Results of exit polls from the first swinging states were known in Europe late at night on November 4-5 — at about 2 AM in London (GMT) or at 3 AM in Paris, Berlin and Warsaw (CET).

Obama’s victory was decided even later — at about 4 AM (GMT) or 5 AM (CET).

So it was a nightmare for newspaper editors.

In most of their printed editions they could do no more than play with readers and try to invite them to their online editions, as editors of a Belgian daily newspaper De Morgen did:

What did readers see online, when they logged in this morning?

(Want to see more front pages of printed editions of European newspapers? Go to gallery at Newseum.)

Some European newspapers invested in their websites to change its layout and offer interactive features they could not have provided in print.

Here’s a great example of the UK Guardian’s home page:

Changing a structure of this home page must have been much more expensive and time-consuming than changing a layout of a front page in print. They needed to involve not only editors and designers, but their technology staff.

Here is a collection of home pages of some other nationwide European newspapers, as retrieved at 9 AM (GMT) or 10 (AM CET) on November 5th:

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:

Despite 20,000 Polish soldiers in total have taken part in this mission since 2003, the media coverage of Iraq War has been rather limited and often based on foreign sources like news wires and syndicates.

Sending own reporters to Iraq has always been seen by media executives as expensive and dangerous. After two Polish TV journalists were shot dead in 2004, some media outlets withdrew their reporters, some other embedded them with Polish units. This trend has forced journalists to depend more heavily on military sources.

In effect the Polish public opinion has not been aware of some facts and details about Polish mission.

Poles in Iraq War

Poland backed the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Polish-commanded multinational division took over responsibility for five of Iraq’s 18 provinces. The contingent at the time numbered 9,000 troops from 21 countries of which 2,500 were Poles.

At first Polish soldiers performed so-called stabilization tasks: they helped with the country’s reconstruction, carried out patrols, and protected the headquarters of the Iraqi local authorities against attacks, for example, during the rebellion of the radical Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr in 2004. Later their tasks focused on advising and training the new Iraqi armed forces. The Polish contingent was reduced to 1,600, then to 1,400, and eventually to 900 troops. The multinational division was also reduced, with countries withdrawing their forces or decreasing their contingents. The zone controlled by the multinational division also shrank. Now the division includes contingents from eight countries apart from Poland.

After October 31st, there will stay only several dozen officers who will train Iraq soldiers, policemen, prosecutors etc.

In total 23 Polish troops were killed in Iraq. The number of wounded soldiers is not confirmed by the army and is estimated to 150.

Series at Gazeta Wyborcza

Two Gazeta’s reporters – Marcin Gorka and Adam Zadworny – disclose some of the secrets of Polish army in the series called “Iraq. Poles on war” that has been published last week.

The series is a result of a dozen months-long investigation that Gorka and Zadworny carried during their travels to Iraq and a dozen talks with former officers and soldiers.

Despite the official claim that Polish troops were well-prepared for the mission in Iraq, Gazeta revealed how poorly equipped they were in fact.

Their equipment was as old as the Warsaw Pact’s arsenal. Their cars had no armor but canvas. Their guns failed due to sand. Their boots crumbled from the heat.

Polish politicians and troops were really thinking they went to Iraq on a stabilization mission, but they quickly realized they had to fight the real war.

It was a new experience for both commanders and soldiers, as Polish troops used to serve peacekeeping operations only in Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Here are some examples of pages:

Gorka and Zadworny told five stories:

• “They welcomed us with bombs and not flowers”: about a Polish sapper who disarmed hundreds of bombs with his hands. Finally, his car was attacked by insurgents and the sapper became the first ever Polish soldier wounded in Iraq. When he was transported to homeland, he was visited at a hospital by a minister and TV. Later he was refused any compensation despite he lost his leg, as his insurance policy did not cover “war”. The Army argued with him over 10 dollars of pension. His application for military sanitarium was rejected, as he was no longer a soldier (he was dismissed from the Army after his return).
• “The bloodiest battle of Poles since the World War II”: an untold story bout a a city battle in Karbala in 2004. Polish and Bulgarian soldiers killed hundreds of insurgents in a nearly week-long battle at the City Hall. Officially, there was no such a battle with Poles at all – the Polish Army has kept their involvement in secret, as it has not wanted to alert the public opinion at home about the reality of Iraq War and their mission.
• “It’s me who tells mothers: You son is dead”: confessions of a military priest whose mission is to inform about killed soldiers. He tells a heart-breaking story of his race to reach families before media.
• “War addicted”: a story about Polish ‘Indiana Jones’, an archeologist who enrolled in the Army after he read in a newspaper about damages done to the ancient ruins of Babylon where the US had built a helipad and a parking for heavy vehicles. Polish troops took over this camp and the scientist helped to document damages and antiquities. The archeologist could not calm down when back to Poland. He enrolled again and is going to Afghanistan.
• “I regreted I had no gun with me”: an interview with Edward Pietrzyk, a former commander-in-chief of the Polish Land Forces and Poland’s ambassador to Iraq. In 2007 he got wounded in an assassination attempt in Baghdad, by a roadside bomb, and received burns to about 20 percent of his body. He disclosed how the decision to send troops to Iraq had been made in 2003. “I asked the president: ‘What about equipment?’ I heard no answer. ‘What is our mission?’ No answer again. ‘How long should we stay there?’ The president did not know.”

Promotion of the series

The features were promoted in radio and in the newspaper with full-page ads and front-page article. Here are the examples:

1. Media partners

Gazeta Wyborcza runs its campaign together with an outdoor advertising company AMS, a news radio network TOK FM and a web portal Gazeta.pl. They all belong to Gazeta’s publisher: a multimedia group Agora SA.

This is an easiest way to use internal synergies and reach the public with our message: “Humane Dying. A social campaign.” This is the slogan on billboards – outdoors and online.

The graphics is a play of two Polish words: “umiec” (can) and “umierac” (die).

We wanted very simple layout for billboards, as the topic deserves careful design. Maybe, it could be easier to get an attention by putting photos of dying people (as Benetton once did with a photo of a man dying from AIDS), but it would not be the attention we were looking for. 

2. In-paper promotion

Paper edition of Gazeta has at about 6 million readers a week. So it is a perfect advertising channel also for our social campaigns.

Two days before the launch of “Humane Dying” Gazeta run the full page ad.
It used the last words of Ilona Miller, the first volunteer of our campaign who died just before it started.

The ad read:

“The death closes one’s eyes and opens somebody else’s”

How do we die in Poland. An art of talking about the death. Dying with God and without God. Features, interviews, readers’ letters – daily in Gazeta Wyborcza from Monday

3. Online promotion

Online portal Gazeta.pl has over 6 million real users a week and its general audience tends to be younger than the printed newspaper’s readership.

So the web is a perfect channel to reach young readers.

Working on a campaign we prepared something special for this medium: a video documentary about a Warsaw hospice: “The house of departures.” It had its premiere on the web and an advertising campaign in the printed newspaper.

The movie was shot by Gazeta’s journalists and some volunteers. It is a heart-breaking and eye-opening story about one day in the hospice from the perspective of its staff and patients.

Would you like to learn more about the campaign “Humane Dying”? Read here.

How to debate publicly on death? Find an answer here.

The story hit the Gazeta’s front page on Monday, but the promotional efforts started many days before.

1. In-paper promo ad

On Friday – three days prior the publication – Gazeta devoted a full page to the promo ad. It reads:

Hidden Sin of the Church
Many priests knew about it, as did three bishops. For years, they hid the horrible truth
Read daily from Monday in Gazeta Wyborcza and on www.gazetawyborcza.pl

2. Online promotional activities

On Sunday – a day prior the publication in print – editors of Gazeta’s online edition Wyborcza.pl prepared an e-mail newsletter to all the readers who subscribe to any Gazeta’s news feed.

Online edition started also to publish some excerpts of the main feature story. The articles were accompanied by video interviews with Father Marcin Mogielski who tried to alert Catholic bishops about the case, but got accused for trying to damage the Church’s reputation.

3. Media pack and press releases

Also on Sunday Gazeta’s editors prepared media pack for other news outlets, especially TV and radio stations. It consisted of articles excerpts, photos and video files that they could use to start their own coverage of the story.

All these efforts paid: more readers rushed to newsstands on Monday’s morning to learn about the issue.

Would you like to read more about this investigation? Go here.