I want to talk about my hometown broadsheet, The Age, but note that I could be writing about almost any Australian capital city daily newspaper.
This Saturday you get a free set of coasters if you buy The Age. Recent other giveaways have included: a yoga DVD, a Music CD (several times), posters and so on…
Each of these giveaways provides a sales spike but a sales spike does not create brand loyalty. Thinking about The Age, the best loyalty they have comes from their excellent Green Guide, TV guide (Thursday), Epicure (Thursday), Domain (Wednesday), EG (Friday) and classifieds (Saturday).
I’d rather see them invest marketing dollars in the product rather than investing in spike type campaigns. Coasters have nothing to do with a respected broadsheet newspaper. News is what it’s about and the day by day feature sections. The more the marketing focus is directed away from news and the core attributes of the newspaper the greater the disconnect with consumers.