Newspaper still have the largest market share in Luxembourg’s advertising budget: €82m of a total of €168m.
Newspapers showed an increase in advertising of 5%, free dailies are almost totally responsible for the growth as their advertising revenues increased with 43%. (Luxemburger Wort)
Luxembourg has two competing free dailies Point24 (Saint Paul: Luxemburger Wort) and L’Essentiel (Tamedia/Editpresse: Das Tageblatt).
Toronto’s free evening newspaper t.o.night was disguised as a Chicago Trib (as in Tribute, not in Tribune) today.
The paper had a four page wrap with a mock-front page of the Chicago Tribute to highlight the launch of TV-series “the Chicago Code” premiering on Global.
Publisher John Cameron explained in a email:
“The no logo wrap is the next step in the evolution of the wrap. Readers know what the publication is, so we have decided to give advertisers the opportunity to fully own the front page space when purchasing wraps, delivering them even more value for their ad dollars.”
The full paper can be downloaded from the t.o.night website.
Hans Gasser, the new president of Austrian newspaper organization VÖZ, and publisher of economic paper Wirtschaftsblatt, asked questions about the Vienna city government spending lots of money for ads in ‘friendly’ media (see previous post).
It is suggested that the Vienna government gets favorable reporting in return. Gasser actually said that as a result of these spendings, influencing media is not impossible (Beeinflussung kann nie ausgeschlossen werden).
Engelbert Washietl, journalist and working for the ”Initiative Qualität im Journalismus” quoted Gasser in an article in the Wiener Zeitung and referred to the ad spending as “Bakschisch”, something that is best translated as “bribe”.
VÖZ is according to the article already talking with secretary of state for media, Josef Ostermayer, about the ad spending. Because it concerns taxpayers money, the spending should at least be public and transparent.
As the leading party, the socialist SPÖ, lost their majority in the election last Sunday, the money, was actually not very well spent.
In November Metro Holland will introduce a “kids & parents” page in the free newspaper.
The page will run every Tuesday. Advertisers were informed by Metro’s Twitter business account.
As part of the marketing campaign for the new Hawaii Five-0 series, t.o.night, Toronto’s free afternoon daily commuter paper, a “sound card” was inserted in each copy of paper yesterday (September 20).
The full-page card (click for bigger view) features a scenic shot of Hawaii and plays – when opened – a 15 second sound chip with the catch phrase, “Book ‘em, Danno” and the show’s iconic theme song.
T.o.night’s regular “Newsies” were wearing series-branded shirts when they handed out this special edition in downtown Toronto.
Irish free daily Metro Herald will use Quick Response (QR) codes in the newspaper as a service to advertisers. The codes are embedded in ads and can be scanned by a reader using a smartphone.
Readers can get extra information, download mobile apps, enter competitions or receive a special offer or voucher. Companies like Ford, Google, Pepsi and Starbucks have used QR codes in the past. (Independent.ie)
Polish publisher Agora today published a German edition of their Polish free daily Metro in Berlin.
The paper has a circulation of 30,000 and is meant to promote tourism to Poland and to give Polish advertisers the opportunity to reach potential customers unavailable to them in other ways.
This edition is already the third German publication, in September 2009 and June 2010 Agora also published German editions.
The first edition was awarded with the first prize in the “Marketing Solutions for Advertising Clients” category at the INMA Awards 2010 competition (see previous post).
The Vienna city council is spending around €15m in a year on advertising in three Austrian newspapers. Austrian paid market leader Kronen Zeitung is getting most from the city, but other paid papers lag behind free newspaper Heute and paid/free paper Österreich.
Österreich has 313,000 readers in Vienna, Kronen Zeitung is leading with 536,000 readers while Heute has 512,000 readers.
In January and February – weak months for advertising – Kronen received €730,000, Heute €690,000 and Österreich €440,000.
Vienna is in fact ruled by socialist party SPÖ, the total PR budget of the city councils “Presse- und Informationsdienst” is €47 million. Estimates from other parties is that to total budget of the city is actually at least twice as high because also power plants, public transport and housing projects owned by the city spend millions on advertising.
According to an article on the website of Austrian magazine Profil, the city council gets in return a very positive journalistic approach. The Vienna opposition does not hesitate to call it propaganda at the expense of taxpayers.
After free daily Le Matin Bleu merged with competitor 20 Minutes in the French speaking part of Switzerland, paid paper Le Matin saw the number of ads increase.
In the beginning also 20 Minutes profited from the closure, but as the paper increased its rates in 2010, advertising dropped. The high price of the ads in 20 Minutes also made some advertisers move over to the paid title.
A third reason for the increased ad revenue of Le Matin is the fact that the paper now sells its own ads, instead of selling through Publicitas. (Persoenlich)
Metro Canada will launch a 8 week nationwide brand awareness campaign in October of this year. The campaign will have a budget of Can $ 2.9 million (€2.2 million).
The paper is read by 1.3 million Canadians daily, according to NADbank 2009 statistics. (MarketingMag)
The paper celebrated its tenth anniversary two weeks ago; it was launched in Toronto on June 29, 2000. There are now seven editions with a total circulation of 800,000.