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Brewing Community: How The Midcoast Villager is Redefining Local Journalism · Responsibly Different™

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Fireside, a responsibly different podcast where we spark candid conversations about media investments and the strategies shaping the way we connect.
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: Hi campers, chris Marine here, founder of Campfire Consulting, and I'm joined by my colleague and Campfire's head of strategy, david Gogel.
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: Today we're talking with Aaron Britt, publisher of the Midcoast Villager, a local Maine newspaper, doing something refreshingly bold.
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: They opened a cafe Not a rebrand, not a gimmick a real community-rooted space where journalism and coffee live side by side.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: In a time where most of our industry is racing toward automation and more screen time, this is a story about presence, about people, about why creating environments that spark real connection might just be the future of media.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: You'll hear us dig into the model behind the cafe, how it's supporting local journalism in new ways and why more brands are realizing that balancing investments across big tech and local media isn't just idealism.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: It's a smarter way to build value, trust and long-term connection in a world that's only getting more digital.
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: So pull up a chair.
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: Here's our chat with publisher Aaron Britt.
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: Just have to start out with the first question, like the origin story of this incredible endeavor that the Midcoast Villager is on.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: What was the origin story of starting up a cafe for the Midcoast Villager?
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Starting up a cafe for a newspaper.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: So the idea with the Villager Cafe was baked into the building of the Villager itself.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: The Villager is a roll-up of four historic papers here in Midcoast Maine, some of which go back into the 19th century, and the notion was that as we consolidate these papers, as we bring the staffs together historic papers here in Midcoast Maine, some of which go back into the 19th century and the notion was that as we consolidate these papers, as we bring the staffs together, as we imagine a new swing at local journalism in Midcoast Maine, that there would be, yes, the newspaper and yes, there would be a website and social and newsletters and all the stuff that a modern media company does, especially a modern media company rooted in a deep history of newsprint.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: But there also needs to be this embodied presence of the news.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: I think it's not news to talk about scroll fatigue, to talk about loneliness, to talk about disengagement, to talk about this, even if you're consuming a lot of news, odds are good.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: You're like not doing it with a paper in hand, in community with others, whereby you're sharing opinions.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: There's a lot more of sort of like scroll, scroll, scroll and then eventually you like shout at your wife.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Can you believe these knuckleheads?
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Whoever you perceive the knuckleheads to be right, and that's not a really nourishing way to consume information and share information and build community through news of the community.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: So the villager cafe is meant to be this embodied presence of the news.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: The editors of the paper me I'm the publisher of the paper we're in the cafe all the time.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: We're hosting events in the cafe.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: It is meant to be a community space that is an expression, an extension of the news brand, but also this entity in and of itself.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: That is a place to gather and eat and have a great cup of coffee and buy the paper and meet your neighbors and maybe you talk about the news, maybe you don't.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: But the notion was sort of like how can the paper build community?
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: And we thought a physical presence is a terrific way to take a stab at that.
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: And I know the cafe just opened.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: But like what are some of those early conversations that you're hearing in your is?
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: It is like the cafe newsroom, I guess.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: So I mean we're doing a handful of events, events which are really exciting.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: There's one actually today which, after we finish this conversation, I'll probably roll over and join where an editor from the paper is giving some insight to those who attend into like, how does news get made?
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: I think that is still sort of mysterious for people, you know, maybe younger people, or for those who are a bit more news skeptical.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: I think that's unfortunately just like a strain in society right now.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: And you know we're a paper for this community.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: We don't have a strong political slant or bias.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: We believe in strong, independent journalism, we believe in fact-based reporting, we believe in telling the stories of this community, and so revealing how that happens is a way to build trust.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Part of it is also just like talking to everybody who comes through.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: I was talking to a guy the other day and he was very complimentary, which is nice and gratifying, but my point of view is like thanks for the compliment, what could we do better?
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: And it's so interesting to ask people like what have you liked in the paper, what have you not liked, what do you want to see more of?
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: And it runs the gamut.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Some people are like so say, what did he say?
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: He said that he liked the paper a lot but he wished that there were more reporting about the outdoors.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: He said I want to see you know where should I go kayaking More hiking.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: I want to see sailing.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: We live in this really incredible state in Maine where there's loads of outdoor activities and I think he's right.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: In the early goings at the Villager, which launched in September 24, we've done a lot of outdoors reporting that has had perhaps more of a, you know, like tapping maple trees or like it's had a, I would say, more of a homesteader bent very much outdoors.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: We have a birding column.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: We report a lot on nature, sort of like botany, home stuff like that.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: But I think he's right, we should do more talking about the amazing hikes and swims that are here in our community.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: And so it was really great to hear from somebody a criticism that was really like to hear from somebody a criticism that was really like a piece of encouragement but also like it had it crystallized for me as I thought about our coverage.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: But I immediately thought of a reporter who I really like in the Bangor Daily News, a newspaper that is, you know, just a bit to the north of us a terrific paper that I subscribe to and I'm always happy to read and I get my Saturday print edition and there's a reporter in there who does a lot of their outdoor coverage and I look for her right away.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: And as soon as he said I want more of that, I thought about how much I value that in another main paper and I was like this dude's right, that's a great piece of feedback.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: I'm taking it to the newsroom.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: As a lot of people that will listen to this know, like my very beginning part of the career started in journalism and broadcast journalism, so I love this idea of you're actually, by creating this shared space, you're putting a face to what is really built for the community.
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: It's journalism is a pillar of our democracy and I'm curious to me it sounds so inspiring as I'm obviously not in news anymore, but like if I were to think back, if I were serving in news, I feel like this would be an exciting place to be, to hang out in the cafe, to get more of that feedback, because you're always trying to source for stories like what is the heartbeat of the community and I'm curious like so different from how and why.
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: I think to your point.
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: A lot of people think of journalism not representative of the voices of our democracy and culture.
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: It's because I think these people sit in an ivory tower, so I love that idea.
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: You are down on the main street USAs of the world, especially if more of this picks up.
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: How are the reporters, the rest of your staff, adapting to this cafe?
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: Is it well received by the rest of the team?
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: Are they excited to go there?
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think we've seen a really good response.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: Part of it is just, you know, the media landscape writ large is rough.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: It is really rough out there.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Papers drop all the time.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: They consolidate we had a big raft of main papers recently either move from print to just online or to diminish the number of days they come out per week.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: The macro narrative is one of contraction, not one of expansion, and so there's a kind of momentum that you don't typically feel in media right now and certainly not in small town papers, my God, going on at the Villager, and so that is super exciting.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: You hear it in the community.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of the staff feels that we've attracted a bunch of terrific new talent since launching.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: We were able to merge the four staffs of the previous papers.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: We didn't have to let anybody go and we've added on top of that.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: So show me a small regional paper that's adding staff.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: There just aren't that many of them out there, and so what I would say is this villager project is an exciting one and one that people are kind of sniffing around.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: We live in a community where interesting, innovative jobs but more like job singular sort of comes up once in a while.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: Oh, some organization is hiring a this right, and there's one of them, you know, and the villager as we've found our feet is like an interesting organization that has hired many people, and that's that doesn't happen all the time in communities like ours.
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: And that's kind of a good segue, I think, to why I'm so excited.
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: Since you first started talking about this before the cafe even opened, david and I were talking to you and I was so excited because it's a different way to rethink the business model of the modern era of journalism and the monetization structure has been broken for decades in media, like that's no surprise.
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: It's a mix of both.
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: I believe it's a mix of being served on the publisher and network side and on the sell side of media and on the buy side.
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: I can fairly say I feel that it's both parties.
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: Doing that has got us to this point.
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: But how is the cafe, or is the cafe supporting the monetization of the paper to support more jobs?
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: Are dollars, when someone picks up a coffee cup, is that going towards the paper or are they treated as separate entities entirely?
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: It's you know.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: So like we're all under the same umbrella.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: It is a different P&Ls right?
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: So I, as the publisher of the paper, I'm not responsible for the cappuccino pricing strategy, nor do I have to go find cheaper lettuce if times get tough.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: You know like I need to find cheaper paper if times get tough, but no, but what I would say is that it's the integration of the two right.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: So think about how we might want to sell on the villager paper side a kind of and we very much do want to and have sold big sponsorship packages.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know that involve events at the cafe.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: I'll give you an example of one that we did just in April with New England cancer specialists.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: They made a really big buy.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: That was like a wonderfully integrated mix of an event at the Camden Opera House which was attended by 300 people, this beautiful storytelling event.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: A follow-on to that is that we're going to have monthly support groups in the cafe for cancer survivors and thrivers.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: There was also an element of a bunch of full-page ads to promote New England cancer specialists and the care they can offer.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: They're down in Southern Maine but also have an office in Brunswick they're looking to promote, and it's that kind of integrated model that is like event plus ad buy plus physical presence in the cafe, like in aggregate.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: It is an incredibly powerful way to reach our audience right across a diverse number of channels and platforms.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: And then a way to like what advertisers really ought to do, if you ask me, is like make meaning in people's lives.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Yes, tell them what you make.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Yes, tell them when it's 15% off.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: But how do you actually like drive meaning, action and community?
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: I think that's what the paper has to do and it's what our partners have to do.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: It's like what we're searching for, writ large, is community and meaning and everybody's got a role to play and we offer an opportunity to play it together.
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: And I think that's a really exciting part, because that seems to be the trend where I know a lot of our team has been focusing on over the last say, two to three years is more on the direct-to-publisher side, because you can only get so much out of a programmatic digital social and you can do so much more if you're thinking about working directly with a publisher, thinking beyond just, I think a lot of people when we mention we think a portion of your investment should go towards newsprint.
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: So when we're talking about local journalism, like oh, but print no one's paying for the paper I'm like we're not always just talking about the paper, like we're talking about their digital footprint, their social footprint.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: And now to your point to be able to think about these experiential in-person events is a game changer.
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: Like it just takes the creativity and storytelling capacity one notch further than just thinking about placing half page full pages.
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: How many impressions are going to serve me on the website?
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: Those only go so far.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: So I love that idea and that there's more opportunity there, I think, across the board for more people to be thinking about the innovations you all are doing 100%.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: It also gets us doing these events, gets us more deeply rooted in the community.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Yes, we can host them in our cafe right, but we did something at the Camden Opera House, which has a much bigger footprint.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: Cafe seats 45, 50 people.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: If it's standing at a cocktail party, call it 100, right before the fire marshal starts knocking on our door.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: Totally different opportunity at a place like a beautiful old opera house in downtown Camden, maine, or a converted church in Rockport where we had a standing room only crowd 150, 200.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: I don't even know this event that we did all about affordable housing in Midcoast Maine.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: That was an opportunity to have a panel discussion.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: 17 different community partners and vendors were there, sort of showing their wares, ranging from it was Habitat for Humanity was there, folk from all over the state of Maine involved in green building.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: It was this kind of like fair expo panel hangout situation and you know we had a very generous benefactor who gave us the space and they were really happy with it.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: It's a way to be really stitched in with what I mean like speaking to other publishers.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: It is a great way to stay like stitched in with your big partners and to uh like be face to face with them, to be like doing something together that isn't a zoom call or going over a spreadsheet, but to actually like be in community and to see your community surrounding you, like that is so powerful and it's what everybody wants and it's a kind of thing that, just to your point, chris, isn't a reasonable output of what impressions by yeah, I mean, I think the main piece that we're, ever since starting Campfire years ago, I've always tried to share a way of thinking and educating clients about media planning and buying is I'll always be thinking about.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: To your point earlier that you said, aaron, it's like don't always think about what you're selling and, similar to what we say, we're like try to be thinking about what value you as a brand can be bringing to those people and what you as a brand can bring value to that publisher's brand and audience.
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: Because if you think about how can you serve, you have a trusted brand.
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: The Midcoast Villager is a trusted brand in itself.
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: You have your own audience and while that audience might be shared with the brands that we work with, our brands might be trying to reach that audience.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: It's like you have trust.
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: So how can we continue to build value and with your organization, your brand?
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: That's a different way of thinking for folks.
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: I think there's a lot more work that has to be done in regards to educating agencies and clients in regards to how they think about media buying.
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: But what are some ways, or maybe what are some challenges that you're that you might still be finding, where a lot of media buying today is still very transactional.
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: I'm sure you still have people coming to you saying like and not gonna lie.
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: Sometimes we're one of them.
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: We need something in the paper next week, you know.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: But it's like, but you want to be able to have the time to be able to be like, but we can do more.
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: So like is that it?
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: How are you guys evolving how you're educating clients about we can be doing so much more we can serve that.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: I got a text from a friend literally last night which was sort of like I want to place an ad.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: How do I do it?
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: What's going on, you know, and then you just you snap into action and you're like here's the media kit.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: The deadline is Friday at four.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Like this is how it works to get into next week's edition.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you about newsletters, if you want to know.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: It's about, like one of the huge benefits that we've got in Midcoast Maine and having such a terrific and seasoned and deeply rooted ad sales team who you guys have worked with right, some of these guys who've been selling ads for 30 years.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: They know everybody in the community and what we want to do is rely upon, anytime you're introducing something new, a new idea, a new product.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: That is the moment to really lean on the trust and the relationship that your sales team or in my case, my sales team has earned in the community, so that when they show up and say, hey, look, the villager is a new proposition with new products and we're doing this instead of that and we have a different attitude to X, y and Z, z that folk are ready to go along.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: So the first thing is just like those relationships Starting cold and being like hey, can I interest you in a gigantic partnership.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: You know, like nobody says yes to that on the first try, so it's about building that relationship.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: And then I think it's also like doing it a couple of times.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: Right, we've done two, three now big events events.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: We've got another big one coming up next weekend that we're doing in partnership with a local movie theater and a film institute and a local philanthropy.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: You, you have to like show people that you can do this, because it's cool to go into their office and say, like we're about events, we're about experiences.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Man, come, dig this, open your wallet.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: But what you need to do is actually pull off a couple, invite everybody that you know who has maybe the little glimmer of interest and help them see and feel what you can do.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: And it puts them.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: It's why people try to get you to test drive a car.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Right, it's not because you know this truck versus that truck is going to be significantly better driving around the block, significantly better driving around the block.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: What the salespeople want you to do is imagine yourself in this car, to get in it and sort of be like, yeah, I could drive this around town, I can get my kids to school in this car, I could drive to Boston once in a while.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: You know, it's the same sort of thing Like we want to get people into our events so they can see and feel what we're doing, so that they can start to imagine, right, you know what?
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: This reminds me of an idea that you know Sarah had two months ago.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: That was smart and we just didn't know how to do it because we're an insurance company, not an events company.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: But if you give them that entree to kind of like dream a little bit, it's so powerful.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: I'm just curious.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: One of the things that we often talk about is we're very lucky at our company to have a senior planner that understands the power of local.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: But especially at some larger agencies, even if, like, the local buyer understands the power that the local kind of engagement can have, because it's hard to figure out how it fits within a plan, it's very hard at the planning level to incorporate local.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: So kind of the dialogue that you and Kristen are having is very much about like, how do we move away from vanity media metrics and talk about the impact of investing in, like, local journalism and local platforms, kind of writ large, to use your language.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: So how are you thinking about that from a communication standpoint when you're talking to agencies and brands that want to engage but are struggling to figure out?
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: How are we tracking this?
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: How do we track engagement?
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: How do we track the long-term impact here?
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: Is that something that you're thinking about?
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Or, if not, kind of what's the dialogue you're having internally?
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so there's sort of like a high level and a low level.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Right, like the high level is like it is better to live in a community with an independent media source.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Right, like kids do better on tests at school there's loads of data on this Do you attract more jobs?
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: It is a more dynamic and interesting place to live and work.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: Like those communities and I feel for them that are in these news deserts, that don't have a kind of thriving and active and innovative source of media where folk are relying on either a national outlets, which are often more interested in your click than your community, or, you know, influencer innuendos or social media echo chambers or podcasters, who, who knows what their agenda is.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Right, if that's your sort of media ecosystem for a community, right, that's quite bad for the community, and so you have to make this argument again and again that it is better for everybody for us to have thriving, independent journalism in Midcoast Maine.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Right, and yes, the Midcoast Villager is a good bet for you to sell more of whatever you sell, but the macro bet is to create a place where, like, everybody wants to live and work and where your kids will stay.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Right, I mean, that's another piece of it, too, is like a paper or a media brand, I should say is a really important part of creating a thriving community.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: So you have to tell that story all the time.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Even if the output is a two inch by two inch ad on the front of the B section every other week, you know, you still have to tell that story.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: And then you want to tell the story as well of I think there's a bunch of like digital education that that we need to do.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: We like live in such an awesome, amazing community which ranges from like we've got nice regional banks and we also service like a million mom and pop shops, you know and what you have to.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: And mom and pop shops like it's not their job to be like super the most savvy digital marketers out there.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Right, they're like selling shoes and building community and like creating a place that we all know and love to go, you know.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: And so I think our responsibility, then, is to sort of be their surrogates.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Right, the sales team and the villager writ large needs to say, like we can help you get the word out.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Like a media brand can do a thing that your shoe shop can't do, because we're a different sort of company, for heaven's sake, you know.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: So help like, let us present to you sort of the best ways to reach our audience right with your message, and that means having a really clear channel strategy.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Somebody might say or might think you know, oh my God, I just I put my shoes on TikTok and I got 100,000 views right.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: And then what we want to say to that is, like, how many shoes did that turn into?
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: How many shoes did you sell from that?
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: Can you draw that connection?
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Because the packages that we can offer will help you, like, directly, draw that line from a spend or effort.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: Right, even if TikTok feels free, it's still effort.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: You know we can help draw that line between effort, spend and direct sales.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and totally Just on that.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: We talk all the time with our clients and partners about, like, this race to the bottom on performance marketing and how.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: Really what we should be doing is thinking about where are the spaces and the platforms where we can do kind of large scale brand building that will serve as a multiplier of performance down the road, and I think that's exactly what you're talking about.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: It's where can we truly like invest with a capital I in spaces that serve us long term, versus trying to race our competition to get efficient clicks and CPMs that can continuously seem to be getting out of reach for a lot of those brands that you're specifically talking about.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: So kind of.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: My last question there is are you seeing that happen?
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: Are you seeing kind of local main street businesses move from spending the bulk of their money on like let's just say, hey, I'm going to do an advantage plus meta campaign and move that money back to investing in these local kind of platforms?
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: What are you seeing on the ground?
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Yes, you know, anecdotally, like I was recently in a store here.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: They sort of like sell big ticket items, sort of like a big home store, and I was asking you know, like, tell me about your digital marketing mix?
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: And he's like, oh, I do he Tell me about your digital marketing mix?
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: And he's like, oh, I do, he's buying Google ads or something like that.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: And he goes and yet I feel like I'm competing with myself on these.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: And there's also moments where, like I don't totally know if they're working, and like I should be better at analytics, and it was almost like this guy had bought these because it seemed smart Buy Google ads.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Like what are you going to do?
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: You're going to, like, put pamphlets up around town?
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: No, forget it, be smart, buy Google ads, you know.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: And there wasn't.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: He didn't have any sort of support that helped him understand the value of what he was buying, right, and you know, maybe he's able to pull down reports, maybe he can make sense of them, maybe he can't, maybe he's a busy dude trying to run a store right, and not trying to be, as I said, the most savvy digital marketer under the sun.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: And then, and here's the thing is like, nobody comes in, he wasn't getting any sort of anecdotal feedback.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: Nobody is like, hey, I saw your Google ad the other day, when they you know, when they come into the store to like buy a new stove, right, but people do say I saw you in the paper.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that was great.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Oh, I was reading a story about X, because you know local basketball, local basketball matters to me.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: My grandson is on the team.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: I want to see how he did.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: I saw your ad and people get that sort of feedback from local media because local media has like a high degree of penetration in the community.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: And I think that's the thing where it's sort of like whoever said like, oh to like I don't know the like CEO of Adidas, which was like I love those Taboola, like SponCon things I see at the bottom of ESPN stories, those are like so, so wonderful.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: I get all my great advertising from Outbrain.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Like that is just like such trash, so wonderful.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: I get all my I get all my great advertising from Outbrain.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: Like that, it is just like such trash.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Online, you know.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: And I think that people are interested in supporting their community and they get the sort of feedback that feels right, you know, from from people in the community, and what we have found is that is incredibly valuable.
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: One of my kind of final questions is we've talked a lot about how this works from the brand perspective and from the publisher's perspective, how this cafe is opening up new avenues for brands to engage, for the community to engage.
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: But there is still a lot of question around to your point, around like someone looking at ESPN or other media how do we get people to care more about their local media presence?
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: Like, take out the advertisers, take out the brands?
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: Like, how do we get the everyday people, how do we get younger people to be caring more and understanding, being more media literate of?
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: Like this is the impact and just to kind of give you one more like moment to stir on that question, there's a really I love what you're talking about earlier, like how the ripple effect of local media, because there's a great piece by the LA Times last September.
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: They looked at a community I believe it was in Northern California where the local press went away.
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: And they're like, when the local press went away, what tried to get started up was a brand.
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: An oil company tried to start up a local newspaper themselves and the ripple effect from that of that lack of holding people, everything from their local politics accountable, everything they talked about, the ripple effect on education, on healthcare, on taxes, on local economy, like that ripple effect when that paper went away was huge.
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: How do we get more people to understand that everyday reader, to understand, like the, how critical media is to their, to their well being, Not sound overdramatic and like make it sound too important because there are other important things in the world but it is important?
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: It's really important.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: I think what you have to do is you have to tell real, meaningful stories about the community, especially in a place where there are very few sources of media.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: You have a pretty captive audience.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: You have lots of people in Midcoast Maine who care about where they live, who want to know what's going on, who you know.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Some of them will be like political junkies, like what's going on with the vote in June on the dam?
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: Are we going to remove the dam or not?
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Like some people are going to care a lot about that.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Others want to see sports scores.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: It is amazing how many people love obits and deed transfers and public notices.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: Like there's an.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: You want to see local crime.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: You want to know what's going on.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: So it's like people are innately curious about the world around them and about the community that they see.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: And I think that it is easier for people to judge the value and the veracity of local media because this is where they live.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: Right, when you write a story about something going on down on Main Street, you know that's different than like backdoor deals in Congress.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: I have no way of assessing or knowing what backdoor deals are going on in Congress.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: I don't know these people right.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: They're certainly not telling me, but I can go walk down Main Street and I can see that in fact there are six shuttered stores.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: What's going on down there?
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: This is a problem.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: What are we going to do about it?
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: And then, if I can read in the paper about what's going on, who's trying to solve these problems?
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: What are some local issues?
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: How might I get involved?
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: You know there's this element of participation that local media can spur, that I think national media cannot, and it is really tapping into people's sense of action and recognition and affection for their community.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: And so you want to hold local government to account and you also want to report on like why this is a magical place to live, because that's as much a part of the feeling of this place as following the select board and what's going on in the schools and figuring out what's going to happen in this bond measure.
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: I have to say from a brand perspective we work with regional national brands.
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: The most successful national campaigns we've run is when we've taken the media dollars that they had and invested both on a national footprint from an efficiency perspective, but then spend a sizable enough portion of that budget on local media in specific markets.
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: And we were able to see in the markets where we were placing local media through there were spikes.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: So it's like just to show that to your point, like national media only is so sticky and engaging for people that when you look at the actual everyone talks about attention as a currency.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: These days we don't talk about attention as a currency.
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: Local media is where people are more attentive.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, and I would say one of the things that we were just going over traffic yesterday, and it is fascinating to see that you know.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: So we're in mid coast, maine, I think it was the month to date highest traffic comes from the town of Rockland, which makes sense.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: It's the biggest town in the region.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Second highest was Boston, right, and, like New York, was higher than lots of towns.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: You know, what I would say is that, in the case of Maine, I can't speak for every region, but because we have such a big summer population, because there's so much affection for Maine all across the country, we are finding that our readership is surprisingly more national than you'd think.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: If you go down the I-5 corridor, and then also Florida and also Georgia, like you know, there's a higher readership in Florida than some of the really small towns in Maine, and I mean that makes sense, right, Florida is a hell of a lot bigger than a town of 300 in, you know.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: But what it means, though, is that people from elsewhere are looking at what we're doing at the Villager, simply because they have this strong connection to Maine, and one of the things that the Villager is trying to do is foster and create connection between people and the place that they love.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: And whether you live in Boston for part of the year and you're up here in the summer, whether you live here year round, like the mission remains the same, and I think that advertisers would be wise to and we need to do a better job telling the story.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: But they'd be wise to remember and understand that even what feels like a local or regional market often has a bigger reach than they think.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: And from an investment perspective, people have to understand to everything you just said, that when comparing CPMs, CPMs are not equal.
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: You cannot compare a digital banner CPM to what something, especially when you're talking about a much deeper engagement than just what would the actual CPM come out to with this print digital component?
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: And then how many people are showing up to this event?
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: How do we back into the math of what that comes out to in a CPM?
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: It's like metrics are important when thinking about how to invest your brand's dollars into media, but also it's important to understand the actual impact of your presence there.
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: But also it's important to understand the actual impact of your presence there.
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: So I hope, as I lead to my last question about your vision for the future, my vision for the future and what I'm hoping for and what we're working here to do at Campfire is to help educate the brands that we work with that cheap rates have to go away from our conversation.
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: This idea of, well, we're going to hire an agency because they're going to break kneecaps to get us the cheapest rates.
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: That's not the goal.
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: The goal for any brand should be fair, and you know because we've held your pub accountable for being like hey, well, we're working with other pubs and the rate in the market is this Is there any there there to get to this point?
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: Fair rates and make sure that people understand the value of their dollar and that not every dollar is one for one when comparing platforms.
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: If we can do that, I think we can.
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: I think our media ecosystem as a whole can become more whole again.
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: But there is a lot of work that has to be done in order to make sure that publishers can monetize in a way that works to build up, to build what they need to build, to bring value to the community and for brands to be able to succeed.
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: But what's your vision a year from now?
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: What's your vision for Midcoast Villager and beyond?
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: Maybe you're having conversations with other publishers who are asking you about how's this cafe working for you.
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: What's your vision?
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: We've gotten a lot of attention.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: You know, somebody came through from Condé Nast Traveler.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: They got in touch with us like minutes after the cafe opened.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: I don't even know how they heard about it, frankly, but yeah, we've gotten a lot of attention for it.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: I think ultimately, like the bigger vision ultimately for media is that we have relied for too long on a market transaction, namely the selling of subscriptions and ads, to fuel what has to be viewed as a public good.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: I really strongly believe that, that the health of a community requires independent journalism to hold local officials to account, to tell us what's going on.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: My spiel is that if the villager is doing its job, you have the information to vote your conscience.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: You also know what to do.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: Saturday night, you saw your neighbor's kid score two goals.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: You know reading about the soccer recap and you also met somebody in the paper who you never knew before.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: But you're like obsessed with what they're up to right, like that's the vision for what we need to do in the paper and communities like that is paramount.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: That's a vision of, like a healthy community.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: So what we have to do is, yes, we have to earn more money.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: Yes, we have to bring our advertisers along.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, we have to build the subscriber base, but ultimately, for a paper like the Villager, we need partners who recognize the value of a paper, of a media brand to the community.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: That's the big thing.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: You know, could we?
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: I just, I honestly don't believe that we can get to a place where we can sell enough ads for this to be a break even operation.
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: I would love to be a break-even operation.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: I 100% agree.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: I would love to be wrong.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: I also don't.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: I think that, like, maybe it would take like everybody in Midcoast Maine subscribing to the paper to make it a sustainable business effort.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: What we have to do is go after and help build those big ticket partnerships that are a mix of like really smart investment of those dollars and a kind of broadness and generosity of spirit that recognizes that one of the most important ways to be a pillar of this community, to show up for your community because loads of businesses love to talk about how they're all about the community right and, and what I want to say is like, prove it this.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: This is a thing that is paramount to the health of this community and we can do a lot for you.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: We can deliver an audience, we can create cool events, we can create meaningful and memorable experiences for people, but that is not going to happen a thousand impressions at a time.
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: Yes, I am nodding my head, for no one can obviously see us.
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: I'm nodding my head the whole time like that.
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: You are, yeah, yes.
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: So, aaron, thank you so much for sharing this.
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: I have to have you back.
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: We're obviously gonna be in talks with you, but just to keep other people informed with how the cafe is doing, how Midcoast Villager and your other other additions are doing.
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: So, thank you for everything that you do and for what the staff does at Midcoast Villager.
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: We appreciate you, sir.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: Oh, I appreciate that.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: Thanks a lot.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: I'm always happy to chat.
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: Well, friends, thanks for joining us around the fire.
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: We hope our conversation with publisher Aaron Britt gave you a new perspective on the power of local journalism and how building real world spaces can help anchor stories in the communities they serve.
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: If today's conversation resonated with you and you want to stand behind the future of trusted local journalism, stop scrolling and subscribe, tune in, do whatever you need to do.
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: Journalism, both local and national, has never needed your attention more.
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: Where you spend your attention drives the media landscape.
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: Brands are investing deeper, based on where and how you engage At Campfire.
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: We know this firsthand because that's what we do.
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: So if you want to see change in your community, go grab the paper or, in this town's case, grab a coffee while you're at it.
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: Now I've got a shameless plug here, but it's for good causes, so I feel great about it.
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: May marks eight years since I started Campfire and to celebrate, we've launched the Responsibly Different Shop, where our values and advocacy can now be worn on your sleeve literally.
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: I'll be worn on your sleeve, literally.
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: Every item is ethically made and 50% of profits go directly to nonprofit partners working across social and environmental justice.
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: In honor of today's episode, we've released a limited edition tee that supports US journalism, nonprofits and independent newsroom initiatives.
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: It's a small way to make a statement and help fund the kind of storytelling that keeps communities informed, connected and empowered.
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: You can find our special Democracy Needs Journalism tee at shopcampfirecom.
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: If you liked what you heard today, leave us a positive rating or review.
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: It helps more people discover these important conversations.
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: Until next time, keep tending to the fire that fuels positive change.