Saturday, 31 March 2012

Re-branding the Wall St Journal - All in Vain?

According to Brand Channel, The Wall St Journal has recently been relaunched.  The new payoff line “live in the know” is a step away from the “every journey needs a journal” angle the paper adopted a few years back.  But will it work.  Here is the new ad – strong, all the right images, all the right words – as David Taylor from the Brandgym would say – “plenty of sizzle”.  But:  where’s the sausage? I.e. enough to appeal to new readers?  Is the paper doing enough to adapt to the changing technological climate – i.e. the advent of soundbyte news (Twitter), News communities (Facebook), not to mention the burgeoning e-book/reader market?

 An indie site http://www.newspaperdeathwatch.com/ predicts that the last newspaper will fall on North American doorsteps in 2043 – that’s when the current readership (ave age 50 years) finally kicks the bucket.  The Wall Street Journal seem to know this – and are discounting wildly in an attempt to appeal to a younger reader.  For instance, you can get a monthly subscription to the WSJ for just US$10 – compared to the $189 seven years ago.  But as BrandChannel asks: too little too late?

 

 

 

 

 

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