You might have seen us promoting TREAD Singletrack Society in recent days. That’s because we’re excited about this fresh membership-based community that adds value to South African mountain bikers and gravel-bike riders. It’s quite unique for South Africa and it’s not the easy route for a media brand. Here’s why we launched it.
By Sean Badenhorst
Adapt or die! It’s a Specialized bikes payoff line from the 1990s, but it’s absolutely true in any era. Since we launched the TREAD brand in 2009, so much has changed, including continuously improving technology and a new generation of mountain bikers. As a brand, we have had to adapt – or die. Literally.
Fifteen years ago we launched TREAD with a magazine that had two revenue streams – readers and advertisers. Reader revenue came through magazine purchases and subscriptions, while advertising funding obviously came via advertising.
When fast internet and smartphones improved to the point that made the magazine a very poor business model, we hung on longer than we should have before we stopped printing our magazine. We took a big financial hit in the process and somewhat reluctantly adapted our brand to be digital only.
Free digital content for readers with a 100% reliance on advertising for revenue. Sounds great right? Well, it’s not really. As a guy that studied to be a journalist when it was still a somewhat noble profession, it’s been tough to watch media change the way that it has. I wince almost daily as I contemplate how journalism has largely become activism.
To its credit, media – both cycling and mainstream – has looked for ways to try and preserve some editorial credibility in an era where content is primarily created for advertisers and not for readers. It’s been the same for us at TREAD Media. In order to remain in business, we have had no choice but to create content that’s labeled ‘paid-partnership’ with advertisers. Don’t get me wrong, we appreciate that advertising support. It’s just frustrating that our business model has been solely reliant on it for the past seven years.
Of course, not all our content is funded by advertisers. We have never stopped creating original , non-funded content. But as you can imagine, it’s challenging to be brutally honest when you could piss off an advertiser. But when they provide your only source of income, we must – at the least – be diplomatic. Original content also tends to be moved down the to write-and-publish queue in favour of advertorial content, so it’s less frequent than it should be.
In the past two years the cycling industry has just been through its greatest economic slump. The first thing companies do when times are tough is reduce staff. Then they cut back on advertising and marketing spend. Like other cycling media, both international and in South Africa, we have felt that spend cutback, which really has made things challenging for us as a brand.
Adapt or die. We’re not ready for TREAD to die. We have so much planned and are really enjoying the building of our brand in the women’s and youth segments while maintaining our leading role in the traditionally large middle-aged male segment. We’ve also got a podcast coming soon which adds another layer to our media brand.
So we are adapting and launched TREAD Singletrack Society. It’s a membership based community that restores reader funding to our brand. This will help us create more frequent, original non-advertiser funded content. It will also help us regain some editorial independence and ensure we don’t have to rely solely on advertising to flourish as a brand.
Will it be successful? We don’t know, but in true TREAD Media fashion, we’re doing something different because doing nothing achieves nothing… What it has done already is made a difference in our prioritisation of content, with non-funded content already getting great engagement by Singletrack Society members. Personally, I like that we have some editorial freedom again, which, in an over-commercialised world, is notable and more valuable than money can buy…
Because not every article or podcast appeals to everyone, we needed something extra, which is why we have added member discounts on partner brands and partner events. Thanks to those brands and events for their support and sharing our vision for a stronger future of cycling media in South Africa.
This video gives a summary of TREAD Singletrack Society.
And this is where you can see the details of what you get for your membership fee and join.
