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Choosing to be a pure-player means that you have to define your level of granularity.
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The definition of the audience implies the definition of the content.
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The idea of community means to facilitate the interaction with other passionate readers.
The 8th International Digital Distributors Meeting is organised once more by IPDA in collaboration with GSR Foundation within the umbrella of Readmagine. In this occasion the challenge proposed to the participants was to discuss how to ensure the positive pattern in book markets continues throughout the next few years. This idea was linked to the European approach of this edition and focused on the means to overcome some threatening trends that underlie those good results (namely, the bigger role of huge platforms such as Amazon).
One of the key issues when we think about the future of a European publishing business that is likely to succeed is dealing with the new behaviours of the audiences and the building or nurturing of communities as part of the business strategy. Usually when we talk about audiences and communities these elements are considered exclusively from the perspective of a marketing tool, but this session of Readmagine was designed to talk about the business opportunities and a way to better understand the market.
This session was moderated by Javier Celaya, a person who has an extensive experience in this publishing industry from the digital perspective. In this video you can follow the presentation by one of the three panellists: Luc Bourcier, who is the CEO of Izneo (France), an innovative digital graphic stories business which is number 1 in European markets.
Bourcier started his presentation clarifying that the goal of Izneo is not transform print readers into digital ones, but convert digital entertainment users into readers on their smartphones (because it is the central device for the potential readers of comics). This is a key insight because they started trying to convert from readers and that didn’t work. At the end of his presentation he explains to Celaya that now Izneo is focused on gain new readers from the goungest generation (millennials and Gen Z) such as the video gamers or other kind of consumers.
The short presentation by Bourcier explains his business model based on four ideas (mobility, reading comfort, personalisation and community):
- Mobility means that the model requires an experience based on reading on the move, anytime, anywhere on the smartphone. Discover and use IZNEO on many devices and platforms.
- Reading comfort implies reading smoothly thanks to a bespoke player.
- Personalisation with reading suggestions fitted to each one’s taste.
- And finally, the idea of community means to facilitate the interaction with other passionate readers and sharing their preferences with other users.
From the later perspective -which was the core topic of the session- Bourcier said that it is crucial to define the audience and being a pure-player means that you address specific communities, not everybody. Choosing to be a pure-player means that you have to define your level of granularity. There are always those who are more generalist or more specialist than yourself. In the case of Izneo, the definition of the audience implies the definition of the content and therefore the business model: comics, graphic novels, webtoons, manga and bande dessinée.
You can see the interesting presentation by Luc Bourcier in this video.
LUC BOURCIER is the CEO of Izneo, Europe’s leading digital comic platform. He has achieved most of his career in video games. In 1988, he launched the Sega brand in France and later managed regional subsidiaries of major international video games publisher : before joining izneo, he was Vice President Publishing Southern Europe for Codemasters. Graduated from Audencia Business School he also holds a PhD from Celsa Paris Sorbonne and an MBA “Marketing and Commerce on Internet”. He joined izneo when Fnac-Darty became a shareholder in izneo in 2016. Set up in 2010, Izneo allows you to discover, acquire and read the most extensive catalog in all genres of comics, bande dessinée, mangas
