Following on from previous threads and in light of the story doing the rounds on Associated’s losses in its Irish operations, once has to ask what the company needs to do to bag readers and most importantly, turn a profit?
The era of the DVD/CD giveaway has been an interesting one and while the original buzz over it has died down it is still a fixture of the (Ireland) on Sunday among other publications; The Sunday Independent, for example, has been giving away a series of childrens books over recent weeks in a slightly different take on the same idea. However free giveaways are really just shallow marketing ploys that have failed to transform the readers interest from freebie to content.
The original thought process was that a customer would pick up a paper they had never read before because it had a CD or DVD that appealed to them; once they bought the paper they would realise it spoke to them and so they would buy it from that point on regardless of the prizes inside. Of course it’s a high-risk strategy as giving items away is far from cheap; as it transpired most consumers simply purchased their regular paper to read and the other paper (avec CD) just for the gift, meaning they never even tried to read the one they never bothered with before anyway.
An extension of this marketing technique is the drip-feed approach by which parts of a CD compilation (and more recently a movie) are given over successive weeks to encourage recurring loyalty. This tactic is where The Sunday Independent’s book giveaway had more weight though. It’s one thing to encourage the buyer to pick your product for two or maybe three weeks in a row but its a completely different thing to get them to buy it consistently for months on end. By the time the series of gifts has come to its conclulsion there’s a much higher chance of the consumer developing a habit and picking up the paper anyway, but again it comes with it’s costs and is by no means a proven gamble.
This kind of technique is nothing new, of course. The Sunday newspaper became synonymous with the “periodical” long ago, extracts from a book or autobiography have been given bit by bit, week after week in papers for decades now, maybe longer. Even childrens magazines have always done it with hobby publications offering parts of a DIY figurine or science fun pack included every week or month to ensure loyalty; the difference is that the magazines don’t actually give these items away, the production cost is included in the RRP; however a newspaper cannot fluctuate its price based on its content or bonus features.
The freebie as a tool to instill loyalty has failed because if a consumer is encouraged to buy something for a specific feature they will only buy it as long as that feature is included; so newspapers can either continue to give high-cost gifts away or stop and revert back to their lower readership.
Should Associated wish to pump up its readership it needs to go back to basics; I would not be bold enough to suggest that the company makes the (Ireland) on Sunday or (Irish) Daily Mail a publication of high-repute but a newspaper can be hard-hitting while remaining tabloid.
It’s a point I’ve stressed before and it’s easily lost in translation but the word ‘tabloid’ is a reference to format and not content. In Ireland and the UK it is perhaps a dirty word, made so by red-top rags; it is so dirty infact that to this day The Irish Independent refuses to refer to its smaller print size as tabloid but it is instead “metro”.
Being a tabloid newspaper and even writing in a way that appeals to the LCD can still be achieved when focusing on heavier stories; Paul Williams is one of the countries most respected crime correspondant and his work has often been powerful yet while the topics he covers are serious and hard-hitting the Sunday World is by no means aimed at the up-market reader.
The best way for Associated Newspapers to attract readers is to build a reputation for itself past its complimentary bribes; break some serious exclusives that get people talking and get a staff of journalists that can get information the public need to know. Most importantly the paper needs to understand the market better and cut down on its UK-imports and pointless historical features (the ones that tell us every great man in history was somehow Irish). In other words cut the crap. The fact that both newspapers would be considered right of centre is not really an issue; The Sunday Independent can hardly be considered very liberal at the best of times.
To use a random metaphor, consider Associated’s publications are a fatigued man and a free CD or DVD is like a cup of coffee; it’s a quick and easy way to get a boost but is also extremely short lived; the only way to maintain this boost is to continue your caffine intake and up the ante to bigger and bigger amounts. Improving content on the other hand is like a good nights sleep and a healthy diet; it takes a hell of a lot longer and may even be a bit more expensive at first but in the long run you come out far healthier and more able than before.
The only positive I can give Assoicated Newspapers on the way they currently run things is this; a close family friend was speaking to me about my plans in journalism and remarked to me about the (Ireland) on Sunday; he went on to state; “I get that newspaper every weekend for the simple reason that…”; This, I should add, is where I expected a reference to their CD or DVD giveaways or even their coverage of some issue in perticular that he was interested in, but I was wrong; “I get that newspaper every weekend for the simple reason that it has the best TV guide in the country bar none” he said.