Entries for month: November 2010
How case work during Schibsted Brand Academy ends up with launches and great success
24 November 2010 · By Hilde Torvanger
“The fitness section has been a great success both in the newspaper and on the web site. It has grown extremely fast and is already one of our top three concepts. But it had neither been developed nor launched if it weren't for the Schibsted Brand Academy!”
These words come from Gard Steiro, news editor of Bergens Tidende, the main regional newspaper in Bergen and the western part of Norway.
He and his colleagues participated on the Schibsted Brand Academy last spring. The academy is a program where insight, brand-building and product development are in focus. The participants come from all the Scandinavian companies in the Schibsted Media Group. One of the success criteria of the program is that managers from both the editorial and the commercial sides of the media houses participate together. Another success criterion is that every group (company) has to work on their own project during all four gatherings. Several of the projects from the Schibsted Brand Academy have been launched after the program was finished. This means that not only does the academy strengthen the skills and competence of the participants, but it also produces several success products and concepts.
The success story from Bergens Tidende is one example from 2010.
...[more]Like with radio in 1920s, audience's use of media maturing in Internet Era (good news for print)
16 November 2010 · By Joe Talcott
“In Budapest there is a newspaper that has no printing presses. ... It is a large and flourishing newspaper and, as far as I know, all its subscribers are satisfied. It has never been 'scooped,' and there is little likelihood that such a catastrophe will soon happen.” Homer Croy wrote those words in 1922 in an article describing a new technology called radio.
Reading that piece gives me renewed optimism for newspapers in 2011 and beyond.
In my last INMA blog, I said that newspapers were competing with chocolate bars and that we could learn from FMCG marketers. I think we can also take lessons from radio.
Let's face it; the past two years have been difficult. Banks collapsed, “unsinkable” businesses went into bankruptcy, and governments defaulted on loans.
We also saw newspaper circulation and readership numbers fall. The loudest voices on media were heralding the demise of newspapers all together. “Why buy a newspaper when you can get all your news online?” they said. Of course, the decline in newspaper circulations began prior to the global financial crisis, as a result of fundamental changes in the way people were using media. The continued growth of the internet saw more and more people getting their news and entertainment online. And recently new tablet devices have presented another way for people to get their news. We have not seen such a dramatic adoption of new technology since ... well, since radio.
A recent study in Australia compared consumers' attitudes toward major media and their use of those media. It was a repeat of the same study conducted two years earlier. There were major (and some will say surprising) shifts over the two years.
...[more]Star-Ledger takes one element of food coverage and creates brand franchise
08 November 2010 · By Bob Provost
Just over 10 years ago, Star-Ledger food writer Pete Genovese pitched his editor on a summer promotion to explore the unique, local food specialties of New Jersey's local eateries.
Readers were engaged — they suggested the foods to try and the local eateries that should be sampled.
Readers were involved — the decision was made to bring several readers along each Saturday to compare notes on the food sampled, and Pete's coverage would be about the food and the readers' reactions. A van was chartered and the Star-Ledger Munchmobile was born.
My first summer at the Star-Ledger was 2006, and my curiosity was peaked one morning in May when a whimsically decaled passenger van sporting an eight-foot fiberglass hot dog (complete with bun and mustard) on its roof, appeared in the newspaper parking lot. I had to investigate.
What I learned was that this unlikely mobile tribute to gastronomy was the Star-Ledger Munchmobile, the center of a cult-like readership following. Thousands of readers registered on a waiting list for their turn to be a featured weekly “muncher” and travel New Jersey's roads with Pete. The Saturday excursions, likely to run much of the 200-mile length of New Jersey, were detailed each week in full color on the cover of the following Friday's feature section.
Chatting with pilot/food writer Pete Genovese, I realized that the thousands of people with hopes of riding the Munchmobile would wait in vain. With a capacity of six weekly riders and a 15-week summer schedule, only a select few would ever fulfill their dreams. What an opportunity!
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