The newsagency brand is in trouble. Right there, in that sentence, is the problem: Newsagency is not a brand. It used to be. For over 100 years it was the brand on main street. The newsagent was someone special and the business the go to place for stationery, newspapers, magazines and cards.
In the 1970s and 1980s as more shopping malls opened and some main streets started to fade, newsagencies started to lose consistency. The push of newspapers and magazines into other outlets in the 1980s, 90s and this century has driven fading consistency in newsagencies.
Years ago, industry associations tried to reinforce this by creating the N logo. The idea of the N logo was to make it a mechanism for discipline. That failed a few years ago and it is to late not to apply discipline which has been treated so poorly by so many.
My view that newsagency as a brand is no longer was reinforced this week when I visited three newsagencies in the space of two hours and saw three very different businesses. One was a dirty dingy trash heap which should be closed, the other a stunning business and the third a shop more focused on cheap product from China than traditional newsagency lines. While these businesses are entitled to call themselves what they like, good newsagents would cringe that two of the three share the newsagency shingle.
So, the newsagency brand is dead. Smart newsagents will brand themselves as something else, something which is backed with appropriate discipline and which can separate their business from the two newsagencies I saw earlier this week.
This is why marketing groups are essential to the future of the channel. Marking groups have the mechanisms of discipline – franchise agreements and the like. One of the reasons I joined newsXpress is for the discipline. I had been in a couple of groups before where there was no discipline. To me, a marketing group must have balls to toss out members who do not meet standards – otherwise the brand is weak – just as the newsagency shingle is weak.
Newsagents who are not part of a marketing group are relegated to being grouped with others trading under the newsagency shingle. In that group you have some of the best newsagents in the country and some of the worst and therein lies the problem.
Couldn’t have said it better.
It is unfortunate that in the latest National Newsagent Magazine there is an article that tell us a different story of the newsagnet ‘brand’.
Page 17 – “The ‘newsagent’ or ‘newsagency’ brand is universally recognised. It is a powerful generic brand and it is vital that it remains so in the eyes of consumers whatever the sub-brand.” – what misleading crap.
It also quotes – “It could be conterproductive to have too many groups that might confus the public and dilute newsagency recognition” – what planet is the ANF from?
The people making these comments obviously have no idea what they are doing. It is thinking like this that hold back the industry.
The newsagency industry is one of the few industries that has a large number of businesses without branding. When most other retail industries have a majority of branded businesses, what makes so many in our industry think that they can fight the inevitable?
Jarryd thanks for pointing out the National Newsagent article – I had not read the latest issue of the magazine. The article on page 17 does not have the name of the author.
The current situation where newsagency can mean so many things is confusing. While more marketing groups will dilute the strength of the newsagency shingle, this has to happen if the strong are to get stronger and survive in a tough retail environment.
What is urgently needed is retrospective discipline within Newspower – the biggest group. We also need a couple more groups. Plus, other existing groups have to be tough on standards.
While the ANF is entitled to a view, some of what has been written in the current journal demonstrates a lack of understanding of what newsagents need in the marketing group space.