star tribune best buy the article

star tribune best buy the article

The Impact of Star Tribune’s Partnership with Best Buy: A Case Study

1. Introduction to Star Tribune and Best Buy

Star Tribune’s new work involved giving readers information about where to purchase the firms’ recommended products. The companies vary widely in terms of industry, from health foods to clothing retail, personal care products, car care services, and consumer electronics. Moreover, several customer services companies were pioneers in writing annual ratings and reviews of products manufactured by many of these companion organizations. With 40,000 part-time or temporary professionals, it is estimated that customer service workers support 520 experienced representatives and fund this quickly growing and wide-ranging operation. Star Tribune outperforms competitors with a digital, operational approach that is unprecedented. Star Tribune reaches educated adults who enjoy reading news, preparing meals, following trends, and researching travel destinations through the sharing of information and analysis. An increased number of companies and referrals are desiring to associate with Star Tribune. Unlike many classified setups that compare the customer’s requirements with organizations in their databases’ stocklists and still leave it there, Star Tribune joins forces with customers as appropriate. It was possible for both Best Buy and the Star Tribune to build successful community events because of this peculiar affinity. The shared interests between the two were the driving force behind Best Buy’s funding of Star Tribune’s talent slam and the Star Tribune’s father of the year recognition.

Star Tribune has been a media organization for more than 140 years. Located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Star Tribune has transformed significantly and has positioned itself as a digital-first media conglomerate. The enterprise was founded by Colonel William S. King and supported by the Whipple family goodwill, as well as other companies. Alongside information reporting, Star Tribune’s previous business interests include operating the Interlachen Country Club and banking, broadcasting, and regular book publishing. Star Tribune has significantly broadened its opportunities for readers, marketers, and workers alike by capitalizing on correspondences and considering invested person audiences, which have been crucial to the company’s growth and reputation. As of 2016, these partner organizations provide an increased selection of tickets to shows and concerts and a wider range of technologies than in the past. This full offering serves clients both online and in-store. With nearly 1,200 retail locations, these shops or points of sales locations serve more than 1 billion consumers annually. More than 70,000 representatives help clients online and over the phone at these operational locations, with several others working in corporate or call center roles.

2. The Evolution of Print Media in the Digital Age

The industry’s solution to the situation centers around partnerships. As print revenues fall, newspaper companies, including Spectate marketer StarTribune, are looking to create partnerships. In business, partnerships might involve merging with another company or combining services, and while The StarTribune is not merging with Best Buy, it is in the process of creating a co-op agreement. The situation intensifies the company’s need to rethink its reasons, underlying and apparent, for having more than one information redistribution channel to get the word out to as many consumers as possible. Huge changes are happening as businesses acknowledge they are being locked into a new media model where people read news (and chat about news) when, how, and with whom they want on the devices of their choice.

A survey from the Minneapolis-based Newspaper Association of America, Information, and Trends In Digital Media, states that 36 percent of adults prefer to read their news online, whether it be from a computer, mobile device, or other electronic tool. About 23 percent of people said they plan to get their main news from online sources in three years, compared to 18 percent who say they will mainly watch TV and 14 percent who say they will mainly read a print version of their local newspaper.

Changing media consumption habits in a digital age have made many long-standing traditional media companies focus on the changing environment affecting their own futures. In the case of spectators, many still read the print edition, but many also read it online, without purchasing the print edition or subscribing to the online edition. The way the company makes money from such readers is also changing, undercutting old business models.

3. Strategic Partnerships in the Media Industry

These are some of the questions addressed in this case study of recent strategic partnerships by the Minneapolis Star Tribune and Best Buy to share content and technology—news articles at the newspaper and expert opinion at the retailer—and to distribute a free copy of the Sunday Star-Tribune at a tick of those entering and exiting Best Buy stores. Such a case study featuring two major corporations in converging industries warrants close examination of the challenges, opportunities, and debates that surrounded—or aspirationally spanned—both firms. The question here of close concern to journalism, management, and economics is to what extent and in what ways these two companies and their communities of stakeholders—both the actors and those audiences to whom their products were and are being sold or distributed—share common values, culture, and forms of sociability.

A closer look at the media industry these days throws up some intriguing trends. The recent past has observed the emergence of quite a few alliances, partnerships, and joint ventures. A good number of these are on digital distribution and video-related platforms, but there are other very noteworthy pieces of news that pertain to business media, and they are equally about tie-ups or mergers of newsletters, research services, and journals. We were told over and over at conferences and through news reports that such partnerships could potentially be assets in the competitive landscape, but only scant research attention has been given to them and the implications of partnerships or alliances for a media firm, either in terms of strategic management or economics more generally. Why would media firms forge such partnerships with other media companies, digital vendors, or technology firms? What purpose do the partnerships serve? What are the risks and competitive advantages of such partnerships—of collaboration in neutral journalism or across media platforms involving endorsements and shared content or services?

Partnerships in the media industry

4. Analyzing the Benefits and Challenges of the Star Tribune-Best Buy Collaboration

Best Buy is a multinational retailer, specializing in consumer electronics. The business responded quickly to the Covid-19 pandemic by building new service offerings around essential living: the sale and distribution of physical computing hardware and devices for remote work/school, digital streaming and entertainment to relieve homebound leisure boredom, and healthy home and sanitizing products for retail. Working in the fast-tracked chain of Covid-pioneered technological devices, tracked tech repair, and broken-thing consultation sales is as new to the Star Tribune as it is to Best Buy, which makes it interesting. For the Star Tribune, the project would present an immersion in reader schools made up of the social strivers, with whose worries they’d seek to resonate from within. Creating a compelling 360-degree, reader-eye view of Covid’s impact on normal work—particularly the minutiae of necessary homebound supplies—would push reporters and photographers in new and unfamiliar reporting directions and would obligate sales, digital customers, and distribution to respond. It would also allow the Star Tribune to engage in tech advertising, which is atypical for its pages. Welcome to Week One of Essential in Business & Essential/Money, perhaps the first collaboration of its kind in a city our size in America.

This case study will examine the Star Tribune’s Business & Essential initiative, launched in partnership with global electronics retailer Best Buy in response to the US’s first Covid-19 lockdown. It analyzes the reach and revenue potential of the newspaper-retail alliance, the new skills the Star Tribune has been able to employ and expose in themselves, the particular obstacles news-entertainment products face—the sources of tension they carry—and obstacles increasing the complexity of those collaborations, and reflects on the benefits and limits of a local-news collaborative demand-driven by a national player in a capitalist democracy. The aim of the case study is to open up creativity matters discussions between news, communication studies, and broader curriculum.

VI. Assess the impact of collaboration on institutional engagement initiatives and the field. Suggested length: Up to 1500 words.

5. Future Prospects and Innovations in Media Partnerships

Additionally, as the iPhone becomes mainstream, more and more companies are finding innovative ways to reach out to consumers through mobile applications, further blurring the boundaries between advertising, entertainment and technology. All of these above settings are indeed fertile ground for the exploration of media collaborations, and in particular, the coming few years would be conducive for ventures combining tech, media and business. As such, the future for media partnerships is appearing increasingly bright. Industries, including local media and technology companies, are finding that in a media-saturated environment, competing in the commercial space, whether for brand loyalty or information delivery, often requires a multi-faceted approach, and inventive media partnerships are seen as valuable tool for building trust, providing reliable information, and working together to enhance customer experience. Innovation in this space, as evident from the partnership, advances both the businesses and the public toward a synergy which provides a more complete consumer experience.

Despite the popularity of media partnerships, utilities in the space are varied and the rise of new media creates the need for further innovation in the field. Drawing upon the partnership, the paper highlights new possibilities for future collaborations as media companies search for new revenues to replace those lost in the classified ad section and elsewhere. Tomorrow, businesses of all kinds are expected to concentrate on driving brand engagement and that will require the integration of technology, digital media and business models among other things. Integration of technology – for example, web-based tours or GPS-assisted coupons – will be all the more necessary as the behavior of consumers continues to evolve.