newspaper masthead desecration

An the ad from Woolworths promoting Weet-Bix covers the main page-one headline of the day in the Sunday Herald Sun newspaper today.  Okay so AFL fans would say the story about Geelong was the main story of the day.  It wasn’t. The page one news story of the day was about sex education being provided to kids as young as five.  If the editorial team decided this was the lead, why take money from Woolworths to cover up the headline?  Nuts.

My rant about the cover-up aside – Woolworths is smart is calling the promotion a Sticky Special. This gives the mechanism for delivering the promotion greater relevance.

Check out the placement of a newspaper subscription ad stuck over part of the headline on page one of The Daily Telegraph today.

I feel for the editorial team. This is shabby treatment of their work.

I feel for the newsagents selling the cookbook series (with two weeks to go) and share their frustration at now competing for a free offer from News Limited.

I wonder how much thinking goes into these things … competing with newsagent retailers, sending mixed messages on a product (cookbooks), sticking an ad on the front page which will be ripped off by frustrated shoppers.

All very disappointing.

Check out The Sydney Morning Herald today here in Sydney. A poor placement of a post-it type stuck ad over the top of Sydney in the masthead damages this respected quality newspaper.

Very sad.

The front page of The Age newspaper today has a stuck on ad for Motorpass covering promotion of its coverage of Adam Scott’s tilt at winning the British Open. Taking the sticker off it turns out the headline was a promotion for finding out the results online or on the iPad.

Yeah, I still don’t like these stickers.

Check out the post it note type ad stuck on the front of The New York Times Sunday Review insert. What’s interesting about this is that they are promoting subscriptions deep inside the newspaper. I am guessing this is to connect with people who love the newspaper enough to get inside. I don’t mind the ad here. Okay it covers the masthead of the section – but you have already purchased the newspaper at this point.

The Australian Financial Review weekend edition covered a page on news story with an ad for one of its magazines. It was the story about James Ashby and the allegation of a conspiracy to damage the reputation of the speaker, an important story.

Why do I keep posting about this? There are college students in the US and high school students in Australia who ask me about this as they study changes in newspapers. The appreciate the photos.

Regulars here will be surprised to read that I didn’t mind the ad stuck on the masthead of The Age newspaper on Thursday. Okay, it as covering promotion of an AFL Hall of Fame story. However, that it was promoting the newspaper itself and the colour – it was not as distracting a many of the stuck on ads are. While I don’t like that they use shelf space in my shop to take sales from me, I can understand why they do it. It’s the world we’re in. I am not fighting to retain major newspaper sales, I am more interested ingrowing foreign language newspaper sales.

The ad for the iconic covering The Saturday Age masthead is what you see first. Like the advertiser wanted. I don’t like these stuck on ads but do understand why they there.

The ad for Dick Smith stuck to the front cover of the Sunday Herald Sun yesterday was too heavy, causing covers to tear. The photo shows the tear on one copy of the newspaper, the top of the bundle. the tear starts at where the stuck-on ad is stuck. This ad is different as it is triple the usual thickness of these types of ads.

Outside of the thicker ad, I wonder how the AFL feels about football editorial being covered up by an ad. It demeans the newspaper in my view as regulars here would know.

While the police were raiding the offices of The Age newspaper in Melbourne yesterday, the paper was on sale with masthead part covered by a stuck on ad, like what delayed the Adelaide Advertiser on Monday.

News Limited company Advertiser Newspapers sent this note out to newsagents yesterday apologising for the two hour delay in distribution of The Advertiser as a result of problems with the placement of an ‘AD Note’ on the front page of the newspaper.

This is the first example of a stuck on ad bringing newspaper production to its knees.  I am shocked that they allowed the delay to extend to two hours.  Is the ad revenue from this one ad that important that their employees, newsagents, other retailers and consumers suffer?

Delivering newspapers later in the day puts drivers at more risk as there is more traffic.

I’d be interested to know if News Limited will compensate newsagents and their newspaper distribution employees for the impact of the two hour delay.

It’s interesting to note that the publisher explains that the delay was not due to flat wrap process or press problems before explaining that placing a stuck on AD Note was the cause.

Click on the image to see the letter sent to newsagents.

The editorial content inside The Age newspaper was so compelling that they decided to cover it with a post-it note type of stuck on ad.  Who cares about their cricket or Christmas gift buying coverage.  This trashes what the newspaper stands for.

The ad I noticed on yesterday’s copy of The Asian Wall Street Journal was done in a way which is okay.  While it did cover editorial, it was not stuck on.  On the side it was stuck but no adhesive on editorial content.  The ad was easily flipped across.

Also, there was a perforation at the glue line making removing the ad a dream.  The other aspect of this ad placement was that it did not interfere with the masthead.

While I remain unhappy with ads which block access to headlines, what I saw on The Asian Wall Street Journal better than what I see in Australia.

Picked up The Sydney Morning Herald on Friday and was disappointed to see the masthead of this once great newspaper partially obscured by another post-it type stuck on ad.  I feel for the editorial professionals when their advertising colleagues treat them in this way.

Bucks over content … it’s a commentary on the challenges of the print newspaper.

I understand that newspaper publishing companies are businesses and that they need to be profitable.  Chasing revenue by covering your brand does not make any sense to me, especially with a stuck on ad which readers don’t like.

The Sunday Herald Sun yesterday had a post-it note type ad for tourism in NSW and Qantas Holidays stuck over a headline for their report on the Carlton / West Coast Eagles match.  The placement of the ad says a lot to the AFL and AFL fans in Victoria.  There were plenty of comments yesterday – customers hated it.  We agree with them.  Covering up editorial content in this way damages the brand.  It also indicates that publishers care less about editorial content.

The Sunday Mail in Adelaide yesterday had a post-it type ad stuck over a photo for the front page news story of the newspaper. While this this placement avoids covering up the newspaper masthead (and brand), covering the news photo is a slap in the face for the editorial team.

I wonder how the publisher of the Business Standard of India feels when their masthead and some content, including the lead headline, is covered up by an ad for HR services.  On a Jet Airways flight out of Delhi, all the newspapers I saw yesterday had their masthead covered in this way.  This is far more intense than the post it type ads I complain about on Australian newspapers.

The New Zealand Herald today placed a post-it note type ad over the word Herald.  The ad also covered up their above the line pitch: newspaper of the year. The publisher can do what they like.  I don’t think this is a good move for the brand is all.