Prior to commissioning a detailed business plan for a new venture, clients often want to “kick the tires” and see if there is any interest in an idea from prospective customers, or if market forces exist that might prevent the business from becoming profitable.
Prior to commissioning a detailed business plan for a new venture, clients often want to "kick the tires" and see if there is interest from prospective customers and whether the business idea is sound.
Cole Media's relationships with senior level executives at major media companies in the U.S. and internationally enable the consultants to reach out directly to potential customers to assess their interest. From these discussions, recommendations and product plans can be created, or suggestions made as to how to refine the proposed services in order to best achieve strong operating results. Conversations can also be also held with potential suppliers, programming providers, and competitors, so that the current market for the proposed services is well understood.
Particularly given the current flux in media markets as the results of new digital services, it is important to separate hype from facts. Cole Media gives clients an up-to-date, very current snapshot of market realities for all types of digital businesses, and collects state-of-the-art data on realistic operating results.
Examples of projects where Cole Media has conducted Market Assessments of proposed services include:
- Book TV - Investigated the potential to set up an online business targeting book lovers.
- News Agency (ART, Islamic Chamber of Commerce) - Interviewed senior level executives from the major news organizations around the world to assess the feasibility of creating a for-profit news agency providing news on the Middle East from a local perspective.
- European Media Ventures - Assessed the business strategy for terrestrial television investments in Eastern and Central Europe.
- Spanish language cinemas – Reviewed the potential market to create a cinema chain in the U.S. dedicated to Spanish language films.
- Technicolor - Conducted customer interviews to explore the feasibility of proposed new global facilities businesses.
- SDI - Interviewed customers to evaluated the potential for SDI to provide additional digital and other services to its global clients.
- TV Guide – Investigated potential for additional sales of data to new markets.
- Withoutabox – Estimated revenue from several possible areas of business expansion over digital media.
- ADV – Investigated likely path to development of Russian media market based on trends in other international markets, for one of the leading advertising agencies in Russia.
- GSN- Assessed opportunities for creating international versions of GSN in several markets.
- HBO Latin America – Evaluated potential expansion into the provision of VOD programming.
