In my last post, I asked creative or creativity in regards to achieving business objectives. Case in point. The Gazette, Montreal??s English-language daily, announced in their Saturday edition that they won some awards for their advertising. Here??s the entire blurb:
??The Gazette’s Words Matter advertising campaign won honours in five categories last night at Marketing Magazine’s annual awards. The ad, by agency Bleublancrouge, won first place in the category of “Television, 30 seconds and under, for promotion of a product,” in the national contest. The black-and-white television ad, which also won campaign of the year in Quebec this month, shows how a message about celebrity Paris Hilton could be radically changed with the altering of a few words. Best of Show honours at the national competition went to the Toronto firm Ogilvy & Mather for its ad “Evolution” for the Dove Self-Esteem Fund.?
As you may already know, I worked on The Gazette account for three years. But we (Zoum Armada, the agency I left in September) lost the account to Bleublancrouge last spring, in what wasn??t a very big surprise pitch result.
And this is in no way intended to sound like sour grapes ?? because I know I??m better off now than I was 12 months ago ?? but the first thing I thought about when I saw this news was: did this award-winning campaign sell any more newspapers?
And the answer is no. Here??s a direct quote from Marketing Magazine, reporting on the 2006 NADbank (Newspaper Audience Databank) report:
??In Montreal, Le Journal de Montréal remained the most widely read paper with 663,400 Monday to Friday readers (a 2.3% increase from the 2005 study), while La Presse saw its weekday readership decline 4.5% to 431,300 and readership of The Gazette dropped 10.5% to 324,00.?
(The Gazette’s new campaign launched in August 2006, the numbers above reflect all of 2006. If there are more precise fall numbers, I haven’t found them. So, for the remainder of this post, let’s assume that in the second half of 2006, The Gazette didn’t lose a single reader ?? and that it’s extremely doubtful that they gained any. If this isn’t true, I’ll eat my hat.)
So how could have creativity have trumped creative in this case? Imagine The Gazette didn??t spend a single dollar on advertising, what could they have done with that budget? Here are some thoughts:
1. Hire young talent. There is no standout young writer on The Gazette??s staff. What if they were to go out and hire a few and start cultivating young talent? Locals with a passion for this city. Get them writing on anything and everything. And give their peers a reason to at least pick up a paper.
2. Get online and go at it hard. They??re already making an effort with Habs Inside/Out. And that??s good. Why not take the idea further? Get into entertainment, à la Pop Candy. Or a political blog/podcast. Get out there and keep trying, testing and pushing.
3. Open up the archives. Yesterday??s stories and photos can help readers connect to the city??s past. This is a paper that??s been around since 1778 ?? why not make it all ?? or as much as they can ?? available online? Or put their greatest photos into a coffee table book that would read as a visual history of the city. They??re sitting on gold, it??s time to open the fort.
These are just some thoughts. They may work, they may not. But, you know what, mass advertising isn??t enough to turn the tide here. They??ve been trying, but it??s ultimately not powerful enough. We??re talking about an industry that??s going through a tumultuous change ?? and a paper that isn??t following along.
But, if you free up that advertising budget, or a good chunk of it, you can experiment. And unless you do, you??ll never find what really works. After all, the goal is to sell papers, not win advertising awards.
Related stuff:
I do think that the team deserves some credit ?? this is a real nice ad campaign, after all. Congratulations to all those involved.
? Here are some links to some stories about The Gazette??s ??Words Matter? campaign: PubZone, Ihaveanidea, Marketing.ca.
? Here are some links to the creative: Infopresse, Infopresse 2, Infopresse 3, Infopresse 4… (I think you get the idea.)
? The story about the impressive launch to this campaign. (Scroll down for creative.)
? More reports about the NADbank report: Marketing.ca, Editor and Publisher, Media in Canada.
April 3rd, 2007 at 1:50 pm
Nice post, Mark - got email from David - read his post - then came over. I haven’t made it to the “related stuff” yet - so can’t comment on the creative. A couple quick thoughts - your 3 ideas are sound. If the Gazette doesn’t jump on them - or at least have them in the works - they are sleeping. 1778? WOW - that’s some serious history and archives which will take time to digitize. I wonder where they are on that project? Local writers and editors make a huge difference. I also wonder how much of their readership (paid circulation?) was cut off at audit. Many newspapers were adding paid over the years - that really wasn’t paid. We know news is built on trust.