Earlier: Is today's USA Today full-paper ad "wrap" a first?
[Image: Newseum]
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
USAT | A front page hidden from 1.8M-plus readers
On one of the biggest news days of the summer, USA Today wrapped its front page in another four-page Jeep advertising preprint, risking single-copy sales -- but perhaps delighting Gannett's board of directors, now in its second day of a quarterly meeting in Des Moines. Here's the front hidden from view:
Earlier: Is today's USA Today full-paper ad "wrap" a first?
[Image: Newseum]
Earlier: Is today's USA Today full-paper ad "wrap" a first?
[Image: Newseum]
10 comments:
Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."
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Does it really matter? Look at how tired that front page looks. Wow. Does it really matter if it covered over? Wikileaks files revive debate over security versus public's right to know. Really? It looks like they went out of their way not to be provocative. "Papers detail the scope of a tense, difficult war." Well, yes, that's certainly undeniable and not wrong. What happened to the zip that used be in the USAT?
ReplyDeleteGrow up jim. Today's newspaper readers are not flummoxed when they see an ad wrap on top of the paper.and as a former newsy you also know that most folks are checked out the last week in july either on vacation or enjoying themselves.
ReplyDelete4:10 pm: USAT's ad department apparently sold Jeep on the idea that readers have not, in fact, checked out.
ReplyDeleteand those same people that are on vacation are staying in hotels picking up USA Today from the front desk, along the interstate, and in the airports. The circulation numbers for the last wrap were given last week and is nowhere near as dismal as portrayed on this blog. Anyone saying people do not read this paper anymore are full of it. Listen to the calls when the paper is late or doesn't arrive at all. I'm in the field everyday hearing feedback and the overall consensus is good regarding the product. USA Today is not the product from 10 years ago, name a newspaper that is, but the newspaper still has a strong following and is in demand.
ReplyDeleteJim, you have no clue. The numbers indicate the opposite of what you are saying.
ReplyDeleteUSAT's advertising director said this could dampen single-copy sales. Please give us the numbers that show otherwise, and prove yor case.
ReplyDelete6:42 It is silly to support this idea. USAT depends on street sales for its existence, and hiding the news underneath a wrapper gives customers one less reason to buy it. The newspaper looks like an ad package sitting in the racks. Jeep paid a premium for this sort of placement, but I think that when Hunke averages out the gain in revenue from the ad and the lost sales, it is going to come out as a real negative figure and there will no more of this.
ReplyDelete"USAT depends on street sales for its existence"
ReplyDeletePeople at this blog have been claiming for months that USAT depends on hotels.
Jim, the simple truth is you have so little credibility that there is no gain to proving you wrong yet again. When the numbers come out, you will be wrong.
Truly, not to be argumentative, but I thought USAT had attributed some or mist of its recent big circulation decline on the weak business travel market? To be sure, that would be more than hotels; it would include airport single-copy sales, for example.
ReplyDeleteYet, contributing to that was the decision, awhile back, by hotel giant Marriott to give guests a choice in the free papers they received, no?
Wow. I didn't know that about Marriott. Given a choice, I sure wouldn't take USAT. USAT's weak spot has long been a lack of substance and an overabundance of glitter.
ReplyDeleteI recall coverage of one of Prez Bush's trips to Europe/Middle East. It was like the reporter just took whatever was fed to him everyday, and wrote another boring story that really didn't say a whole lot about anything.