Update #3, Saturday, 09:13 Bogotá, Colombia
TAKEAWAY: The majority of El Tiempo editors have embraced the new concept that premieres Sunday, Oct. 3; others have a wait and see attitude. Now the process is to explain the concept to readers and to advertisers. So far so good. See the marketing department’s efforts to promote the El Tiempo that is about to launch. PLUS: A new sports daily for the UAE: see Sport 360*
Once our concept for the new El Tiempo was crystalized, then the next step was to discuss it with the editors in the newsroom, who would ultimately be the ones implementing it.
Since our blog yesterday, several of you readers have sent me emails with the specific—-and valid—-question: How in the world do you sell this to editors?
In fact, one person wrote me: “My editors would have a heart attack if we proposed that we tear down the walls, and take away the headers with the names of their sections.”
Indeed, it is not easy to sell NEW anything, especially to editors. But I knew that we could do it, and that we had to present it as what it is—-a no nonsense, practical approach to presenting information.
For those who argued that when you tell readers You Must Read (Debes Leer), you are arbitrarily directing them to a very specific comment, our answer is: isn’t that what editing is all about? Isn’t that what newspapers have done for over two centuries. Every newspaper editor I know SELECTS stories that he/she thinks readers would be interested in or need to know. That is a fact of daily journalism in any platform.
It was that which we used as we worked with the different groups of editors at El Tiempo.
Three reactions among editors
Today at lunch I took the time to ask Jose Antonio Sanchez, the one editor of El Tiempo who was project leader for the journalistic side of our work.
Mario: Jose Antonio, what has been the reaction of editors here as you worked with them on zero numbers with the new concept? How difficult was it to make the changes internatlly?
Jose Antonio:
Not difficult at all, or less so than I had anticipated. I can tell that the editors I have worked with here have fallen into three distinct categories: those who like the project, consider it innovative and are having fun implementing it; then there are the skeptics, not sure how it will go, but are willing to give it a chance, wait and see; then there are a minority which feel that the old way is the best way to do things, and I know that , somehow, they are hoping that the new concept will go away, so that they will be able to go back to their old ways
Obviously, this is not surprising. Editors in a newsroom usually fall into those three baskets, regardless of the topic at hand.
As we work on Sunday’s edition today, I see designers working closely with editors, a buzz in the newsroom, everyone trying to write a better headline, pick a more impactful photo, having fun.
Selling the concept to the readers
While the editors and designers put together the pages, discuss content and plan ahead, the El Tiempo marketing department is enjoying the early results of their all encompassing campaign to introduce the new El Tiempo to readers nationally.
It is a campaign that covers all bases: taxis, buses, billboards, airport advertising, the subway system, and, of course, radio, television, online, in-house ads.
I will show you here a gallery of how the new El Tiempo has been presented:
This is a video shown just before the most popular telenovela airs each night on Colombian television
This is the general promotional video shown nationally throughout the day on television
Segment to promote the Debes Saber section only
Segment to promote the Debes Leer section only
Segment to promote the Debes Hacer section only
This is what passengers using Bogota’s subway, Transmilenio system, will see on the cars
Here is a view of how the campaign appears at airports throughout Colombia
Billboards with the new campaign: this one in Bogotá, but similar ones nationally.
Typical posters seen through various stores and locations nationally
Images to be used in various forms of transportation, from buses to trains to subway system
Selling to the advertisers
The advertisers have been gun ho on El Tiempo’s new concept from the first time they saw a prototype, about three months ago.
Immediately, they were curious as to the traffic that the new content segmentation would attract, and how their products could appear as part of the new concept.
The success of the focus groups served to give their enthusiasm a more scientific base: readers loved their new El Tiempo in those focus groups; even the oldest and most traditional had something good to say about the new content distribution, and said they were willing to give it a chance.
Friday I spoke to El Tiempo’s advertising director, Santiago Alvarez, a happy man who had just closed out Sunday’s edition, the first with the new concept.
“We had projected advertising sales of about US$400,000, but we are now at US$550,000,” Alvarez told me. “This is very good and speaks volumes for the interest that our advertisers are showing in how the new content is distributed and how they can attract new clients to their products.”
“There was NO problem of perception whatsoever about this new concept,” Alvarez said. “In fact, the segmentation of content has been a plus for us so far.”
Will Alvarez sell the advertising according to the three sections: Debes Saber(Blue), Debes Leer (Green) and Debes Hacer (orange)?
Yes, says Alvarez, with the blue section having the highest premiums for obvious reasons. It includes the front page and the most breaking news.
“But we consider the Debes Leer (green) section high premium too, the newspaper’s editorials, best columnists, appear there,” he said.
The orange section, with all the lifestyle topics is the one where Alvarez hopes to truly go for advertisers they don’t have now, such as more cinemas, restaurants, health related clients, concert promotions, etc.
Alvarez, who was also in charge of the marketing campaign, says that it has had a very good reaction. It has been massive and very nationally oriented, at a cost of US$1.5 million.
El Tiempo building prepares for launch
The concept of the color coded books is obvious when one enters the El Tiempo building’s atrium—-big banners with Debes Saber, Debes Leer, Debes Hacer, Clasificados, hang from the citizen to welcomd visitors.
Interested in reading about our redesign of El Tiempo in 2006?
http://www.newsdesigner.com/archives/002457.php
Tomorrow: The new El Tiempo premieres
El Tiempo Case Study; Segment 1, The Concept
https://www.garciamedia.com/blog/articles/el_tiempo_at_100_a_fresh_proposition_journalistically_visually_digitally
To read the El Tiempo case study in Spanish, visit Rodrigo Fino’s blog:
http://www.garcia-media.com.ar/blog/post/todo-puede-debe-cambiar-i/126
Also in Spanish, El Tiempo case study, continued:
http://www.garcia-media.com.ar/blog/post/todo-puede-debe-cambiar-ii/127
Here it is: UAE’s new daily sports newspaper
Here is front page of Oct.2’s Sport 360 published in Abu Dhabi, distributed through the UAE
There is a new English-language newspaper making the rounds in the UAE, the much talked about sports daily!
Yes, Sport 360 is already here, having launched the tabloid edition this week, with a digital component, and all the news you want to know about sports in Dubai and surroundings——plus the rest of what happens in the sports world, which is, of course, of major interest to the high number of ex pats who live in the UAE.
We have downloaded a front page from the newspaper’s website. Front page is a poster-styled concept, with two navigators to inside content at the top. WE are hoping to get more information in the days ahead.
If we follow the website’s navigator, we see that the content strategy is divided as follows: football, cricket, motorsports, tennis, golf, US sports, other sports.
This culminates years of rumors about the new “UAE sports daily”, some as early as 2006. We had heard during our last visit to Dubai only a few weeks ago that the launch of Sport 360 was imminent, but even then, nobody was saying when.
The questions linger: is there room for another daily newspaper in the already crowded UAE printed newspaper market (at least six English-language dailies)? Will a sports-only daily attract the sufficient number of readers required to sustain it?
My take is that content is key. Sport 360 must be able to provide exclusive stories that such newspapers as the Gulf News and The National might not offer on their sports pages. In addition, they must be aware of the variety of nationalities in the UAE. It cannot be too British sports oriented, or US football/basketball, or Indian cricket. A tough balancing act, and one we will watch with interest in the months to come.
Sport 360 must offer something extra, or to paraphrase the words from that show stopping number in the American Broadwaymusical Gypsy, You’ve Gotta Have a Gimmick.. It was good advice for those strippers in the show, it is good advice for new sports newspapers in a crowded newspaper market.
Sport 360 is a publication of Gulf Sports Media, and will produce the newspaper out of twofour54, Abu Dhabi’s media hub.
Best weekend read
Without a doubt, I am recommending that you read Cyrus Highsmith’s piece, based on a presentation he gave at Matthew Carter’s AIGA Boston Fellows Award ceremony on September 24, 2010.
Cyrus’ piece is funny, insightful and, for those of us who read books on our iPads as well as the real thing, the printed book, it is just a delightful way to realize that, indeed, print is eternal, if only because of its smell.
Enjoy!
The Smell of Books
http://type101.fontbureau.com/smell-books/