News Corp Australia has today launched in print what it calls its the most significant, unifying national brand campaign across all 30 News Corp metro and regional publications.
Michael Miller, executive chairman of News Corp Australasia, said: “This is an exciting time for our company, our brands and their evolution. The launch of our whole-of-company brand campaign is an opportunity to reignite our story, values and purpose, and to create an emotional connection which highlights our brands through the commitment: We’re For You.
Michael Miller
“This is the first time we have had one unified voice across all our metro and regional mastheads, and we are confident the message We’re For You, will resonate with our readers, our subscribers, our advertising partners and the News Corp team.
To launch We’re For You, each editor has penned their own letter to their readers, featuring across pages 2 and 3 as double-page print advertisements in all metro and regional mastheads today, and in the Sunday metro newspapers on 25 February.
More messages to readers will follow each day this week.
News Corp chief marketing officer Tony Phillips (pictured top) told Mediaweek:
“We have had the idea incubating for the best part of a year. This is the first time we have every masthead aligned – metro and regional. I have been out speaking to all of those brands’ editors and managers to give people an understanding of why it is important.
“It is not just something they should do because they thought it the right thing to do, but there are good reasons for it. We listened to what they needed and we explained what we wanted to do as a suite of brands.
“Insights that they have told us include why people buy the News Corp papers. And interestingly, all people refer to the product as a newspaper, even if they are consuming it digitally. Paper is the vernacular for what it is we produce.
“Half of the reasons people buy our produce are for pragmatic things – they just want to know something or get something. The other half had reasons that were emotionally linked. Through our retail promotions and subscription offers we were appealing to the tactical, but really weren’t tapping into the emotional.
“Like many sectors we are in a continually fragmenting market in a competitive sector and people have choices. We need to be able to advertise our product and build our brands as any advertiser would want to do.
“The key emotional driver that came out in our research was pride – pride in the family, home, local community and also broader links to state and country.”
Across the week we will be carrying extracts from some of the editors’ letters to their readers.
Damon Johnston, Herald Sun
Each day the Herald Sun tells the story of Victoria for Victorians, producing almost 90,000 words of news: the equivalent of a book every 24 hours.
But while a good newspaper informs its readers, a great newspaper does so much more.
This is the Herald Sun’s mission for the community we serve, whom we seek to inspire, entertain and challenge.
Damon Johnston
We champion our readers’ concerns and aspirations, keep a check on government and authorities, and fight for progress.
We are committed to representing Victorians, to giving you a voice and focusing on what matters in your lives: cost-of-living pressures, runaway energy prices, community safety, health and education. We are committed to accuracy, integrity, fairness and balance. We are passionate, enthusiastic and unashamedly parochial.
We’re not afraid to challenge our state and city to address problems unfolding on our streets.
We uncover bureaucratic excess and failings, recoil at the waste of taxpayers’ money, insist on real progress in Spring St and Canberra, and demand reform for community safety.
We cheer when the Tigers or Dogs make dreams come true and celebrate the world’s most liveable city in the greatest state in Australia.
We are for news. We are for Victoria. We are for you.
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Follow the We’re For You News Corp campaign across the next four days in Mediaweek:
Tuesday: Tony Phillips on creating the campaign + The Daily Telegraph’s Chris Dore
Wednesday: Securing the editors’ support for We’re For You + more editors’ messages