Media M&A Fan Fiction
"Predicting" 2024's Big Deals
It’s going to be a big year for media mergers and acquisitions. Warner Brothers Discovery will be able to sell itself again come April, Paramount Global might as well be a property on Billion Dollar Listing, the NFL might buy part of ESPN, and billionaires aren’t having fun owning newspapers anymore.
So I thought it would be fun* to play Media M&A Fan Fiction and imagine some deals that definitely won’t happen but would make life a lot more interesting for amateur market watchers and media semi-professionals. (Important note: this is a thought exercise, so don’t @ me if some of this nonsense would violate anti-trust laws or the basic rules of market dynamics; it’s been 25 years since I took an economics class and the only thing I remember is something about a free lunch.)
TikTok Spins Off From ByteDance and Buys TJX
It’s unlikely that China’s ByteDance will be forced to divest TikTok, but that hasn’t stopped western saber-rattlers from calling for them to do so. But to create some possibilities, let’s pretend they will. Then what?
What about back a backdoor merger with retailer TJX, operator of TJ Maxx, Marshalls, and Home Goods? It might seem ridiculous until you compare what the two companies excel at:
TikTok has mastered the algorithmic organization of the longest tail of digital video, the perfect embodiment of the addictive power of content.
TJX has mastered the operation of bringing off-price items to shoppers by creating a treasure hunt that turns a hopeful discovery into a retail addiction.
TJX hasn’t been able to translate their magical sense of discovery into an e-commerce experience, so who better to help them do it than the engineers of TikTok? In many ways, TikTok is already the content version of the off-price shopping experience, fueled by anticipatory thumb scrolling the same way TJX is fueled by anticipatory rack swiping. Imagine the retailer’s entire inventory fed into TikTok’s content algorithm and you have the ultimate recreation of their in-store experience.
The Unholy Alliance: Twxtter + Associated Press + the Advertising Holding Companies
The more factual part of this fiction: Elon Musk is very likely to drive Twxtter out of business. What if he does it so expediently that there’s an opportunity to salvage the bones of the operation (hundreds of millions of dormant but theoretically registered users) in a resurrection?
Twxtter is still an ideal delivery mechanism for news (the failure of the Peregrine moon lander a few weeks ago was announced on the platform, for example), and as news organizations around the world continue to flail, there’s a desperate need for efficient news aggregation.
So once Elon runs the current version into the ground, the Associated Press or Reuters can come along and buy the remnants for pennies on the ruble, clean up the riffraff, and use the platform as a consumer-facing version of the newswire. The clean up? Turn off comments, quote tweets, and DMs and aggressively moderate trending topics, which are purely volume-based. (See how easy that was?!)
Of course, the AP or Reuters couldn’t afford to maintain the platform on their own, so the third leg of this unsteady stool is the advertising holding companies. They’re being squeezed by the digital platforms and clients looking for ever-lower media costs. Keeping (or restoring) another major digital platform could help mitigate the dominance of Meta, Google, and Amazon. So Publicis, WPP, Omnicom and the rest form a joint venture to with the AP (and international equivalents) to keep Twxtter viable and turn it into the ultimate contextual-targeting ad platform.
Paramount/National Amusements Takes Over Macy’s
Apparently Macy’s entire business is worth less than the value of its real estate holdings. (I don’t know how this is possible, but I’m assuming they covered it all the business classes I didn’t take.) Similarly distressed, Paramount Global (and its parent company National Amusements, which mostly owns movie theaters) are desperate to sell but can’t find a buyer willing to pay a premium.
So, in this farcical scenario, they just buy Macy’s instead. Take all of Paramount’s intellectual property and storytelling excellence and apply it to the newly combined real-estate empire, creating immersive entertainment opportunities that can reinvigorate retail shopping and cinema-going.
Why combine two failing businesses that are over-invested in two declining industries? That’s the entire history of recent Hollywood mergers!
The Thanksgiving parade will get a lot better, too.
Netflix Buys Match Group and Encourages Password Sharing Again
Almost every agency brainstorm I was ever in generated some version of this idea: utilize streaming data to fuel dating app algorithms! But I’ve never seen it executed in an interesting way.
Netflix should just do it themselves, recognizing that streaming content compatibility is the most important aspect of a 21st century relationship. And to make sure this silly acquisition actually adds some consumer value, Netflix will let you share your password for up to three months after the first date, building loyalty and speeding these relationships along!
What Does It All Mean?
If you didn’t catch on already, the point of this stream of absurdity is that maybe the struggling (or even thriving) media companies should pour more energy into forging unique partnerships that can transform their businesses, instead of squeezing cost savings out of acquisitions and layoffs. When corporate creativity is limited to the accountants, it not only hurts the companies, it severely limits opportunities to create new relationships with consumers.
This Week’s Whimsies
My friends at AI consultancy Rehab Agency put out their 2024 marketing industry forecast and it’s worth a read.
I’ve never gotten into Anime but I’ve always wanted to (same with Dungeons & Dragons and Muay Thai fighting), but this quick report on Anime fandom was eye-opening in how its popularity is booming.
This piece in Scientific American about how “Consciousness is a Continuum” made my head hurt, in a good way, and made me think about the importance of transitioning between mental states (type of focus, work/play, restful/energized) in order to maximize our time.
Apparently “Heritage Tourism” (traveling to a place of ancestral roots) is a growing industry trend, which Ancestry and 23AndMe are partially fueling. I’m hopeful we’ll start to see more Legacy Tourism, where you go to places that are growing/emerging but are threatened by long-term effects of climate change.
Upcoming Topics
A preview of thoughts that are coming together for future posts...
Super Bowl Ads Reaction! (MEDIA/MARKETING)
Something about digital identity related to the French Revolution (MEDIA)
How Taylor Swift Can Save the MCU and Other Lessons for Cultivating Fandoms (MARKETING/MEDIA)
When to make the Performance to Brand Leap (MARKETING)
Storytelling in Business Settings (MARKETING, but also, LIFE)
Death & Marketing: A Match Made in Purgatory (CULTURE)