Newsweek is Newsworthy

As a prestigious and respected news outlet, Newsweek is making a statement about the plunging percent of advertising dollars for this category. Since 2005, readers have been turning to online sources for news updates. Although the magazine was founded in 1933, ownership has changed hands twice over the past few years. These changes contributed to earlier talks of becoming a digital-only magazine but nothing had been confirmed until recently. At the end of December, Newsweek magazine will stop printing its publication for good.

According to an article from the Wall Street Journal titled Newsweek Quits Print, only a small portion of their subscribers are currently online-only which provides a lot of opportunity for growth within 2013. The printed version of the article also featured images from past magazine covers to emphasize the role Newsweek has played as a credible source of news for almost 80 years. The faces of General Patton, Neil Armstrong, John F Kennedy Jr., and Steve Jobs were all included in the collage. The writer quoted Baba Shetty, CEO of the Newsweek Daily Beast Co, this decision will save the magazine “tens of millions of dollars” from printing and distribution costs. US News and World Report made the shift in 2008 and found it was a profitable decision since their popular college rankings draw millions of unique visits each month.

As a media student, you hear about the decline in advertising spending on traditional media but you never expect market leaders to experience extreme plunges in circulation and profit. This is incredibly significant because now Time Magazine is only remaining newsweekly being printed given them complete control of the category. Having such a big name join the digital movement will significantly increase online competition. While they are experimenting with pricing, Newsweek will also have to find something that differentiates their product from others in this space since news is easily distributed in the digital space. Hopefully their current online-only subscribers have helped them develop an understanding of what readers what to see and how they want to see it. I’m intrigued to see how many of their current subscribers remain brand loyal after the switch in December.  

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444734804578064300216922258.html

Frozen and Barren

            Thanks to the efforts of Senior Lecturer Lisa Dobias, my media cohort was granted the opportunity to complete an external project for LatinWorks in Austin. Having just been named the 2012 Hispanic Agency of the Year by AdWeek, LatinWorks asked us to develop a media plan targeting Hispanics in Los Angeles and Houston for an existing frozen potato company. After dividing into teams, I was asked to conduct primary research in Houston neighborhoods with a high Hispanic-concentration.

            Although field observations are not generalizable, the purpose of my research was to gain insights about our target audience and the environments they shop in. As a team, we determined it was important to learn about Hispanic consumption from Hispanic consumers if possible. Therefore, I spent several hours driving around the city and locating grocery stores that already carried our client’s frozen potatoes.
 

            The absence of traffic in the frozen food section was something that caught me by surprise. I expected the convenience of frozen vegetables and prepared meals would bring a number of shoppers into the aisle since Houston is notorious as busy city. After several minutes without any visitors, I classified this area of the store as “barren” in my notes. It’s easy to understand the rationale for walking through quickly in response to the colder temperatures but it alarmed me to see shoppers skip over this aisle as if it did not exist. This happened at all 4 of the groceries I went to that day.

 

            With this in mind, I returned to Austin and found secondary research that supported my observations. According to the Mintel report titled Hispanics and the Perimeter of the Grocery,   more than 80% of Spanish-dominant Hispanics feel that frozen and canned vegetables are not as nutritious as fresh vegetables. In the real world, this translates in low sales and barren grocery aisles. Therefore our recommendation would have to address some of the misconceptions about the product category in order to successfully position the brand in the Hispanic market.
 

            As supporters of the cliché, “the media is the message,” we recommended doing several in-store guerilla promotions specifically designed to increase traffic to the frozen vegetables aisle. In addition to floor and door decals in front of our client’s products, we wanted place a stand up display in the produce section adjacent to the fresh potatoes with coupons and nutritional information about our brand.