For a few years now I've been helplessly watching the gradual decline of a media that I have personal affection for: The Newspaper.
My affection stems from two areas. The first is the larger-than-life size of the newspaper. Yes, many will say it's inconvenient to read, hard to fold, makes a mess and more... But a newspaper reminds me a bit of vinyl records; large artwork and a complete collection of work (versus one-off songs/blog posts).
The second reason I have an affinity for the medium is because all marketing firms pretty much owe their beginnings to newspapers...The first US agencies of the 1800s--N.W. Ayer, Volney Palmer and Calkins & Holden--were founded under the premise of selling newspaper space and then providing content for the space. It all grew from there.
Original N.W. Ayer & Son building:
But in recent times, the newspaper has become extremely hard to keep reading... The reasons are obvious:
-They're not always current on the big stories. As just one example, when Brett Favre was traded to the NY Jets in August, none of the New York or New Jersey papers ran a story the next day because it broke too late to be included in the print run. Pretty big story to omit.
-The content isn't multi-dimensional. Online news sites add video, relevant links and reader comments that enhance the news experience.
-It's sad looking. :( When I open my front door in the morning the poor newspaper is lying there on the ground after having been thrown across the street, often rain-soaked, soggy and stepped on. Not a great product experience.
-It's old. Find me another product available today that hasn't been re-designed since 1925. I mean, every product needs to be re-designed sometime! But the newspaper continues along with their old-style format and masthead apparently unwilling to abandon its aristocratic roots. The only one to break this is USA Today, who has a GROWING circulation of 2.3 million.
Understanding the nature of the newspaper itself, some of the production issues may never be solved. But a newspaper's brand is larger than the thing that arrives every morning and luckily there are lots of tools out there now to help keep readership, aside from the paper itself.
But one newspaper seems to be taking all the right strides to provide deeper reader relationships: To no one's surprise it's the NY Times.
Here's a few things they're doing:
1. Content Enhancement Strategy: Celebrity Authors
In 2009 Bono will contribute as an author in the Op-Ed section. Apparently he's doing this for free and will participate in 6-8 issues. In addition to Bono, the NYT has also expressed interest in having Queen guitarist Brian May write some columns.
2. Re-Packaging Strategy #1: Daily Briefings of the Big Stories
Living in Boise I cannot receive the Times. This is a bummer. Thankfully, they offer NY Times Front Page on iTunes. This podcast is a free 5 minute overview of the major stories of the day. It's fantastic and I listen to it everyday. (Actually, they have 14 podcasts to pick from, depending on your subject of interest.)
3. Packaging Strategy #2: Daily Updates of Breaking News
The NY Times Twitter site keeps daily updates streaming in. Frequent enough to keep things current without over-loading with nonsense.
@nytimes: Cheers!
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