I am amazed at how fat London newspapers are on a Saturday and Sunday. Have they been to the McDonalds management school of bigger is better? It’s not, of course. These bulging newspapers are packed with too many sections, recycled content and ads, for my liking – too many ads. A good newspaper does not need to be supersized. A good newspaper needs good news coverage. The London newspapers I have seen seem to think that size does matter.
They are drug addicted as well. Hooked into giveaways because they cannot get the desired circulation without a bribe. The addiction I saw when here a year ago is as evident today. The Mail gave me a DVD of Mrs Santa Claus, The Sunday Times gave me a CD-ROM Family Tree Maker, The Daily Express gave me free Christmas Cards (but I had to go to Superdrug to redeem those) and The Sunday Telegraph gave me free Hybrid Tea Roses – if I send in a coupon and pay the postage.
Yesterday (Saturday) The Times gave me a DVD – Who Do You Think You Are – an episode of the BBC series of the same name.
Tomorrow, the Daily Mail starts a part series of Disney PC Games. How this works is that you buy the newspaper anywhere but can only redeem the coupon for the 12 parts at WH Smith or Eason stores. Given the UK market I can understand publishers limiting redemption to selected branded stores. Looking at this campaign, and considering all the others, one has to acknowledge the deep addiction of publishers to these giveaways in an effort to attract sales. My question is – who is going to stage an intervention and break the habit of the publishers? Certainly in Australia, unless the scale out model of the giveaways gets smarter, intervention to kill the addiction is essential because poor scale out is losing customers, not gaining them. Here in London the problem is more serious – these aren’t newspapers. There are advertising wrap-arounds. If I were a regular consumer I’d avoid them – their covers have little or no news appeal.
But back to London. The newspapers seem to have lost their way, lost their purpose as a respected source of news and analysis. Sure, news and analysis are still there, but in the background.
My simple view is that newspaper publishers need to learn that size does not matter, they need to drop these supersized editions. Smart advertisers will be telling them this anyway. Newspaper publishers ought to consider on working on the product to lure customers rather than negotiating a bribe. Yeah, it’s the hard road. But aren’t they the most rewarding?
Lagniappe — (pronounced LAN-yap) — A small gift given to a customer by a merchant at the time of a purchase.
The word originated in 1849. It’s interesting that such a specific word exists and the concept of gifting a customer goes back 150 years.
Of course it’s not quite as nice when the customer is expecting the gift or is buying the product only to receive the gift, and hence the gift itself outvalues the product, as is the case with many of these newspaper giveaways.