The masthead of the Sydney Sun Herald newspaper today is partially obscured by another of the stuck on ads which you need to peel off if you want to see the editorial content underneath. At the Sydney newsstand where I purchased my copy this afternoon I saw four ads littering the floor. The same stuck on ad is running on the front cover The Sunday Age today.
I know my blogging about this will not change the Fairfax sell-out of their masthead. It does, however, provide a record for those who are tracking how newspaper publishers are treating their brands in this disruptive print world.
It’s been going on now for a long time as in years and years. It must pay them to do it it as in advertising revenue or else they would have taken notice of your comments some time ago.
or it could be a conspiracy by newspaper publishers to annoy Mark by covering as many mastheads as possible.
I don’t expect them to take notice of me. Sometime down the track, the treatment of once extraordinarily valuable mastheads will be subject to analysis and review.
Our copies had them slapped on the bar above the logo. Not so bad.
Mark, That doesn’t make sense. Any revue would surely be on financial performance and your lates blog “when will the last daily newspaper publish in Australia” indicates the the “time is nigh”
I really don’t think it is about stickers, surely it’s a bit late for “window” dressing it’s about advertising revenue which is related to circulation.
Graeme – Mark’s documentation of the prioritisation of advertising over brand would be invaluable to anyone writing a thesis on the topic. There aren’t many brands out there willing to desicrate their own logo the way newspapers have been in recent years.