How to change our newspaper’s image
October 15, 2008 by grzegorz.piechota
”When you try to change an image of a newspaper with a marketing campaign, changes in its content must follow. Otherwise there would be a disconnection between the new image and the content,” says Bernard Asselin, Vice President of The Gazette in Canada.
Mr. Asselin spoke at a recent INMA Outlook 2009: European Conference in Vienna, on October 1-3, 2008, about The Gazette’s marketing campaign: ”Words Matter”.
”After this campaign the perception of the paper was better, it was perceived as being more innovative, less conservative – only with this marketing image campaign”, he said.
”We did no change in design and no real major changes in the way editorial department would work. So it was almost 100-per cent marketing solely campaign that changed the brand image,” he added.
The campaign had three stages:
1. ”The first thing we did was to look at our starting position with research. That was key to find out that readers perceived us as conservative, not very innovative, old-fashioned, because the Gazzette is a paper that was founded in 1778, so it is a 230-years-old brand.”
2. ”So we created a brand image campaign: ‘The Gazette – Words Matter.’ We launched in 2006 with a famous front page with no words. And then we kept going with ads in the paper, radio spots, TV commercials, on and on.”
Here is the front page with no words:
Watch one of the TV commercials:
Here are the outdoor ads:
3.”And then we added content on that umbrella to support for example a special series on sleeplessness. So we had the ‘Words Matter’ campaign to promote the content.”
Here is an ad promoting the editorial series on sleeplessness Mr. Asselin is talking about:
”So we were hitting the same nail all the time to make sure people will see our campaign as being smart, helpful, open-minded, innovative to change the image of the newspaper”, says Mr. Asselin.
So did The Gazzette’s newsroom play no role in the process of changing the image of the paper?
Mr Asselin explained: ”The editor-in-chief, my collegue I work with, knew that I was just preparing a ground for him to change the way we report the news, to introduce more web products. For example we launched two or three new websites. I am not sure if we had kept the image that we had two years ago that we would be able to launch new innovative websites. There would have been a bigger clash between the brand image and the product.”
Could not they do it the other way around: change the content and then change the image?
”We could, but we preffered to start with change the brand image and slowly work with the content. But it had to follow. Otherwise, it would only be – what I call – smokes and mirrors for two, three years and then a reader doesn’t see enough changes. He likes the brand campaign and then you create a disconnect with a content on the other hand.”
Watch full interview with Bernard Asselin
(Interview made by Artur Karda, multimedia reporter at Media Regionalne, Polish part of Mecom Group.)
More information on The Gazette’s campaign
- Read a report from Mr. Asselin’s speech at the INMA conference.
- Read the Gazette’s article: ‘Words Matter’ campaign earns international kudos.
- Watch some other TV commercials:
Tagged: advertising, campaign, in-paper promotion, INMA, outdoor advertising, Outlook 2009, TV
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[...] En 2006 el diario canadiense The Gazette emprendió una campaña de relanzamiento de su imagen. No hubo rediseño, ni hubo cambios redaccionales: todo ese reposicionamiento, que aseguran que consiguieron, se debió a una impactante campaña de publicidad que bajo el lema “las palabras importan” emprendieron en todos los soportes. Vallas publicitarias, anuncios de televisión, y esta particular portada de su edición del 16 de agosto de 2006 que apareció sin palabras. La historia completa la cuenta Forum4editors.com. [...]
[...] Two years ago in Vienna, Bernard Asselin spoke about the case of “Words Matter” marketing campaign which reached its goal by changing the perception of the newspaper. After this campaign, “The Gazette” was perceived as being more innovative, and less conservative (read more about this campaign). [...]