Newspapers have faced decades – and especially two intense years – of unrelenting bad headlines about their own industry. But a new report by McKinsey suggests reasons for optimism for the business, based largely on the possibilities for building on the trust level that the industry brand has established with consumers.
Nearly every week for the last few years, some major newspaper or chain has reported circulation declines, layoffs or other nasty developments. These have set off major structural changes which have laid low even the titans of the medium. Practically no brand has been able to escape the effects of a perfect storm in the newspaper marketplace: abysmal levels of advertising because of the economy, rising competition from Internet and TV news, and to some extent a greater level of suspicion by the American people in the very institution of newspapering.
But now in its McKinsey Quarterly magazine, the renowned consulting firm says that – based on its own research largely conducted in the UK – “newspapers have an important inherent advantage as they face the challenges of the digital age – trust.” Consumers trust newspapers more than any other medium, McKinsey says, and 66 percent actually trust newspaper advertising as “informative and confidence inspiring” versus just 44 percent who feel that way about TV and only 12 percent for the web.
To a great extent, McKinsey says, newspaper brands haven’t done nearly enough to leverage this strong residual trust that consumers have in their brands. Yes, most have gone online, and now many of them are making their first serious attempts at monetizing their internet content.
But as the firm points out, even if newspapers charge only a fraction for their online content compared with what they charge for a print subscription, only a fraction of news mavens said they would pay.
Rather, newspapers should try to leverage this innate confidence in their brands in other ways, McKinsey suggests, such as using their call centers to administer bookings for advertised offers to test-drive new car models or partnering with travel agencies to offer exclusive tours to subscribers.
So newspapers will have to continue to blur the traditional lines between editorial content and advertising, and other marketing efforts, for their brands to survive in leaner times and a digital age. At this point, it doesn’t seem that too many newspaper brands are up for this challenge.
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