The Job to be Done for Willingness to Pay Theories

I have a commentary, published today in Journalism & Commuications Monographs accompanying “News Subscription Motivation: Why Audiences Pay for News” by Weiyue Chen and Esther Thorson.

The authors argue for improvement in the models predicting “willingness to pay” (WTP) for news subscriptions and offer several motivators they found relevant in their mixed-methods study:

• Support for journalism
• Journalism quality
• Triggering by the paywall
• Community attachment
• Affordability
• Content utility

There is a lot more to their theory, but you will have to read the paper.

My commentary “The Complicated Journey Toward a Unified Theory of Digital News Subscription Motivations” offers nothing specific in extension to Chen and Thorson’s research, but I do take the opportunity to argue that past WTP studies have either been incomplete, or have been overtaken by dynamic changes in online reading habits and payment mechanisms.

In 2005, less than 2.5% of retail sales took place online. The iPhone did not launch until 2007 and it was 2010 before “app” became the word of the year, according to the American Dialect Society. In that period,online purchases were possible, but they were neither common nor easy. Human motivations do not change dramatically over time, but the rise of mobile phones, the Amazon habit, and the convenience of mobile payments have revolutionized how our inherent goal-seeking behaviors are expressed in this space.

But my more salient concern is that news publishers care less about theories and motivations than results. This determined empiricism leads many to rely on useful statistical models like Recency/Frequency/Volume to target specific website users with personalized marketing tactics designed to convert.

That leaves WTP research is a tough spot: Academics are in position to study and develop motivational theories, but need the cooperation of news publishers to test those theories against real-world consumer behavior. And publishers, despite the utility of brute-force methods of number crunching and iterative funnel optimization desperately need new and better theories to inform the design of subscription programs and a portfolio of associated marketing strategies and tactics.

The lack of academic-industry collaboration is a common complaint but there are examples of applied business theory that can or should cross over into academic study more effectively. Jobs to be Done (JTBD) was popularized by Clayton Christensen and varieties of which have been operationalized by marketers for generations. Seth Lewis et al wrote about its utility in academic study recently. (FYI - that is an open source paper.)

The JTBD dimensions effectively mix psychological and tangible needs for information and community with generous room for extension into higher-order academic theorizing. And, JTBD forms an effective bookend for Chen and Thorson's News Subscription Motivation construct. This then, is a bridge between researchers, applied business theory, and the publisher demand for actionable insights.

News organizations are of late adopting JTBD, and the BBC World’s implementation includes:

• Update me
• Keep me engaged
• Educate me
• Give me perspective
• Inspire me
• Divert me
• Help me
• Connect me

I write in the commentary,

That cross-pollination between academic and business frameworks is like that of qualitative and quantitative research—each with its own strengths but better together. To be useful to and adopted by news organizations, WTP theories need expansion and support from adjacent disciplines to include the full news consumer journey—from community information needs to subscriber retention—if not to explain, then at least to credibly inform tactics and strategies throughout the business.

Kiesow, D. (2024). The Complicated Journey Toward a Unified Theory of Digital News Subscription Motivations. Journalism & Communication Monographs, 26(4), 324-329. https://doi.org/10.1177/15226379241279667 (Reach out if you do not have access.)

Chen, W., & Thorson, E. (2024). News Subscription Motivation: Why Audiences Pay for News. Journalism & Communication Monographs, 26(4), 264-323. https://doi.org/10.1177/15226379241279644