VICE MEDIA: COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE AND GLOBAL EXPANSION
During this class period, we studied VICE Magazine as a case study of global expansion. Beginning in 1994 as a Canadian magazine, VICE has since evolved into an award-winning, global media company characterized by an "immersionistic" and "character driven" journalism.
Covering content that no one else would, sending correspondents to accompany the Harlem Globetrotters to North Korea, VICE earned its reputation as an edgy and brash brand.
From its humble origins as a free monthly culture magazine in Montreal, VICE now offers free print and digital media in thirty countries around the world. Using a "layering" strategy in its multimedia platform, VICE content was complementary across formats rather than repetitive. VICE used video, print and graphics to tell different parts of the story, rather than the same one over.
Earnign money through advertising revenue and advisory fees, geographic diversity was key to bringing in the revenues VICE needed to sustain itself. However, the key to VICE's global success has been its ability to strike the appropriate balance between standardization and local responsiveness.
We were joined by several content creators and producers from VICE who were able to build upon what we learned and answer our questions.
First, we watched a VICE report to get a firsthand look at VICE's content. The report, which was about the rape on college campuses, discussed the discontenment of many students at how their administrations handles rape cases. The individual who worked on the piece was present and able to talk us through some of the journalistic ethics involved in (whose names were used, whose faces were used, whether hidden camera tactics are ethical, etc.) I was struck by the edginess of the piece- the informality in the reporter's attire, the editing style, and the brash approach toward a touchy subject matter. At times I felt that the piece was stepping beyond the line of journalistic objectivity, telling more of the story of the rape victim than the (sometimes falsely) accused.
Then, joining us via Skype, VICE Executive Producer BJ Levin gave an insider perspective on VICE's strategy for success. Despite his being sick and not present in person, Levin's candor and charisma made this session one of the most interesting. Levin talked about how VICE was able to carve out a space for itself in the highly saturated media business. With little to no barriers to entry, content creation can be a very crowded space. Counterintuitively to me, however, Levin stated that it is actually easier to capture market share in a space where there are many small competitors rather than trying to depose one of a few large ones. I also had some questions for Levin about VICE's global supply chain as I wondered about the intricacies (or lack thereof) in a supply chain for primarily digital content. Levin told me that there are in fact distribution challenges for digital product such as Internet censorship and deciding which servers and hosts to route the content through.
The Takeaways:
I greatly enjoyed this class session. Similar to the IKEA sessions, we had the chance to study a company and then deepen our understanding through firsthand perspectives of company leadership.
My first takeaway from this session was one that we heard repeated throughout many of our case studies of global expansion- having the right person "on the ground" in the target country is nothing less than critical. We saw this in the instances of Wal-Mart and IKEA as well. VICE needed to make sure it had the right people in country to disseminate the VICE culture, especially considering how important brand essence is to the VICE model.
Also interesting to me was the evolution of VICE. As we learned, VICE did not initially have a business model. It wasn't until realizing the imperative of global expansion that VICE actually set up its business framework. It intrigued be how a company which began and operated so organically could transition into a strategic, competitive, global enterprise.
Despite being sick, Levin's energy and candor brought the session to life.
competiton, global supply chain
Supply chain We
