In researching further along the lines of my comments here and here about the newspaper brand, I have discovered The Readership Institute, a division of the Media Management Center at Northwestern University. In several places on their website they comment on newspaper brands and the importance of building the brand in securing a future for a newspaper. They provide a clear definition about brand, separating it from a slogan and keeping the branding activity away from the marketing department.
Here are some comments from Institute Director John Lavine and Director of Consumer Research Bobby Calder which I found interesting:
Lavine: Let me start by saying what brand isn’t in the context of newspapers. It’s not the newspaper’s name, or its flag, or its tag line, such as “all the news that’s fit to print.” It’s not necessarily what the newspaper thinks or wants its brand to be. It is how the consumer or reader perceives the newspaper, the images and feelings and meanings that are conjured up in people’s minds when they think about or look at the paper.
Calder: Branding is the activity that goes on inside the newspaper first, to come up with an idea that has great meaning for readers. You have to find out what, in their minds, is a great idea — something that is so linked to their lives and needs that it would make them use the newspaper more. These ideas must be informed by consumers and they have to make sense to consumers.
Lavine: You know what your brand is by discussing it with readers. Your brand is whatever your customers think you are. The composite of their experiences with you, their perception of you, their feelings toward you, and what they think about you — that is your brand. The more passionate your customers are about your newspaper, the stronger your brand is (and a strong brand is not necessarily a positive one.)
Calder: Understanding what your brand is and what it should be requires some specific marketing research. You begin by discussing it with consumers qualitatively and then doing research to measure the brand on a number of key perceptions you identified as being important to consumers. In general you want to look at results to see if your strongest perceptions are the ones you have intended to base your brand upon.
So branding is not about Monopoly or winning a dream home or a luxury car. Branding is about content more so than flash.
As a retailer of newspapers and someone acutely aware of the challenges of flat circulation, the work by Lavine, Calder and their team is most interesting. I see customers reacting to competitions more than engaging with the newspaper as a newspaper. I see (some) newspapers pitching themselves more as entertainment than news. I care about this because newspapers are the most important product I sell in my newsagency and indeed through all of Australia’s 4,600 newsagencies. Anything they do with their brand reflects back on my business and all newsagents.
I’d like to see Australian publishers engage with their unique distribution and retail newsagent channel and undertake research along the lines of that you read about at the readership Institute. The publisher/newsagent relationship is a valuable asset which could be better leveraged in pursuit of incremental sales. Brand building is a key activity in such pursuit.
My sense is that research would uncover frustration among consumers about the use of competitions to build sales and confusion about newspaper brands.