I’ve written here before about my frustration with the constant stream of giveaways being used to boost newspaper sales. I understand the need to pursue growth but to spend the bulk of marketing dollars on competitions rather than building brand awareness and respect does not make sense to me.
With the marketing push for competitions consumer perception of the brand will change and one day publishers will wonder what happened to their brand. Or maybe they know what they are doing and it’s about the pickup of the product rather than the reason for the pick up.
I was reminded of my frustration when I read News vs. Entertainment: Should newspapers give readers what they need or what they want? At editorsweblog.org today. While their report is more about the low brow content many newspapers are providing, it’s in the same space as my point.
For years we have been hearing that it’s the 18-39 demographic which is the demographic for advertisers. So this is what people have concentrated on, all but ignoring the 40+. Now here in Australia we have just see the launch of a radio network focusing on the 40+ demographic. They’ve done this because there is money in that space. All it took was for research to be undertaken about what the demographic wanted so that appropriate product could be created.
So, just as there is money in the older demographic, there is money in the respected news and information space. People want news and information they can trust. Publishers focusing on their brand by building consumer trust will attract valuable business.