TAKEAWAY: It’s definitely time for local and regional newspapers everywhere to do more with how they present advertising. Here are two newspapers that are trying it! PLUS: Paying the piper: how paywalls are the hottest thing these days
USA Today: add for mouthwash rises like a proud trophy on the page.
The Miami Herald: a wrap around “vest” covers part of Page One
I know, I know, I may sound like one of those recordings that greet you when you call your airline or pharmacy, repeating the message in a robotic monotone. And, while I do not wish to do so, I am aware that this it was not too long ago that I praised newspapers that dared to experiment with advertising configuration and positioning.
What a surprise to find that Monday’s editions of both USA Today and The Miami Herald went the extra mile to display ads beyond the staircases and the banners or full page ads.
USA Today displayed an ad for Scope mouthwash like a proud trophy rising on the page. I don’t even know if there is a proper name for this ad configuration, but trophy works for me—-and, definitely, for the advertiser. You could not miss that ad.
The Miami Herald wore a wrap around ad well, and I am sure that the revenue was also as welcoming as the sight of that jacket promoting Dealsaver.
But we need to see more initiatives in this direction. Not just because of the much needed revenue those may produce, but because it is this visual interaction between advertising and content that gives a printed newspaper some of its energy and vitality.
I would be happy to see this happening at the very local level of small dailies and weeklies. Any takers?
Those paywalls may pay off, after all
I don’t know where I read it at the end of 2012: 44% of US publishers were planning to start charging for their online editions in 2013.
Apparently they are keeping their promise, and so are publishers elsewhere, a good thing, in my view.
A piece in the International Herald Tribune (April 1), under the headline After long resistance, newspapers decide they need paywalls, relates case after case of a paywall rising at a newspaper near you—-even if you are in Hong Kong (South China Morning Post).
Perhaps “newspapers decide” is too tame a phrase to describe it: newspapers desperately need is more like it, and “publishers see no other way out” could be a good subhead to the story.
And, I may add, a kicker could be: “more readers ready to pay for it”.
Paywalls have worked admirably and profitably for The New York Times (which owns the International Herald Tribune), and now, reads the piece, The Washington Post will start charging for its online content this summer, and so are the Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, and, in Europe, Switzerland’s Tages Anzeiger, and Germany’s Die Welt.
So, it is 2013 and The Year of Revenue Producing Strategies: introducing ad configurations that break away from the traditional and erecting paywalls that value the content and put a prince on it, are only two ways to start that process.
Of related interest
Take a second look at what you could do with print ads
http://garciamedia.com/blog/articles/ptake_a_second_look_at_what_you_could_do_with_print_ads_p
Where’s Mario until April 28, 2013?
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