Is It Right For Marketing To Intrude Into Editorial?

Philip M. Stone February 7, 2008

Here’s a sub – head on a Times of London feature about Bill Forsyth, the writer and director of the 1981 movie, Gregory’s Girl: ‘Gregory’s Girl, free with the Times on Saturday, is a much-loved cult film …’ The article ran to near 2,000 words.

And its main purpose apparently was to promote that The Times is giving away the DVD of the movie on Saturday. Its web site, beneath the byline, invites the reader to “watch the Gregory’s Girl trailer”.

Not only that, but the web site also offered a short blurb offering readers the chance to call up the pdf of the original Times review as published June 5, 1981. And all of this is on editorial pages.

It’s in aid of selling this Saturday’s newspaper. House ads are one thing, but using editorial to promote a marketing exercise? To the traditionalists that really crosses the line; to the modernists anything is fair these days in the effort to increase circulation.

The Times is beginning on Saturday a major giveaway promotion starting with Gregory’s Girl. The Sunday Times follows with a free CD of music from the movies, and then The Times next week gives away DVDs of the movies, Shakespeare in Love, Trainspotting, Billy Elliot, “The Hours” and “The Queen”.

Not only is there TV and radio advertising, but the Times’ art editor is hosting a special reader event at a large central London movie theater, and the newspaper all week is featuring an editorial series devoted to film.

“This promotion is further evidence of our commitment to cinema,” boasts Katie Vanneck, sales and marketing director of Times Newspapers.

Can’t help wonder what publisher Rupert Murdoch would think of such a promotion.  Back in November, 2005, he said,“I personally hate this DVD craze. The fact is the sales go up for a day, and are right back to where they were the following day.The most recent example of that is The Sunday Telegraph when they tried to relaunch two weeks ago. And they had a great sale - up 190,000 or 200,000. And the following Sunday they were back exactly where they were two weeks before. People grab it, tear the DVD off and throw away the paper. They've got to learn. That's got to stop."

Apparently his UK managers really didn’t get that message. And the pressure is on to increase revenues. News Corp reported this week that News International, publisher of The Times, Sunday Times, News of the World and The Sun, reported lower profits in Q4 than it did the year before.

UK national newspapers appear to be getting themselves ever deeper into the giveaway craze in order to boost circulation. There is no question it does it for the day, as Murdoch said, but what happens afterwards?

Last year’s most famous giveaway was by The Mail on Sunday (MoS) in July when it packaged the previously unreleased Planet Earth album by Prince. Circulation rose 600,000 on the day, but practically all of that was lost again the following week although the newspaper claimed its overall circulation gained some 30,000. Be that as it may, Associated Newspapers, publisher of the MoS, said in its latest report released this week that circulation for the MoS was flat for the six month July- December half when compared to the year before, so that would indicate that for all the hoop-la Prince really didn’t do anything for continual circulation gains.

The most successful giveaway so far this year is The Sun’s giveaway of some 4.5 million energy saving light bulbs on January 26 – two bulbs for each copy of the newspaper sold at a retail outlet.  Circulation went up on the day by more than 400,000 – about a 12% increase – and why not, for the 55 pence paid for the newspaper the reader got, on the spot, £4 worth of free light bulbs. Not a bad deal! And The Sun roped in no less than Prime Minister Gordon Brown to write a long article a week before the giveaway endorsing the promotion as a way to cut down on CO2 emissions.

The Daily Express had a giveaway of free vitamins that could be obtained with a coupon at a major supermarket, and other newspapers gave away everything from a Jean Michel Jarre’s Oxygene album on CD to the DVD of the first movie talkie The Jazz Singer, while another  newspaper tried its luck with an old perennial, a Princess Diana DVD

The list is so long the truth is that anyone really looking to boost a CD or DVD library on the cheap should be doing exactly what Murdoch said back in 2005 that he saw people doing – buy the newspaper for the giveaway and then throw away the newspaper!

These giveaways do not come cheap to the newspaper, especially when marketing and promotional costs are taken into account. The Prince album is said to have cost The Mail on Sunday more than £1 million when license fees and all are included. With costs like that it is little wonder that the marketing folks want editorial actively participating to make the promotion a success, although truth be told running that kind of editorial campaign in print doesn’t do much good, except possibly for viral marketing, since if one reads the promotion there then it means you’re already a reader and you’re just going to get the freebie as a bonus.

But the promotion on the newspaper web site could draw in new print readers who will buy the newspaper on a particular day just for the freebie. If that is the goal of the marketing people – to lift circulation for the day – then the freebie works, but if the goal is to lift circulation permanently then all of the experience thus far says it doesn’t work.

So back to the original question of whether marketing and editorial should be working together like this. Perhaps Sam Zell had the answer when he was asked this week what he expected from his journalists, “I want to make enough money so that I can afford you,” he said at a staff meeting at the Orlando Sentinel. “You need to, in effect, help me by being a journalist that focuses on what our readers want that generates more revenue."

So if the reader really wants free DVDs, then so be it.