. Instead, we want the team to match our operational
strengths and ambitions with firms that will complement our client base and product suite.
When the category/function/vertical is revealed to the student team, they will consider:
1)
What is eMarketer’s current activity in this area?
2)
How long has this category of products/solutions existed in its current form?
3)
What are the top information or media products in this area now? What companies own them?
How are these products distributed? How long did it take them to get to where they are now?
4)
If it is a product-oriented company, who typically accesses its products? Is there overlap with who
accesses eMarketer products?
5)
Can you estimate the size of the market for these kind of products? Can you forecast its growth?
6)
How would acquiring this company align with eMarketer’s growth strategy of increasing its number
of enterprise/companywide subscriptions, acquiring more seatholders within its existing customer
base, or increasing the size of its media business?
7)
What technologies or other assets does this company bring to eMarketer?
8)
9)
What are the biggest potential challenges and risks for this company and its growth?
Qualitatively, what do eMarketer customers think about the potential of these kinds of products?
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Major League Soccer
http://www.mlssoccer.com/
About MLS
Headquartered in New York City, and founded in 1995, Major League Soccer is the top-flight
professional soccer league in the United States & Canada and features many stars from the U.S. and
around the world. There are 20 teams in MLS.
The Project
“The Property and Commercial Development team at Major League Soccer was created to develop and
package marketing platforms for corporate partners. Working with the larger Marketing Team at MLS,
the P&CD group looks to leverage key platforms such as the MLS All-Star Game, MLS Cup, and other
current and future competitions to achieve the League’s goals of fan base development and revenue
growth.
The CBS project team will help develop a new marketing platform with the P&CD team. This new
platform will be developed to resonate with the MLS fan base while providing an opportunity for a
brand to take ownership of the platform. The project will breakdown into the following steps.
1.
Fan Intro. Leveraging various fan research resources provided by the P&CD team, the CBS
team will gain an understanding of the MLS fan base.
2.
Marketplace Survey. The CBS team will review other sports and entertainment properties to
look for unique and interesting examples of branded marketing platforms.
3.
Ideation. The CBS team will develop a series of thought-starter concepts. Consulting with the
P&CD team, the CBS team will select a platform to focus on.
4.
Platform Development. The CBS team will begin to develop the platform concept, piecing
together a high-level strategy to implement the platform.
5.
Marketing Channel and Partner Research. Further developing the platform, the CBS team will
articulate how the platform will leverage all available marketing channels (broadcast, digital, social, etc.)
to communicate with fans. The team will also look at which brands and brand categories would make
for an appropriate fit to own the platform.
6.
Final Platform Framework. The CBS team will present a final framework for the platform,
outlining all major considerations. It will then look to articulate how the platform would be activated if
a select brand were to take ownership.
MLS puts a premium on developing new, innovative platforms unprecedented in the sports
marketplace. That said, any platform proposed by the CBS team will need to be actionable in the next
18-24 months.
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