If you’ve been reading the site lately, you probably noticed that certain phrases are seemingly playing on repeat.  They are Naked’s four truths, and are explained here.

One of our truths is “See the Full Picture”.  This phrase usually refers to Naked’s role in addressing the many components that factor in a brand’s performance.  Sometimes the full picture is somewhat obvious, like recognizing that the consumer’s purchase cycle is often more complex than we give it credit for.  It gets even more interesting when we are tasked with hidden issues, such as realigning the structure of a marketing department, or straddling a brand’s goals against disparate retailer goals.

Today’s application of “See the Full Picture” is a bit different, as we consider the decline of newspapers.  Their fall, once gradual but now speedy, has been documented for years.  With today’s closing a major player, The Rocky Mountain News and the predicted collapse of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer  and the San Francisco Chronicle , the day of reckoning is finally upon us.

As the problem has become dire, many have chimed in with proposals for revamped business models  (online subscription and micropayments comes to mind).  However, neither of these solutions would address the immediate issues plaguing the ones who will be shutting their doors: massive debt, and accounting write-downs.

In Ad Age, Nat Ives wrote an eye-opening article on the issue.  He writes “publicly owned newspapers averaged an operating profit of 10.8% in the first three quarters of last year.”  Granted, this is way down from the glory years of newspapers, and certainly down from the 21% profit margin in 2006.  But it would probably come as a surprise to most that newspapers overall continue to post a considerable profit.

He goes on to describe the bigger issue — that “owners…are variously posting huge losses, at least on paper; watching their stock prices plunge; and, crucially, struggling to make payments on debt they took on under projections that didn’t pan out.”

Unlike most of our posts that end with a proposed solution, I’m not foolish enough to do that here.  The point of this post, simply, is to spotlight the fact that business problems (and in turn, communications solutions) are rarely as cut and dry as they seem.  That’s why we have a big old chalkboard in our office to remind ourselves to “See the Full Picture”

Check Ain’t No Disco for some other pictures of our space.