SPRING 2016_PROMOTING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PRINT MEDIA THROUGHOUT EUROPE
The beautiful game
Why print will be one of the stars of Euro 2016
PP11_01_cover_UK.indd 1
BRAND IN THE HAND Why content marketing is the success story of 2016 TRUSTED, ENGAGING, EFFECTIVE The enduring appeal of newspapers for advertisers SURPRISE THE SENSES Give your marketing the wow factor with special inks and finishes THE DIGITAL BACKLASH Will print get a boost from privacy concerns and adblocking?
04/05/2016 12:01
/ NEWSPAPERS
Discover why newspaper advertising remains one of the most engaging and effective advertising platforms for brands across Europe, and what Bild Zeitung, The Sun and Tele Star are doing to make sure it stays that way — By Johnny Sharp
Read all about it!
46_ PRINT POWER | www.printpower.eu
TWO YEARS AGO, the Finnish daily newspaper
Helsingin Sanomat began a project that would provide its advertisers with the same level of data as its TV and online rivals. This groundbreaking project aimed to move newspapers out of the traditional data model that only provided circulation data twice a year, into a brand new system of identifying reader preferences and detail on how much attention individual pages received. They did this by assessing the reading habits of 7,000 readers of the digital PDF version of their print newspaper. Having conducted research that found that reading patterns on the tablet and print editions of the newspaper were continuously the same – and therefore predictable – they were able to create a reliable model to calculate all the data their advertisers needed. A pilot of the model using an IKEA advert in the newspaper proved its success, with results including the fact that 630,000 people saw the advert (79% of the total readership) with 68% stopping at the page and 50% getting interested, spending more than five seconds looking at it. The model also identified the male:female split, as well
as attention levels according to age. “Marketing management wants proof on effect of their marketing investment,” says Petteri Putkiranta, president of Helsingin Sanomat, “and we are now much further in giving the evidence.”
So why do brands keep coming back to the print newspaper as a suitable home for their advertising? It may have something to do with reader loyalty. “In most countries in Northern and Central Europe you have a high level of subscription rates,” says Manfred Werfel, deputy Loyalty and trust CEO of WAN-IFRA, the World Association With the global newspaper industry of Newspapers and News Publishers. “So generating an estimated US$ 179 billion in you have a very loyal audience.” circulation and advertising revenue (more That point about loyalty is crucial. In than the book publishing, music or film contrast to internet websites or social industries)1, it's clear that newspapers are a media, newspaper readers have very strong brand attachments and trust what they read hugely valuable multiplatform business. in their favourite daily2. “Many brands, especially “Printed advertising is from the fashion world, not blocking you from keep on advertising in reading, whereas on newspapers as they know that opinions are formed a mobile, you want to from reading print,” says read an article and Mario Calabresi, director an ad jumps in of Italian newspaper la front of you” Repubblica. “The experiManfred Werfel, ence of a full-page advert is to reproduce in a deputy CEO of difficult digital environment.” WAN-IFRA Such consumer loyalty www.printpower.eu | PRINT POWER _47
/ NEWSPAPERS Extra! Extra! Five successful newspaper print campaigns
Sky 1 & Trinity Mirror, UK The cable broadcaster partnered with the leading British tabloid newspaper to produce a memorable piece of native advertising, creating an ‘End of the World’ edition of The Mirror and 10 of Trinity Mirror’s regional newspapers to advertise their new series ‘You, Me & The Apocalypse’. The ‘O’ in The Mirror’s masthead was replaced with a meteor, while a one-off TV listings page ‘blew up’ the listings from 9pm, once the new programme had been aired. The show subsequently attracted the largest audience of any new Sky 1 series.
– far stronger than the relationship with, say, a television channel or website – creates an environment for advertisers in which the customer is already positively disposed towards what they’re reading. Furthermore, engagement among newspaper readers has been shown to be higher3 and encourages greater focus, as Olins points out. “When someone buys a newspaper, they typically spend over an hour reading it, so you also have the quality of time that people spend,” he says. “When you’re reading a newspaper article it requires you to pay proper attention. That’s one reason why people like Sir Martin Sorrell are saying that newspapers offer better value to advertisers than was previously assumed, purely because of that level of engagement.” Meanwhile, the format in which advertising is presented can make a big difference to how it is perceived. “Aside from the fact that you can’t block printed ads the way you can in digital, printed advertising is not blocking you from reading,” says Manfred Werfel. 48_ PRINT POWER | www.printpower.eu
Fiat, cut-out ad, Europe The Italian car manufacturer stylishly employed the tactile nature of newspaper print by inviting the reader to create a paper doll, complete with its own set of clothes and Fiat 500 car. This invited the reader to physically engage with the advert while giving them something permanent to play with.
LA Times, Oscars issue, USA Every year, staff at the LA Times spend hours coming up with ways to make their Oscars preview issue special. This year they used the translucent nature of newsprint to make their cover stand out. At first glance, the cover shows the outline of eight Oscar statues, but then put the page up against a window or in front of a light and the statues suddenly become coloured in gold and clothed in outfits representing the eight best picture nominees
Bild used Inline Inkjet technology to give each reader an individual day pass to their digital content. “We saw a three per cent rise in print circulation as a result,” says Tobias Kuhn of Bild publisher, Axel Springer “Whereas on a mobile device, you want to read an article and an ad jumps in front of you. That’s disturbing because it’s holding the customer from what they want to do. Print advertising is just there, and you can decide for yourself if you want to look – it’s not disturbing you. But when ads pop up on mobiles or online you instantly feel negatively towards them. Regardless of how good the message is, you’re already offended by the way they appear. It’s like you want to speak to somebody and somebody else jumps between you and interrupts you – it’s not what you want or expect.”
The personal solution For all those strengths, a tough challenge remains for newspapers: to take advantage of a readership that has steadily shrunk in print and increased online, while capitalising on the consumer loyalty, increased engagement and favourable media environment that print still offers. They also need to pass those benefits on to advertisers. What’s in it for the brands that provide a sizeable chunk of publishing revenue? Europe’s two biggest-selling newspapers have already rolled out groundbreaking hybrid printing technology to address this. Germany’s Bild Zeitung (circulation 2.5m) and UK tabloid The Sun (1.8m) invested heavily in new Kodak technology that not only incentivises readership of their print editions and links them to their paid-for digital equivalents, but also personalises print copies of the paper to facilitate targeted content and advertising. Bild used Inline Inkjet technology to give each reader an individual day pass to their digital content, as well as individually illustrated images for sweepstakes and
BMW, 3 Series, Europe BMW used a panoramic newspaper ad to chart 40 years of its 3 Series. Starting in 1975 with the line “A new movie inspires nightmares about the open water. A new car inspires dreams about the open road” and culminating in 2015 with “Various politicians promise to reduce emissions. The new BMW 3 Series actually does,” the ad also stops off in 1982, 1990, 1998, and 2005. To see the creative in its entirety, the reader has to unfold the pages of the ad, making touch a crucial step in the process.
The Times and Warner pictures, UK For the cinema launch of ‘In The Heart Of The Sea’, a movie based in 1820, News UK’s commercial content team created a panoramic half-wrap of The Times based on authentic 1800s editorial from the newspaper’s archives to create a replica edition. Research subsequently found that three times more Times readers planned to watch the film at the cinema compared to the general population.
games, plus individual winning codes for advertising clients. “We wanted to make print readers premium customers with special benefits, so we made a huge investment in 33 Kodak print heads in 12 different printing presses across Germany,” says Tobias Kuhn, head of manufacturing and logistics at Bild’s publisher, Axel Springer. “We saw a three per cent rise in print circulation as a result. It also removed the need for costly scratchcard inserts and meant we could offer advertisers improved interaction with our readers.” In one instance, individually printed ads with unique codes gave readers the chance to win a Volkswagen car. Kuhn also points to a stronger relationship with readers and improved engagement and interaction as a result of this innovative new system. Additional revenue was also forthcoming via readers’ response calls. Nonetheless, Kuhn believes their ambitious experiment showed “room for improvement” and believes it’s an area that has a promising future for publishers. Their
report on the project added that “Individual ads open up new perspectives for contentspecific and individual advertising”, not to mention “cross-media application” as the codes and ads can as easily be applied online. “We see this as a marathon rather than a sprint,” Kuhn says. Other print publications across Europe have since also adopted the technology, including El Mundo in Spain and Tele Star in France4. Combination is the key All this suggests that this combination of print advertising with its digital equivalent is a highly effective way of getting marketing messages across. “Newspapers supercharge other media,” says Rufus Olins. “With John Lewis, for instance, they see their newspaper ads as supporting the television advertising because the television ads attract a lot of attention, but it’s the two in tandem that work well together. “Our most recent research powerfully indicates that the different platforms
amplify each other. So if you want to make the most of a campaign in a newspaper, you’re better off using two of the other platforms as well. If you also use a tablet and online, they’ll all work harder than they would alone. There’s a multiplier effect rather than just addition. You get more opportunities to see it on different platforms and the results improve.” Mario Calabresi also thinks that the future of newspaper advertising lies in a combination of channels, as well as producing special editions and creating editorial content that complements the advertising around it. “We need to find a balance between print and digital advertising to give a new mission to paper,” he says. “We can no longer think of selling generic advertising spaces, but building spaces dedicated to specific subjects in which advertisers meet quality readers. Special and single issues built on events will also work more and more.” Meanwhile, Manfred Werfel points to innovations such as Porter magazine’s scanning system that links print advertising with online shopping5. “This is a very effective way of advertising,” says Manfred Werfel, “combining full colour, high quality print ads that really show you all the details of the advertised products. And on the other side you can interact immediately and buy the things. So that’s one area to look to in the future – the newspaper becoming a shopping portal in itself.” But Werfel has no doubt about the abiding message for advertisers going forward. “No brand should rely on one media channel only,” he says. “All the successful ones work within a media mix.” And at the core of that mix, print remains the key ingredient. Sources 1 World Press Trends Report 2015, WANIFRA 2 www.inma.org/blogs/conference/post. cfm/printed-newspaper-trusted-by-86-ofpeople-ram-survey-shows 3 www.newspaperscanada.ca/sites/default/ files/Media-and-Ad-Engagement-ResearchSummary.pdf 4 www.printpower.eu/UK/Europeanpremiere-in-line-personalisation-inmagazine 5 www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/macleodsmith-spearheads-print-revolution-net-aporter/1332201 www.printpower.eu | PRINT POWER _49