Total readership trends of adults for dailies in terms of millions
Similarly, shown below is a diagram which shows the loyalty of adult readers for those daily newspapers. This supports the fact that for the newspaper market to grow, loyalty must increase as this will result in daily purchasing to build revenue environments. This reflects the current situation as the market has a large proportion of loyal readers who consume on a daily basis.
Loyalty of readership of adults for dailies
However, it is equally fundamental to understand the readership by age and social class. From the illustration shown below, it is evident which section tabloid newspapers are classified in as apposed to broadsheets. Popular tabloids are young or old downmarket in contrast to broadsheets which are young or old upmarket. This is a significant piece of information as it proves that the current situation of the newspaper market is divided in terms of its tabloid and broadsheet formats in which a number of segments are being targeted.
Readership by age and social class
Shown below is a pie chart of display advertising by medium for 2006. This shows that regional newspapers advertise more than national newspapers, which, when combined, indicates that newspaper advertising is one of the most popular and this means that the current market is in a situation which is strong.
Share of display advertising by medium in 2006
All of the above illustrations, pie charts and diagrams show that the current situation of the newspaper market is strong for both tabloids and broadsheets. Therefore, it is clear that there are future possibilities for growth and expansion within the market with revenue and sales increasing each day in line with publication, circulation and distribution. From the information above, decisions will be made accordingly and appropriate to the new media product.
The current market situation has shown that consumers have different and functional drivers when it comes to reading the newspapers. Therefore it is important that The Daily, the new newspaper product being introduced, is aware of the fact that these different needstates which offer significant opportunities to enhance the effectiveness of its advertising and tailor the creative to maximum effect. In addition, The Daily will identify that readers are not solely picking up newspapers for news information and have other motivations traditionally more associated to other media such as magazines or TV.
From the research conducted into the current situation of the newspaper market, emotional and functional drivers to read will be incorporated into The Daily. These include ‘I want to find out more about the news and areas that interest me’, ‘I want a quick and easy read on the latest news and events’, ‘I want to relax’, ‘I want to fill in some time’ and ‘I want to get information on products or services I am considering buying’. The current situation of the market is that readers exhibit different needstates at different times of the day, and different needstates occur in different parts of the newspaper for the red tops and mid-markets.
To conclude, The Daily will need to be published, distributed and circulated throughout Britain on a daily basis. The market for tabloid newspapers is strong and there is keen interest in financially supporting it in the future. Therefore, The Daily will reflect the current situation of the market in the sense that there is demand for daily newspapers, content is popular amongst a wide range of audiences, the price and location are factors which have endless opportunities for increasing sales, and the marketing and promotion of the newspaper can be based around market figures and statistics of the current market status.
The current situation of the market means the newspaper can be sold at 30p, distributed nationally throughout Britain on a large scale, promoted in appropriate ways and designed to meet a number of needs in terms of content.
4. Target Audience/Potential Market
The target audience and consumer of The Daily will be mainly adults aged from fifteen years, with the potential market being local and national. There is no strict limit on the age of the audience or consumer as the content of the newspaper is designed to meet the expectations and interests of a wide range of readers. However, the social class will be targeted at the ABC1 social class even though it will fully support those in the C2DE. It will be sold to local and national potential markets with a view to expanding and becoming global, although very rare.
The Daily is intended to be read by a variety of audiences and consumers, and there is no specific group of readers for which it is aimed at. With this in mind, it will appeal to a diverse number of audiences and consumers due to the fact that it will include stories about the entertainment industry, gossip concerning the British monarchy and sports, as well as news and politics with many items revolving around celebrities. As you can see, the newspaper will be marketed to attract a variety of readers in which it will reflect the tabloid newspaper format by covering celebrities-about-town and the latest soap opera storylines.
However, despite The Daily intended to be a far more casual read than its broadsheet competitors, it will include serious news stories to ensure the older, more mature population are also targeted. This will ensure a balance between relaxed and serious news stories where the serious will frequently focus on themes of immigration, security scandals, domestic abuse and paedophiles. Therefore, the target audience and consumer will range from the younger to the older adult, with the newspaper balancing serious with casual news.
You now understand that The Daily will be published and distributed every day to a range of target audiences and consumers. The recommended age range will be from fifteen years, with the social class being mainly ABC1. This will ensure younger people will be able to read stories with the same impact they have upon the older generation, with a fine balance drawn between the divide of social class, gender and age. It is important that audiences and consumers are not restricted so that profit margins are widened and market penetration increased in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. The Daily will be targeted at what is now considered the middle-market, at both males and females locally and nationally.
5. Advertisements and Promotions
The Daily will be advertised and promoted in a number of ways. Adverts can be direct and indirect including posters or flyers and billboard advertisements, and promotions can include competitions and merchandising as examples. While advertising can be seen as necessary for economic growth, it is not without social costs. The advertisements will be used as marketing analytics and effectiveness to determine the impact of marketing actions on consumers of the newspaper, sales, profit and market share. Marketing mix modelling, direct response measurement and other techniques will be included.
When advertising The Daily, consideration will be given to protecting the public interest by regulating the content and the reach of advertising. On the other hand, promotion will be used as one of the four aspects of marketing. With the promotions for the newspaper, a specification of different variables will be used to create a promotional mix or promotional plan. The promotions will use the promotional mix to specify how much attention to pay to any of the variables and how much money to budget for each.
Within the promotions, The Daily will take into account sales increases, new product acceptance, creation of brand equity, positioning, competitive retaliations and creation of a corporate image. Below is a summary of the two adverts and promotions which will be created and produced for The Daily.
5.1 Advert 1: Poster
The Daily will be advertised through a poster. It is a large piece of printed paper which hangs from a wall or other such surface. The poster will include both textual and graphical elements, designed to be both eye-catching and convey information about the new newspaper. The poster will be a frequent tool of advertising for the newspaper as they are easily accessible and relatively low-cost to produce and distribute. The conventional size for the graphical poster will be approximately 24x36 inches, although it may be a different size. In addition, a much smaller printed advert will be produced known as flyers. It is important to produce a draft, storyboard or script so that a visual idea of the advert is made available for assessment, criticism, redesign or improvement.
5.2 Advert 2: Billboard
The second advert will be a billboard. This is a large outdoor advertising structure found in high traffic areas such as motorways and streets. The Daily will be advertised to passing pedestrians and drivers typically showing large, witty slogans and distinctive visuals. This form of advert was chosen for the newspaper as they are very effective forms of targeting a customer, and will also be located in commercial and industrial areas. Adverts will be placed on traditional, mechanical, digital and mobile billboards to reach a large percentage of the market population on a daily basis. The billboard will be designed to catch a person’s eye and create a memorable impression quickly with only a few words, in large print and containing images in brilliant colour.
5.3 Promotion 1: Competitions
Competitions will be used as the first form of promotion. However, for the sake of this marketing plan, only one will be produced. The competition will be to win a free holiday abroad for six people. It is one of the four aspects of marketing and the free holiday competition will involve disseminating information about the newspaper. The competition will promote the newspaper by means of sales increases, new product acceptance, creation of brand equity, positioning, competitive retaliations and creation of a corporate image. This competition will be featured inside the actual newspaper on a single page with promotional prints throughout in order to reinforce this promotional activity of this new release.
5.4 Promotion 2: Merchandising
The second promotion will be merchandising, where a free CD containing music from 2006 will be included. This will help to promote the new newspaper and to appeal to a wide number of readers. However, this promotion may become frequent, especially with Saturday editions in which free promotions are often included with many newspapers. The CD will come in an attractive cardboard sleeve and will help promote The Daily with its first issues to show that it doesn’t simply focus on news and is concerned with providing merchandise to consumers.
5.5 Advert 1: Poster Draft
5.6 Advert 2: Billboard Draft
5.7 Promotion 1: Competitions Draft
Promotion 2: Merchandise Draft
6. Schedule
7. Feedback on the Campaign
It is important that feedback on the campaign is gained. This will be completed through sampling the audience and consumer. Statistical practice concerned with the selection of individual observations intended to yield some knowledge about a population of concern could be used to sample the audience, handing out questionnaires or asking people to complete polls which will result in feedback about the marketing campaign of The Daily. This will appropriately branch off into areas of market research such as primary and secondary.
The following are sampling methods for audience and consumer feedback:
- Random sampling is the purest form of probability sampling. Each member of the population has an equal and known chance of being selected. When there are very large populations, it is often difficult or impossible to identify every member of the population, so the pool of available subjects becomes biased
- Systematic sampling is often used instead of random sampling. Its only advantage over the random sampling technique is simplicity. Systematic sampling is frequently used to select a specified number of records from a computer file
- Stratified sampling is commonly used probability method that is superior to random sampling because it reduces sampling error. Stratified sampling is often used when one or more of the stratums in the population have a low incidence relative to the other stratums
- Convenience sampling is used in exploratory research where the researcher is interested in getting an inexpensive approximation of the truth
- Judgment sampling is a common non-probability method
- Quota sampling is the non-probability equivalent of stratified sampling. This differs from stratified sampling, where the stratums are filled by random sampling
- Snowball sampling is a special non-probability method used when the desired sample characteristic is rare. It may be extremely difficult or cost prohibitive to locate respondents in these situations. Snowball sampling relies on referrals from initial subjects to generate additional subjects
8. Research Bodies
There is the potential use of two research bodies in gaining feedback which needs to be discussed which is the Audit Bureau of Circulation. Please be aware that due to The Daily being a print newspaper, it is impossible to discuss any of the other three research bodies including BARB, RAJAR and CAVIAR as they are intended for audio, visual and broadcasting methods.
8.1 Audit Bureau of Circulation
The Audit Bureau of Circulations is one of the several organisations of the same name operating in different parts of the world. It audits , readership, and audience information for the , , and other publications produced by its members. comes from the and . and other organisations can join as associate members.
This official research body could be used to gain feedback for the campaign of The Daily newspaper. It will allow the newspaper to discover whether or not it has been circulated effectively around Britain, whether it has been read as much as it was intended and will provide information as to the audience. Therefore, it would result in feedback of the type of audience reading the newspaper, how often they do so, where and why. This will assist other research methods as well.
This official research body influences and impacts upon the market research and content of adverts produced by The Daily. For example, it will help circulate the adverts and help monitor their effect. This research body will also assist primary and secondary market research by means of newspaper circulation and readership, indicating whether there has been an increase in the number of consumers and inevitably sales volume. They will also create an audience profile for the newspaper which will prove whether market research has been successful.
Finally, the content of adverts will be affected by the research body through circulation of the adverts to their locations such as retail outlets, advice on whether the content is easily readable and which types of audience can relate more appropriately to the adverts of The Daily newspaper.
9. Legal and Ethical Constraints
9.1 ASA
The role of the ASA and other official bodies are important to controlling the advertising of The Daily. They influence the content of the adverts in a number of ways where their use is significant. The ASA is the independent British self regulatory organisation of the advertising industry. The ASA is a non-statutory organisation and so cannot interpret or enforce legislation. However its codes of advertising broadly reflect legislation in many instances.
The ASA will control the advertising of The Daily in being a best-practice ‘one-stop shop’ for advertising regulation and will ensure the advertising of the newspaper is legal, decent, honest and truthful. Typically, advertisements that fall in ‘paid-for’ spaces in the newspaper will fall within the remit of the ASA. Advertorials are also within the ASA’s remit as long as a reciprocal arrangement of some kind is in place and, crucially, control over the content of the advertorial lies with the advertiser.
If the editor of The Daily maintains control over the advertorial, the piece will likely to be seen as editorial rather than advertising and will therefore lie outside the ASA’s terms of reference. The ASA will also control the advertising of The Daily with its circulars, leaflets, and unsolicited emails etc which are all typically within the ASA’s remit. If the newspaper decides to advertise on the Internet, by its very nature it is largely unregulated and the ASA has very specific terms of reference with regards to advertising on the Internet.
When The Daily promotes its newspaper, The Institute of Sales Promotion (ISP) will have big say as to how sales promotions are administered. Working to the same Code as the ASA, the ISP can refer complaints to the ASA when it feels there has been a breach of Sales Promotions rules. These include the newspaper’s free merchandise, competitions, discounted purchase offers etc. However, The Daily will try to avoid the ASA controlling its advertising inappropriately by ensuring good publicity with consumers and by cooperating with both the Office of Fair Trading which is a legal enforcement body.
9.2 The Press Complaints Commission
The Press Complaints Commission is another British organisation which will regulate and control The Daily as a printed newspaper. The advertisements that the newspaper releases will need to follow the Code of Practice, where the section titles of the code of practice on which judgements are as follows: Accuracy; Opportunity to reply; Privacy; Harassment; Intrusion into grief or shock; Children; Children in sex cases; Hospitals’ Reporting of crime; Misrepresentation; Victims of sexual assault; Discrimination; Financial journalism; Confidential sources; Witness payments in criminal trials; and Payment to criminals.
The Daily and its advertising will be controlled by The Press Complaints Commission to a certain extent, where it will try to avoid complaints by members of the public. This will be achieved by ensuring there are no alleged factual inaccuracies in newspaper stories and headlines, and by ensuring there are no alleged invasions of privacy, the lack of right to reply, harassment and obtaining information using covert devices. The Daily will, therefore, add clauses to the contracts of editors of the newspaper giving them options to dismiss editors who are judged to have breached the PPC Code of Practice.
The official body will control the advertising of the newspaper by controlling the complaints made against it. However, it is the aim of The Daily to eliminate any outstanding complaints and to minimise the number of complaints by ensuring news stories are ethically and morally suitable for readers.
10. Situation Analysis and Key Issues
10.1 External Analysis Summary
A Five Forces Analysis of the competitive environment in which The Daily newspaper will operate should reveal that the threat of substitute newspapers depends largely on the customer’s cultural orientation, reading preferences and accessibility to daily newspapers. It is the aim that The Daily will be considered a major competitor in the tabloid newspaper industry. The economic environment is currently strong with low inflation and low interest rates.
Furthermore, consumers of newspapers have on average a more disposable income compared to five years ago, and an average household spends £1.50 to £2.00 per week on newspapers. Therefore, an opportunity exists to increase prices, at least by 0.7% which was last year’s increase of the consumer price index for newspapers where the largest increase was seen in the early 1900s when the increase was 4.7% within two years (e.g. 25p to 35p).
The Daily is aiming to illustrate that financial loses will not be seen within financial data where the newspaper’s strategic and business planning focus will be upon returning the newspaper to profitability in the shortest possible time. The strategic marketing focus also needs to accommodate these short-term needs. Attracting readers to The Daily will be limited by an annual promotional budget of £300,000 which represents only a small percentage of the revenue of British newspapers.
There is little evidence of any meaningful market research and market segmentation having been carried out, where current pricing strategies appear to be based on what other newspapers are doing rather than having researched any price elasticises of demand with consumers.
11. Forecasts and Budgets
It is recommended that a sales forecast should be established based on achieving at least 30-35% consumption of the newspaper by the end of 2008 as well as increasing revenue by 30-35%. Based on these objectives, the following budgets are recommended.
11.1 Budget
The current budget allocation of £300,000 per annum is considered insufficient to achieve the recommendations of this marketing plan. It is recommended that an extra £200,000 should be allocated to enable the achievement of the following:
- Undertake market research to better understand market segments and determine price elasticity of the product (estimated cost £75,000)
- Undertake promotional campaigns prior to release to penetrate target markets and communicate product offerings (estimated cost £125,000)
In an effort to minimise expenditure it is recommended that The Daily newspaper recruit to undertake promotional work. It appears that labour supplied by newspapers is a norm amongst many British newspapers. In the case of The Daily, efforts will be rewarded through recognition by the newspaper.
11.2 Implementation and Control
The Daily’ management and staff may be less willing to implement the plan if they have not been actively involved in its creation. Therefore, effective communication of this plan is a key implementation requirement. Implementation of the marketing plan also requires resource acquisition, resource organisation and resource utilisation.
11.3 Implementation of the Marketing Plan
The following steps are recommended to implement the key points of the marketing plan for The Daily newspaper:
- Communicate and seek confirmation of the realistic substance of the plan with key people within the newspaper
- Obtain the necessary marketing promotions budget to allow the market research programme and specific advertising campaigns to be undertaken
- Restructure the existing marketing unit by function, to combine and establish a sales force
- Get agreement from key people on projected sales objectives for the newspaper as well as consumption and readership goals
- Set progressive monthly sales objectives for sales and marketing staff to reach the overall goal required by the end of 2008
- Schedule monthly evaluation reviews of the marketing strategies and actions with key people
11.4 Control of the Marketing Plan
The overall responsibility for the control and implementation of this marketing plan lies jointly with The Daily decision makers. An additional function responsibility lies with the Marketing Manager. Specific monthly control procedures to continually compare ongoing plans with actual results are recommended to determine whether the plan is working or not and what, if any, corrective action needs to be taken and include the following:
- Monthly analysis of sales to determine the source of actual sales
- Monthly analysis of sales performance to identify causes of above and below forecasted performance
- Monthly analysis of profitability of the newspaper, market segments, sales staff and marketing channels
- Monthly report to key decision makers outlining analysis conducted that includes recommendations for further actions to build on emerging strengths, as well as recommendations to overcome potential problem areas with the newspaper, individual staff, market segments and marketing channels.
11. References
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Adapted from Kotler, Armstrong, Brown Adam & Chandler, (1998) Marketing 4th edition, Pearson Education, Australia
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- “Dictionary of Marketing Terms” from marketingpower.com
- “What is Marketing?”
- “The Concept of the Marketing Mix” from the Journal of Advertising Research, June 1964 pp 2-7
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- “Marketing Management: Strategies and Programs”, Guiltinan et al, McGraw Hill/Irwin, 1996
- “In the Mix: A Customer-Focused Approach Can Bring the Current Marketing Mix into the 21st Century”. Chekitan S. Dev and Don E. Schultz, Marketing Management v.14 n.1 January/February 2005
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“Swarming the shelves: How shops can exploit people's herd mentality to increase sales?”, , -, p. 90
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Marketing Nutrition: Soy, Functional Foods, Biotechnology, and Obesity (2005), , Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press
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