Are Newspapers Brands?

Why newspapers need less news and more brand

This was a sad week for newspapers in Toronto.

The Grid, a Toronto Star run weekly, formerly known as Eye Weekly, which had, over the past two years, grown into a trusted source of insider info on the culture and food goings on in the city, is no more. It's dead. Kaput. The plug's been pulled!

Like most people, I was shocked. Why? Why? WHY???

Well, money of course.

Though the Grid was one of the best designed newspapers in Canada (beautiful, in my opinion), and had won a number of awards, it simply wasn't making enough money. Print revenues were down, online revenues, for lack of a better word, sucked, and so TorStar shuttered the business unit, not bothering to give the Grid more time to develop new sources of revenue.

I was shocked, but not surprised. Newspapers (and magazines) have been struggling with the decline of advertising revenue for years, and more papers than ever are using online paywalls to ask their readers to make up the difference.

(Yeah, right. Read your news incognito for free, people.)

Paywalls won't make up the difference. People don't want to pay for news, because news is a commodity. You can get it anywhere and everywhere. We're inundated with news. In my opinion, people won't pay to read specific columnists either, or for special "premium" articles that can only be accessed by subscribers. Columnists come and go, and switch papers more often than not. Those premium articles aren't necessarily better than the regular ones, and I'm not quite sure people can judge the difference enough to pay for them.

So then what?

Is there anything newspapers have that make them valuable?

Well, yes. Their brand.

Just as Kraft Peanut Butter is more than just peanut butter, and Lululemon is more than just a store with yoga pants, newspapers are more than just news and columnists. They're brands. And those brands have value. They mean something to people, which makes them valuable to people.

Take the Grid. What does the Grid's brand mean to you?

I'd say:

• indie
• cultured
• hipster
• foodie
• insider knowledge
• snarky
• young and trendy

The Grid knew this. According to Marketing Mag, they were in the process of exploring brand extensions that could grow their revenue, like sponsored events and custom content. In fact, they'd explored it already: events like Burger Week united beef-lovers and burger restaurants across the city, and you can bet those restaurants had to pay to be a part of it.

The Grid is (was?) a great brand, with all of the qualities I listed above, and it's a shame they didn't get the time they needed to grow that brand even more.

What about a magazine like MacLean's, Canada's version of Newsweek? What does the MacLean's brand mean to you?

I'd say:

• informative
• liberal
• integrity
• in-depth
• critical
• Canadian
• authoritative
• trusted

MacLean's knows this. In fact, they do a fantastic job of treating MacLean's as more than just a magazine. In addition to the weekly print edition, iPad edition, and website, MacLean's offers:

• in-depth, long-form e-books (on topics such as the Shafia killings and the Queen)
• special edition guides and tabloids (like their guide to Canadian universities and their Newsmakers and Year in Pictures editions)
• special events that cover everything from politics to food tasting

And all these brand extensions are featured in, and work in concert with, the magazine. MacLean's thinks and acts and operates like a brand.

Other newspapers and magazines that act like brands:

• Vice
• WIRED
• Fashion
• Any more?

So... I'll repeat: paywalls are not the answer. People don't value individual articles or columnists or news in general. They value the brands and the overall promise and experience that comes with them. Newspapers evolve, their content and brand extensions can change, but their brands will always be the same.

Launching a SKU with Stopping Power

Does this sound familiar to anyone?


"We're launching a brand-spanking new SKU (that is, a new line or sub-brand of products within an existing master brand). I want you to create an ad that highlights what's innovative and new about this new line (it's the "news" that sells, I tell ya!) BUT I want you to stay true to the already established big idea of the master brand and keep it within that existing creative wrapping."

And so the dance begins... how do you launch a new SKU with stopping power while staying within the existing (re: familiar) creative wrapping of an already established (re: familiar) brand idea that is meant to represent the master brand (re: familiar!!!)? The answer is easy: you can't. Other than linking the launch to the master brand through cursory means (ie. using the same tagline at the end, using the same mnemonic, using a few visual brand cues/mandatories), in order for a new SKU to truly have an impact on consumers (and thus, move product ) it should focus on what makes the new SKU so new and exciting (once again, it's the "news" that sells, I tell ya!).

The aim of a new SKU is disruption - that is, disrupting a consumers routine, or the way they normally look at a brand or category, by shaking things up.

Now, normally I would dip into by favourite brand example for this one: McDonald's. Whenever they are launching a new SKU (ie. coffee, the mediterranean burger, etc.), they always do a good job at going with ads that have stopping power (giant cups of coffee, anyone?). But, as a change of pace, why not dip into the mecca of packaged goods advertising? I'm talking about magazines, specifically: Chatelaine.

Flipping through the latest issue, here are the three ads that I found did the best job at launching a new SKU... with stopping power:

KD Cups new "Whole Wheat" SKU
The brief here was simple. We're launching a new line of whole wheat KD Cups (Kraft Dinner served in easy to cook, microwaveable cups), and we need to call out the whole wheat news in an interesting and compelling way. If the brief was simple, the creative idea was even simpler - why not play off of the fact that KD Cups sort of look like those bundles of wheat you always see lying around farm fields during the drive up north? The tongue-in-cheek play-on-visuals looks like a cheeky optically illusion, and definitely stopped me from flipping the page. But perhaps most importantly, it screams: whole wheat.

Wendy's new line of Fresh Salads
This was an interesting one. The Wendy's "You know when it's real" campaign and brand promise has been in market for a while, and Wendy's has been building a strong association with "fresh, never frozen" burgers for years. But when it comes to Fresh Salads, Wendy's is probably one of the last places you'd think to look. McDonald's has usually done the better job at promoting the idea of fast food salads. But this ad, especially the full-page, does the trick. There is just something startling about seeing a basket of plump, juicy, freshly-picked apples and the Wendy's logo on the same page, so much so that it made me want to read what this ad was all about. Now that's stopping power!

Special K new Blueberry Flavour Cereal
Another simple brief (though now that I think of it, which new SKU brief isn't, in the end, exceedingly simple?). We need to communicate the news that blueberries have finally arrived in the world of Special K. What is that world of Special K, exactly? It's a world of exercise, yoga, and women in leotards, to be blunt. So what better way of shaking things up than giving the Special K woman a giant blueberry to work with instead of an exercise ball? Well, this ad is what you'd get. Not the best creative, for sure. But the visual trick (similar to what KD Cups did with the bales of wheat) was enough to stop me in mid-turn and make me connect the dots - Special K is launching a new cereal. Job well done.


And there you have it. Three interesting ads out of Chatelaine that do nothing more than they were asked to do. They each did enough creatively to both stop you in your tracks by compelling you to take a closer look, and immediately communicating what is new and exciting about the new SKU. So the next time your client asks you to dance the fine line between an existing brand idea and the features of a new SKU, you know what to tell them: "It's the "news" that sells, I tell ya!!"

Put on the what??

I don't usually spend much time looking through those "Smart Source" coupon booklets, but this week's version had an eyebrow-raising example of brand extension that's worth writing about. Two examples, actually. Although I'm not a big fan of the idea of extending brands beyond their core competency, when (1) a brand is elastic enough that it isn't strongly associated with a specific product/category, (2) it possesses strong brand equity, and (3) that equity would provide a competitive advantage in a related category, it can work. When this isn't the case, it usually doesn't.

Enter Polysporin. Since I was a kid, a cut on the knee always resulted in three things: wash, Polysporin, and a Band-Aid. Polysporin found the need (or as some might see it, created a new need) to medicate cuts before covering them, positioning the product as one that can not only prevent infections but help wounds heal faster. Whether or not it actually did this is besides the point, consumers (including myself) are convinced that it works. Over time, additional line-extensions were introduced, as well as claims (like the "Heal-Fast" formula, see below) that strengthened the brand's core competency. Polysporin is a medicated cream that helps wounds heal faster... end of story.

Not quite. Just a few pages later I noticed two Smart Source ads for new, non-wound-related Polysporin brand extensions. The first is a medicated eye drop product that claims to help get rid of the eye condition pink-eye, also called Polysporin (though the box indicates that the drops are also meant to be used in your ears...). The Polysporin eye/ear drops also feature the "Heal-Fast" claim found on the base product. Interesting.

The second new product is a medicated, moisturizing lip balm, again called Polysporin (with a small descriptor). The "Heal-Fast" claim didn't make it onto this one. Here's the ad:

It's clear what they were thinking. "Polysporin is great at healing wounds and preventing infections, why can't it do the same for lips, eyes, and ears??" Well, I'm sure it can, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you should do it. First off, the Polysporin brand is strongly associated with being a medication for cuts and wounds, a category that it pretty much dominates. It's also strongly tied to Band-Aids. How open would consumers be to thinking about the brand any other way?

Secondly, I'm not convinced that the Polysporin brand is providing much of an advantage to these new products - it might even be detrimental to them. When it comes to your eyes, you want a brand that specializes in eye-care. We have doctors that train and specialize in eyes, you'd expect the same amount of competency from an eye-care brand. When it comes to my eyes, there's no way I'm using the same brand/formula that I use on a wound. It's gotta be Visine. The same is true for the lips. When it comes to your lips, you either want a lip specialist (ie. Chap Stick) or a beauty specialist (ie. Burt's Bees).

Not only that, the brand also seems to be trying to convince consumers to adopt a new catch-phrase, "Put on the Poly". I doubt that "Poly" is the type of affectionate nickname that consumers usually give to brands that they love (think Coca-cola and Coke, Budweiser and Bud). The full-name - "Polysporin" - sounds like a medication that works. "Poly" just sounds funny.

The final problem with brand extensions is that they can degrade the meaning and equity of the original brand. The brand can become a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none, losing the equity and associations it had been building up over all these years. The worst thing that could happen for Polysporin would be if someone to asked you to "Put on the Poly", and you responded, "What kind?"