Transcript Document

In Their Own Words
How to win New Readers
John Lavine, Readership Institute
NAA / ASNE Convention April 21, 2004
© Readership Institute
Readership Trends
100
90
80
70
60
All Adults
25-34
18-24
50
40
30
20
10
0
Average Weekday Readership
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2003
Source: Newspaper Association of America (Simmons 1970-1997; Scarborough 1998-2003)
© Readership Institute
Industry Response
• 2000 Readership Institute (RI)
Impact Study
– 37,500 consumers in 100 markets
– Four readership cornerstones:
• Content
• Service
• Brand
• Culture
© Readership Institute
RBS 2002 to 2003
5
4.44
4
3.91
3.88
3.63
3
3.18
2.95
2.75
2.68
2
2002
Age 18-24
2003
Age 25-44
Age 45-64
65 or older
© Readership Institute
Major Myth
• Your employees – and too many
managers -- still believe young adults
will read newspaper more as they age
• It is not true!
– Your older readers replaced by ones who
read lot less
© Readership Institute
Peril Could Be Real
• Your newspaper could be in peril
– If you don’t get replacement readers
when they are young
• Every other medium offers your
advertisers young, diverse
consumers
© Readership Institute
Most at Risk
35-74
white
18-24
25-34
black
hispanic
asian
© Readership Institute
Can Newspapers Thrive? Yes!
• There is substantial hope
– 1/3 of young readers are heavy readers
– 61% of young adults still spend some time
each week with their local newspaper
• Get best replacement customers
– 18-24 year olds
– Hispanics, African Americans, Asians
© Readership Institute
New Readers Study
• 10,800 readers of 52 local dailies
– Experiences with newspaper, content,
service and use of Web site
• Content Analysis:
– 33,000 stories, 12,000 ads, 21,000 in-paper
promotions
• Workforce, Organization, Culture
• Today must limit topics
– Use some groups as example
– Report on rest later
© Readership Institute
You Can Win If …
You follow three commandments:
I.
Get into heads of your young and
diverse readers
II.
Move from tweaking newspaper to
continuous readership innovation
III. Build organization with multi-year
readership strategy that expects and
rewards readership growth
© Readership Institute
Newspapers Reflect Reality - Theirs
© Readership Institute
Begin to Think about Readers
© Readership Institute
Ask Readers What They Read
© Readership Institute
Ask Readers about Themselves
© Readership Institute
Breakthrough: Profound Reader
Experiences Tie to RBS Results
© Readership Institute
Create Vibrant, Lasting
Connections
© Readership Institute
Newspaper Reading
Experiences
• Thoughts and feelings readers
have with your newspaper and
with its relevance to their lives
© Readership Institute
Why Use Experiences
• Strongly linked with readership (RBS)
• Better predictor of readership than
content satisfaction
• Ad impact increased if ads appear in
newspapers with stronger experiences
• More than any approach, experiences
enable you to:
– Build those vibrant, lasting news and
advertising bonds with your diverse and
young readers
© Readership Institute
Experiences For Young and
Diverse Readers
• Something to talk about
– regularly refer stories and ads to friend
–
–
–
–
Discriminates and Stereotypes
Ad usefulness
Makes me smarter
Looks out for my civic and personal
interests
– Value for my money
– Too much
– Good service
© Readership Institute
Something to Talk About
“I bring up things I've
read in this newspaper
in conversations with
many other people ”
“Part of my role
among friends or
family is to keep
them informed
because I read
the newspaper ”
“I like to talk about
the national news
and current events
I read about in it ”
Something to talk
about
“I like to give advice
and tips to people I
know based on things
I've read in this
newspaper ”
“I show things in
the newspaper to
people in my
family”
© Readership Institute
Discriminates and Stereotypes
“This paper has
a history of
discrimination
against
minorities”
“They only
target minorities
for their money.
They don't
really care
about them”
“I worry that other
people reading this
paper will get the wrong
impression of minority
groups”
Discriminates and
Stereotypes
“This paper is
sometimes unfair
in its stories about
minorities”
“This newspaper
perpetuates racial
or ethnic
stereotypes”
“This newspaper
is basically about
white America”
© Readership Institute
Do You Risk Alienating Older
Readers?
• Research shows:
– Traditional readers share many of the
experiences that matter to New Readers
– They value many of New Reader
innovations
– They will ignore things that don’t matter
to them
© Readership Institute
GOAL: Grow Readership
EXPERIENCE
© Readership Institute
GOAL: Grow Readership
EXPERIENCE
CONTENT
SATISFACTION
© Readership Institute
GOAL: Grow Readership
EXPERIENCE
CONTENT SATISFACTION
CONTENT
TACTIC
© Readership Institute
GOAL: Grow Readership
EXPERIENCE
CONTENT SATISFACTION
CONTENT TACTIC
CONTENT
ACTION STEP
© Readership Institute
GOAL: Grow Diverse and 18-24
Year Old Readership
EXPERIENCE
Strategic
CONTENT SATISFACTION
Tactical
CONTENT TACTIC
CONTENT ACTION STEP
© Readership Institute
GOAL: Grow Hispanic Readership
“Something to
talk about.”
EXPERIENCE
Hard news
CONTENT SATISFACTION
Visual appeal
CONTENT TACTIC
Action photos
CONTENT ACTION STEP
© Readership Institute
GOAL: Grow African American
Readership
“Something to
talk about.”
EXPERIENCE
News about
my community
CONTENT SATISFACTION
Who is in
the story
CONTENT TACTIC
Presence in
stories, photos
CONTENT ACTION STEP
© Readership Institute
GOAL: Grow 18-24 Year Old
Readership
“Something to
talk about.”
EXPERIENCE
Ads about
“go and do”
CONTENT SATISFACTION
Image ads
CONTENT TACTIC
Narrative style
ads
CONTENT ACTION STEP
© Readership Institute
Hispanics and Experiences
• “Talk about it”
– Rate it higher than non-Hispanic whites
• “Discriminates and stereotypes”
– Rate it higher than non-Hispanic whites, but
not as high as African Americans
• “Ad usefulness” and “value for my
money”
– Rate it higher than do non-Hispanic whites
• “Reading on the Web”
– Rate it much higher than non-Hispanic
whites
© Readership Institute
African Americans
• In diverse New Readers markets:
– 33% of population is minorities
– 20% of people in photos are minorities
– African Americans most likely to be seen
in sports stories and photos
• “Ad usefulness” rated higher than for
non-Hispanic whites
• “Talk about it” higher than for any other
group
© Readership Institute
18-24 Year Olds
• Advertising is key readership driver
• “Value for my money” is also very
important
• Young adults are more likely to:
– Perceive newspaper discriminates &
stereotypes
– Rate paper as “too much”
– Rate experience “reading on the Web”
higher than older readers
© Readership Institute
18-24 Year Olds – cont.
• They are less likely to:
– Say paper gives me “something to talk
about”
– Feel newspaper “makes me smarter”
– Believe it “looks out for my personal & civic”
interest”
© Readership Institute
Experiences For Young and
Diverse Readers
• Something to talk about
– regularly refer stories and ads to friend
–
–
–
–
Discriminates and Stereotypes
Ad usefulness
Makes me smarter
Looks out for my civic and personal
interests
– Value for my money
– Too much
– Good service
© Readership Institute
You Can Win If …
You follow three commandments:
I.
Get into heads of your young and
diverse readers
II.
Move from tweaking newspaper to
continuous readership innovation
III. Build organization with multi-year
readership strategy that expects and
rewards readership growth
© Readership Institute
What Does Readership
Innovation Look Like?
• Focus on specific audience and know
intimately how they live
– Pick key experiences and apply them to
every section of newspaper
– Involve whole newspaper
– Apply key experiences to advertising,
marketing, promotion, and service
© Readership Institute
Don’t Say It Can’t Be Done
• Remember USA Today?
• You can innovate for diverse and young
readers in your market
• Look at these current examples
– Some starting to innovate
– Others further along
© Readership Institute
Combatting “Too Much”:
• Looks like
traditional front
page
• ‘Stories’ are
actually digestsummaries to full
stories inside
© Readership Institute
Seattle P-I Makeover
• Stories designed
to “make me
smarter” and to be
visual
• Daily ‘scorecard’
on readership
goals
• Reefer to stories
with ‘talk about it’
elements
© Readership Institute
“Makes me
smarter”
“Talk about it”
“Looks out for
my interests”
The Bakersfield Californian
© Readership Institute
Bucks County
Courier Times
• Reality
section
driven by
‘talk about it’
topics for
young adults
© Readership Institute
Dallas Quick
• Demonstrates that:
– Without major public
transit system, tabloid
quick-read product
works
– Is large new audience for
people who want to
know a little about a lot
– Can reach across age
groups
© Readership Institute
Gannett Weeklies
• ROI
– Thrive was planned
for 32 pages
• Successful ad sales
pushed it to 64
pages for first issue
– CiN Weekly planned
to grow gradually
from 72 pages at
launch
• Reached 104 pages
in four weeks
© Readership Institute
RedEye
• RedEye launch:
– October, 2002: radio
was top medium for
18-34 year olds
• Today:
– Daily readership is
280,000 avg.
– Weekly cume is 680,000
est.
– RedEye among top three
media to reach 18-34
year olds
© Readership Institute
© Readership Institute
Reach African Americans
• Journal Times worked
to ‘mainstream’
coverage of AfricanAmericans
• Went from NAACP
ridicule to industry
award in 2 years
• Now highest RBS
number is for African
Americans
© Readership Institute
20 Minutes Paris
• 1.3 million readers
– Circulation: 450,000
– #1 for under 40 and women
• Stays true to its value
proposition – news you
need in 20 minutes
– “And if you need more, go to
our Web site…”
• Uses geomarketing &
chronomarketing in 200
distribution points
© Readership Institute
Innovation: Young readers
• Play Bac Presse (France)
– Four separate paid daily home-delivered
newspapers
– Advertisers covet the market
– More than 200,000 circulation
© Readership Institute
You Can Win If …
You follow three commandments:
I.
Get into heads of your young and
diverse readers
II.
Move from tweaking newspaper to
continuous readership innovation
III. Build organization with multi-year
readership strategy that expects and
rewards readership growth
© Readership Institute
Are You Ready To Innovate?
• Current innovations:
– Often outside main newspaper
• To turn around “mother ship,” you must
address organizational issues
© Readership Institute
Research Organization:
New Readers Study
Input from 6,600 employees
– All levels, every department
– By race/ethnicity, gender, age
– By position in organization
• Earlier we heard voice of consumers
• Now listen to your employees
© Readership Institute
What Your Staff Says
• “It’s not my responsibility”
• “We’re not encouraged to take risks”
• “There’s lot of talk about input, but in
end our ideas are not really valued”
• These are hallmarks of newspapers
that resist change
© Readership Institute
As leaders, they reflect your
expectations
You can change their focus
and actions
© Readership Institute
What Your Staff Should Say
• “I’m expected to know business and
take on challenging tasks”
• “I’m expected to think differently and
to innovate to win”
• “I’m expected to take risks; I’m
rewarded, even if I fail”
• These are hallmarks of newspapers
that embrace readership change
© Readership Institute
This kind of organization is
positioned to win
We need more newspapers
like that
© Readership Institute
“Ready to Innovate” Index
Measures
• How well managers create and
communicate reader-oriented strategy
• How focused whole paper is on readers
• How much newspaper responds to
changing market
© Readership Institute
“Ready To Innovate”
Newspapers
• More constructive
– And less defensive
• Leaders share readership strategy
– With employees at every level
• Involve employees in decisions
– That set strategy and affect them
• Results: Readership higher in general
and among target groups
© Readership Institute
“Ready” Newspapers, cont.
• Do more training and development
• Employees more engaged
– Often perform above requirements
– Help newspaper innovate to reach goals
• Have more women and minorities
– More of them in positions of authority
© Readership Institute
Internal Diversity Matters
50
40
30
20
10
0
Women
Women
managers
NPs best positioned to innovate
Non-white
Non-white
managers
NPs least positioned to innovate
© Readership Institute
Warning
Just having “right” people won’t
bring success
You must have readership strategy
that informs everything your
newspaper does
© Readership Institute
Steps to Encourage Continuous
Innovation
• Bring your staff into creating solutions
– Don’t just execute solutions you devise
• Require staff to:
– Learn about under-served readers’ lives
and their experiences
• Look for employees with:
– Diverse backgrounds to help newspaper
connect with under-served readers
© Readership Institute
Continuous Innovation
• Do not hire or promote to decisionmaking positions:
– People who are not committed to
readership growth
• Make it safe for people to innovate, take
risks and fail
– Applaud and reward risk-taking to reach
young and diverse readers
© Readership Institute
Lavine’s Readership Goal
• Every day talk to your New Readers:
– 18-24 year olds
– Hispanics, African Americans Asians
• As them if they:
– Discuss a story or advertisement in your
newspaper with friend
– Recommend your newspaper to friend
© Readership Institute
Your To-Do List
• Next Monday move down readership
road with this preliminary goal:
– More “talk about it” in every section
– More meaningful photos of young and
diverse readers
• Develop over all readership strategy
– With process for wall-to-wall content,
service and marketing innovations to
achieve it
– Do it by a fixed date
© Readership Institute
Tell Your Colleagues
They can win if they follow three
commandments:
I.
Get into heads of your young and
diverse readers
II.
Move from tweaking newspaper to
continuous readership innovation
III. Build organization with multi-year
readership strategy that expects and
rewards readership growth
© Readership Institute
Our To-Do List
• Post today’s and Monday’s presentations on
www.readership.org
• Complete reports on:
– Advertising impact and reader experiences In fall
– Web usage and newspaper content
• Offer workshops to learn more about how to
implement this work
• We seek partner newspapers to test and
measure major readership innovations
© Readership Institute
My Thanks to You and to…
• Mary Nesbitt
– RI Managing Director
• RI Team Members Present
– Todd McCauley
– Limor Peer
– Regina Glaspie
• Mike Smith
– Media Management Center Managing
Director
© Readership Institute
Readership Institute
of Media Management Center
Northwestern University
Download this presentation at:
www.readership.org
© Readership Institute