Fleurot spoke in an exclusive video interview with the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) ahead of the World Newspaper Congress next month, where he is a special guest speaker.
"One thing you have to realise is that online, we're all learning. It's very new. So it will take a lot of time to have reliable data, to really understand how efficient the web can be," said Fleurot, the CEO of PRCC (Public Relations Corporate Communications) and Publicis Events Worldwide.
"You know, it's not efficient in all cases at all. You will always need mass media when, for example, you launch a product on a very broad scale. So you know, you have to consider the traditional media as a sort of place where you understand what's going on, which is safe, and you must think of the web as a place where you are an explorer," he said.
Fleurot will be a special guest speaker at the World Newspaper Congress, World Editors Forum and Info Services Expo 2009, the global summit meetings of the world's press, to be held in Hyderabad, India, from 1 - 3 December 2009. The full video interview can be found at http://www.wanindia2009.com.
"Clearly, one thing that is absolutely key is to understand, especially after a terrible year like this year, is that advertisers are looking for return on investment. So the more you can offer on ways to measure return on investment, the better. And there are ways to do it," Fleurot said.
"I think newspapers still have a lot more to do towards providing more data, but quality data. It's easy to say, 'I have one million unique users a month.' But that doesn't mean anything. You need to go much further, and qualify who these people are, and, with the one million unique users, which ones can really be interesting for advertising," he said.
To help agencies target those audiences, news websites "need to offer a context that is of high quality. So, there, the question is, 'how do you distinguish your content from others, and why should people come to you?' I think there is only one solution: to be very specific about the content that you can deliver, and the quality of that content, and being the best in that segment of the market."
Fleurot, who is former chief executive of the Financial Times Group, is responsible for all communication activities of Publicis in public relations, corporate communications, financial communication and events management. He is among a slate of top-rank industry speakers who will examine new business and editorial strategies at the Congress, Editors Forum and Info Services Expo.
For more info, go to http://www.wanindia2009.com.
