newspaper design
newspaper
design
newspaper design
newspaper
design
  

MAY 5,2009

Irritating readers for fun and profit

On April 27 and 28, newspaper readers in Wilson, N.C. were shown a prototype of a redesigned Wilson Times.

They hated it. HATED IT!

But the redesign launched today in spite of their objections. Why?

Because the leaders of The Wilson Times had the courage to do what needed to be done - even if they had to defy readers to reach their goal. According to Gayle Smith, Wilson's sales and marketing director, this redesign should boost ROP revenue by at least ten percent.

It's all about the advertising

The newspaper crisis is one of revenue, not readership. So why did last week's redesigns at small, medium and large newspapers - in Dubuque, Harrisburg and Atlanta - chase readers instead of revenue? And why did Tribune's redesigns last summer do the same?

AJC
Atlanta's redesign was purely cosmetic. Story selection and headlines remain unchanged in this before-and-after example.

Tribune pursued similar cosmetic redesigns across its properties last summer. According to last week's Editor& Publisher, "Tribune Co. papers rolled out highly touted redesigns but lost readers. The Chicago Tribune lost 7.4%. Circulation plunged 6.5% at the Los Angeles Times."

Even if the AJC's redesign boosts readership by several thousand - which seems doubtful based on Tribune's experience - this bump will have no impact on ad rates or revenue.

In contrast, the redesign of The Wilson Times changed advertising content, advertising design, ad stacks, editorial story selection, headlines and photos. You can see the details below, but first, here's the thinking behind the nation's first-of-its-kind, revenue-driven redesign:

In the U.S., readers account for a mere fraction of total newspaper revenue. And those readers are dying off. No designer other than God can reverse that trend.

But here's a trend that can be reversed: ever-shrinking newsrooms due to ever-shrinking revenues. If newspapers want to address their revenue crisis, they need to pay more attention to the folks who provide the revenue: advertisers.

To paraphrase John Temple, former publisher of the now-defunct Rocky Mountain News:

"Newsrooms cannot be insulated from the business side, nor can the rest of the operation be separated from the newsroom. That can be a disaster in this era because advertising, marketing, customer service and editorial all need to be in synch if a news organization is going to have a chance of survival."

But first, old beliefs must fall and new ideas must be embraced:

1. Newspapers cannot attract new readers to their core print product. Chasing after new readers in print is a fool's errand. See Tribune, above.

2. In contrast to potential readers, loyal readers will never drop the newspaper, so newspapers have a free hand to make drastic changes. We call them loyal readers for a reason: because they're loyal. Readers have the newspaper habit, and habits are hard to break. Readers will continue to subscribe no matter what changes are made - even those that accommodate advertisers and annoy readers.

3. Readers have never paid the freight for newspapers or journalism. When the house is on fire (a.k.a newspaper revenue plummeting) journalists shouldn't worry about the decor in the living room (a.k.a. changing the paper in an attempt to please readers).

Today's redesign of the The Wilson Times is the first to address the revenue crisis in the only way that makes sense - by making advertising revenue the one and only goal.

Wilson's redesign began (as all good redesigns should) with research from the target audience. But unlike typical redesigns, the target audience for this redesign was advertisers. Here's what they said:

1. Advertisers wanted the paper to switch to AM delivery from PM delivery.

2. Advertisers liked the newspaper and were satisfied with the newspaper's customer service, but they were disappointed by the results of their ads - particularly the small-space advertisers.

Based on these these two findings, these decisions were made:

1. The paper would to switch to AM delivery despite the fact that a majority of readers were not in favor of this change. This decision demonstrated Wilson's desire to put out the fire (satisfy advertisers) rather than rearrange the furniture (satisfy readers).

2. The redesign would focus on improving the effectiveness of small-space ads, by pursuing these two strategies:

Ad content: All ads should emphasize the advertisers' value proposition and competitive advantage,  and should include a call to action. Surprisingly, we found that most of Wilson's ads emphasized the name of the company, years in business and local ownership rather than the businesses' benefit to customers.

Ad stack: Ads should be stacked from the top of the page to the bottom in a single width along the outside edge of each page, rather than stacking across the bottom in multiple widths. In addition, ads should appear on the front page and section fronts in the same top-to-bottom configuration.

Journalists may shudder at the notion of ads above the fold on the front page, but history is not on their side. Below is the very first front page published by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Note that ads appeared above the fold in columns 1-3.

SLPD

Wilson's change in ad placement acknowledges reality, both old and new:

The old reality: Most newspapers have limited color positions. If more space is made available to ads in these limited positions - including the front page and section fronts - then more color ads can be sold. And color ads are more effective than black-and-white ads. Before-and-afters appear left and right, below:

A1

Sports

The new reality: Gone are the days of 5-col. x 18-inch ads on inside pages. Most ads are now 2-columns wide. These smaller ads must be stacked in a more organized way to provide better exposure for advertisers, and to untangle the jumbled mess of short stories and small ads that inside pages have become. The example below shows a conventional ad stack on the left and the simplified ad stack that advertisers preferred on the right.

Inside

In the redesigned Wilson Times, news and ads now share space on full-color fronts as never before, so it was essential to call a visual truce between them. This required us to tone down both news and ads by reducing the number of typefaces and colors in the color palette, and by using more white space.

For instance, all editorial headlines come from a single type family: Griffith Gothic. The editorial color palette consists of two colors: blue and orange.

In spite of these limitations, the redesign ushered in new pages that have far more visual appeal than any published in the previous design, including "go&do" and "Digest" below.

Go&do

Digests

With our revenue-driven strategies in mind, we recreated the Tuesday, March 21 edition of The Wilson Times. Then we printed this prototype edition and let three groups compare it to the actual paper that was produced for March 21.

Here are the results of the tests:

Subscribers hated the ads on the front page and Sports front. They said the ads crowded news off the front page and made the paper look cheap, less authoritative and like a shopper. However, not one reader said they would cancel their subscription because of the front-page ads.

While they hated the ads, readers liked everything else about the new design, including the cleaner layout style, simplified typography and ragged-right text type, which they said was easier to read.

Advertisers who read the paper reacted like readers: they liked the design changes and disliked the front-page ads. But as advertisers, they welcomed the opportunity to advertise on the front page and other section fronts. They offered to buy positions they saw in the prototype, as well as a proposed position at the bottom of the new "go&do" page. And they were delighted by the cleaner ad stack on the inside pages.

Advertisers who did not read the paper loved the opportunity to advertise on the fronts. They also offered to buy positions they saw in the prototype.

From these tests we learned that we could increase ad revenue without losing subscribers. We'd suffer the ire of the readers, but we would not lose their subscriptions or the circulation revenue.

From a business standpoint, we had nothing to lose. However, we did not completely ignore reader reaction. Rather than poking a tiger with a stick, we decided to gradually fill the right rail of the front page with ads, waiting at least a week until ads stretched to the top of the front page. But otherwise, we launched the prototype as planned.

A cautionary note, and an opportunity for online

There's more to this strategy than merely putting more ads on sections fronts. If newspapers do nothing more than that, then they will fail. Of course, some shortsighted newspapers will do just that. But The Wilson Times is committed to helping their advertisers get results, rather than helping themselves to their advertisers' money.

This strategy can be useful online, too: If a redesigned newspaper can work for advertisers, so can a redesigned Web site. If media companies redesign both with the advertiser in mind, then they're likely to generate more revenue.

Food for thought

When asked why he robbed banks, legendary bank robber Willie Sutton said, "Because that's where the money is." If newspapers want more money, they need to get it from the people who have it: advertisers.

That's advice - and revenue - that newspapers can take to the bank.







   

TweenTribune

Two more papers, plus The Bakersfield Californian, join TweenTribune

TweenTribune.com - the news site for kids with targeted advertising at the heart of its revenue model - is now in five states at newspapers of all sizes: community, mid-size and metro.

Affiliates include:
The Virginian-Pilot
The Bakersfield Californian
The Wilson (NC) Times
Valdosta (GA) Daily Times
AmericanNews, Aberdeen, SD

According to Aberdeen's publisher, Dave Leone: "I like the content, the look and I have some ideas on how we can utilize it, not just for NIE purposes but to market it towards that tough age and frankly, the age where many kids have no clue about newspapers or newspaper websites. I do think there is a good opportunity to sell local advertising also."

According to The Virginian-Pilot's circulation director, Mark Quan: "This product will really serve our students and teachers - much better than what we have now.  And it will deliver a larger and different audience to our advertisers. I showed it to my son, and he said, Yeah, dad, this is cool."

According to The Wilson Times' sales and marketing director, Gayle Smith: "TweenTribune is the most exciting tool I have ever seen for teens to keep up with news events that they hold interest in. And it offers a revenue opportunity for us."

NYT's about.com gave the site four stars. Read the complete review.