THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT Sustaining a Publishing Success Through Advertising
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THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT Sustaining a publishing success through advertising ■ INTRODUCTION class terms) and was enjoying overall Premium Award Not too long ago, just to stabilise sales sector leadership, the Independent’s new & in a market as competitive and mature as marketing team and advertising agency, Category 2 Sunday newspapers would have been Irish International, faced 1995 with a Gold Award regarded as highly laudable. To increase number of challenges. The heavily- them substantially would have been resourced and multi-sectioned Sunday considered impossible. But the Sunday Times continued to make strong inroads Irish International Independent, with no small help from into the upper-end of the Sunday market Ltd advertising, has done just that, against a and the niche Business Post was also backdrop of heavy investment by UK growing steadily. Elsewhere, a revamped publishers and contracting sales for Irish Sunday World, under new management, Peter McPartlin titles generally. was also beginning to recapture some of its Catherine Donnelly lost glories in the C1C2 sector. Added to Mal Stevenson this, the rising cost of newsprint had ■ MARKETING pushed the Sunday Independent’s cover BACKGROUND price towards the psychological barrier of By any standards the Sunday £1, late in 1994. Independent’s turnaround between 1990 The key objective then was to continue and 1994 had been phenomenal. Under the paper’s sales and readership growth, the editorial direction of Aengus Fanning particularly amongst core AB readers. the paper increased sales by almost 28,000 copies per week and added 160,000 new ■ MARKETING STRATEGY adult readers. An examination of the newspaper was Figure 1 undertaken across the areas of Product, SUNDAY INDEPENDENT – Presentation and Promotion. SALES TRENDS 1990-1996 Qualitative research amongst regular 000’s and lapsed readers highlighted the position 340 336,849 that Sunday newspapers in general, 320 occupied within people’s weekly ‘media diet’. On the positive side a Sunday paper 300 was seen as: 280 276,212 • More of a ‘must have’ than a daily. 260 252,591 253,291 • Requiring a different mind-set (i.e. to 247,360 240 switch off, lose yourself, be entertained, 230,265 225,468 220 unwind). 200 •Offering greater choice and flexibility ’90 ’91 ’92 ’93 ’94 ’95 ’96 (i.e. pick up and put it down, not tied to a Source: Audit Bureau of Circulations Jan - Jun time and a place). The newspaper had largely thrived on •Providing more depth and detail. foot of a potent ‘editorial cocktail’ of news, On the negative side a Sunday features, trenchant opinion, entertainment newspaper was seen as placing greater and humour, spanning the gap between demands on personal time, requiring traditional Sundays and quality magazines. greater concentration and involvement. Although the Sunday Independent For a Sunday newspaper to be occupied the ‘middle ground’ (in age and successful it was seen as needing to strike 11 a delicate balance between being ■ KEY ADVERTISING informative and entertaining. OBJECTIVE Figure 2 Irish International were briefed to EMOTIONAL DEMANDS ON A SUNDAY provide a solution that would break the NEWSPAPER traditional mould and position the Sunday Independent as the most complete and lively Sunday paper – an integral part of HIGH INFORMATION V HIGH ENTERTAINMENT Irish Sunday life. Ideally the solution • Got the topline news • Busy week media-wise would also reflect the newspaper’s all week, need to • Depressing ‘news’ week reputation for informative, provocative and understand it entertaining writers. • In an ‘away-from-it-all’ • Reflective mood The advertising was aimed at recruiting mood and reinforcing loyalty amongst urban- • More time to • Less interested in based AB’s – people who above all would give it/concentrate politics/business news regard themselves as open-minded, modern and enjoying life, but who were potential aspects ‘switchers’ to the Sunday Times and In positioning terms the Sunday Business Post. Independent was seen as getting closer to this mark than any other Irish newspaper. ■ CREATIVE/MEDIA Historically, it had managed to achieve a EXECUTION balance in both tone and content by using The first ‘A Day In The Life’ commercial the two sections of the paper to meet the was aired (RTE TV, UTV and Channel 4) in demands for news and entertainment. February 1995, featuring words and images In spite of frequent and hostile designed to capture the essence of the criticism from competitors, core readers newspaper and set to music by the continued to give largely positive feedback composer Carl Orff. A series of short but to the often provocative content of the intense two-week TV bursts ran across the Sunday Independent. period February to May 1995, backed with “It’s more opinionated than a daily, it’s a superlite poster campaign at launch. more than just straightforward reporting. In mid-May the second phase of the Dunphy or Conor Cruise O’Brien will pick campaign began with a TV commercial out some story, so if you agree with them featuring a range of the newspaper’s after reading it, you’re more strong in your journalists. This was supported by a series feeling towards it. But if you totally of radio and in-paper press ads with key oppose them, it gets your feelings going writers expressing their motivations and more.” approach to writing for the Sunday This, together with judicious use of full Independent. These were designed to colour, enabled the paper to compensate in distinguish the title from the raft of presentational terms for the limitations newspaper ‘menu ads’ on the medium. posed by its print technology. The emphasis was to be on promotion ■ and particularly the advertising of the RESULTS product. Up to then, advertising, in the Even before the closure of the Sunday main, for Sunday newspapers (including Press in late May 1995, there were strong the Independent) tended to follow a trusted indications that the Sunday Independent’s but tired formula of feature / writer lists new advertising strategy was paying broadcast each Saturday on radio. dividends. Quantitative assessment by Business & Market Research (BMR) showed strong awareness and positive liking, particularly by ABs, of the advertising. The BMR interviewing was conducted 12 by telephone amongst two matched There were also significant increases in samples of 300 ABC1 adults aged 18+ in the positive rating of the advertising Dublin city and county. The pre-campaign between the two surveys, with AB’s again survey was conducted between February providing the most favourable response. 16th and 17th 1995 and the post-campaign The litmus test for the new advertising measure between May 5th and 9th.measure though, was whether it would increase the “It’s more between May 5th and 9th. propensity of AB’s to purchase the Sunday opinionated Independent. Here the research showed than a daily, Figure 3 that the newspaper succeeded in increasing it’s more than RECALL OF SUNDAY NEWSPAPERS its lead over its main competitors as the ADVERTISING title people said they would consider just straight- Unprompted buying nowadays. (Figure 5) forward reporting. All AB Adults Figure 5 Pre Post Pre Post SUNDAY NEWSPAPERS Dunphy or %%%% CONSIDER BUYING NOWADAYS Conor Cruise Mentioned At All O’Brien will Sunday Independent 20 26 20 32 pick out some Sunday Tribune 14 7 14 8 All AB Adults story, so if you Sunday Press 8585 Pre Post Pre Post Sunday World 8 9 10 8 %%%% agree with them Sunday Bus. Post 7 7 8 10 after reading it, Other Sundays 8 8 10 9 Sunday Independent 51 53 49 55 you’re more Sunday Tribune 31 27 41 36 strong in your Spontaneous recall for the Sunday Sunday Press 18 22 15 23 Independent advertising was significantly Sunday Times 17 16 19 21 feeling towards higher than for any Sunday newspaper. Sunday Bus. Post 15 16 19 26 it. But if you When the first post-campaign measure was Sunday World 8 13 7 8 totally oppose undertaken in early May, unprompted Other Sundays 12 18 7 18 them, it gets recall had risen amongst the adult sample your feelings overall from 20% to 26%. More In the February to May 1995 period importantly, the unprompted figure had average sales grew year-on-year by over going more.” risen from one in five to one in three AB 13,000 copies per week (+5%), even with adults. the price increase to £1 and before the demise of the Press. Figure 4 No other marketing initiatives / tactics RATING OF SUNDAY INDEPENDENT were undertaken by the Independent at this ADVERTISING time. What’s more, the new advertising Base: All those aware of Sunday also succeeded in helping to reverse a Independent advertising. seasonal downturn in sales, which the paper previously experienced in these All AB Adults months. Pre Post Pre Post %%%% Like It 38 61 40 64 Disliked It 19 10 17 7 No Opinion 43 29 42 29 13 “Satisfying the Figure 6 surveys that the Sunday Independent was customer should SUNDAY INDEPENDENT – SALES TRENDS recruiting and reinforcing readership in the February - May Period primary target group of AB adults. be the basic Figure 7 objective of PerYear on Copies SUNDAY INDEPENDENT – newspaper Issue Year Gained/ AB ADULT READERSHIP publishing. Lost Total AB Solus AB 1993 255,421 -1% -2,580 A successful JNRR Date Readership Readership mainstream 1994 252,636 -1% -2,785 Jul ‘93 - Jun ‘94 153,000 72,000 newspaper Jan ‘94 - Dec ‘94 158,000 72,000 should strive to 1995 265,876 +5% +13,240 Jul ‘94 - Jun ‘95 163,000 72,000 Nov ‘94 - Oct ‘95 168,000 91,000 have all the Source: A.B.C. ingredients, the In effect, the advertising resulted in Source: Lansdowne / JNRR variety and bringing about a net sales increase of +6% compulsiveness (or 16,000 extra copies per week) across 16 Finally, another by-product of the of a lively TV weeks.