Video promoting newspapers is more like a eulogy than a parody
I want to like this video. I really do. It’s a pitch-perfect parody of the new integrated social media campaign. A fictitious ad agency launches a fictitious car, the Zebra, with a cockamamie campaign that includes: opening an actual zoo; crowdsourcing its inhabitants; inviting consumers to engage via Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and other social networks; launching an online TV network called Zoo TV; and spreading viral memes in numerous physical environments before realizing the absurdity of the whole thing and deciding instead to run a print campaign. In newspapers.
If it weren’t so pathetic it would be hysterical. Here once again is another example of the newspaper industry — in this case the Swedish newspaper Dagens Industri — reminding us that it has failed miserably to convey the virtues of its medium to readers and advertisers. So in hopes of delaying its inevitable demise, and having nothing persuasive to proffer readers regarding its merits, it settles for a less than convincing swipe at the very media that are bringing newspapers to their knees.
This 1993 campaign for a fake beer demonstrated the power of newspapers 17 years ago
What’s interesting, for those of us who’ve been around a while, is that it’s also a bit derivative of the famous Neil French XO Beer campaign. In 1993, as an April Fools’ joke, and to prove the efficacy of newspaper advertising at the time, The Straits Times engaged French, who skillfully conceived a phony campaign for a beer that supposedly got you “pissed quicker than any other.” The purpose of the fake campaign was simply to demonstrate that newspaper ads worked. And in 1993 they worked pretty well. Ads like the one above, showing a guy in the men’s room passed out from drinking XO, generated so much interest in the beer that liquor stores had to fend off eager customers. When the campaign was revealed to be a hoax, it came with the claim that only newspaper advertising could create so much demand so quickly.
Unfortunately, the Zebra video, a modern version of the fake initiative, pales in comparison. Sour grapes don’t work quite as well as high alcohol content hops.
Last I checked people shopped for cars online
If the rate at which newspapers continue to shut down is any indication, recent campaigns — whether they criticize the competition (even with tongue in cheek) like the video above, or make declarations that are so far from believable they appear futile (like the ad to the left) — are completely and totally ineffective.
Meanwhile, the industry’s last remaining crutch, the Sunday circular, which generates significant revenue, isn’t long for this world either. As soon as retailers crack the digital code for how to replace this anachronistic marketing medium — and they’re all working on it, given that their customers spend more time online than in the pages of a newspaper — there will be even fewer reasons to advertise in newspapers.
Newspapers would be better off figuring out how to take what they do have to offer – quality content, reportage, celebrity reporters, objectivity, and a commitment to truth – and finding a way to make those qualities relevant.
Hey, here’s an idea. Perhaps the newspaper industry needs to embrace social media. Maybe it needs a campaign just like the one it made fun of in the Zebra video. Certainly wouldn’t be worse than what they’ve been doing, which from what I can tell is basically nothing more than praying.
Comments
The funny thing here is that the video for the most part sells against print. I'm not sure whose looking more foolish, the agency that created the video or the client who paid for it. The first two minutes would actually make a pretty good case to show to clients why integrated approaches leveraging social media are the way to go. As you point out, It's two bad nothing here demonstrates how Newspapers can survive or at least play a role within social media. As always, thank you for sharing Edward.
And thank you for reading, and commenting. It's the conversation and the dialog and the desire to engage that most print media didn't pick up on early enough.
Edward,
Curious that they chose a "viral video" (they obviously haven't read Faris' plea to "stop saying viral") to take a swipe at the shift in media they're trying to stave off.
You are correct about the need to focus on quality content. The very quality of that content makes a connection. Case in point, I'm as much a subscriber to the NYTimes as I am connected to the sage writing of Frank Rich. Sunday isn't Sunday until I've read his column. Newspapers need to focus on the assets that they have, and leverage those in all possible touch points.
And thanks for the reminder of the Neil French campaign. That was buried deep in the cerebral cortex. Good stuff.
Perhaps the NY Times for all its great content will somehow survive. But many Gen Y folks I talk to want to mash it up and not be subject to the content decisions of one publication's editors. Ah yes, the Neil French campaign: reminds one of newspapers, print advertising and the brilliance of a great idea well executed.
My newest possession is a coffee mug from the Newseum that read: "I love the smell of newsprint in the morning."
Reading two newspapers in the morning hurt my Millennial score, listening to NPR doesn't help either.
With all that I still read the NYTimes on my iPad. I hope one of them figures it out before it's too late.
.-= Mark Harmelu00c2u00b4s last blog ..iu00e2u0080u0099ll take an emergency any day =-.
Reminds me a bit of an early Grisham novel. Fast and fun...but finishes with me saying "that's it? Really?"
I'm one of the freaks who doesn't believe the printed word or even newspaper has quite yet breathed its last gasp. But, man, this certainly isn't doing the remaining valid arguments any justice.
.-= Jonathan Fieldsu00c2u00b4s last blog ..7 Insanely Cool NYC Food Trucks =-.
I'm with you. I love print media, but in so many ways they have been their own worst enemy. Met with a journalism major today who in her short college career has seen the demise of the industry she wanted to be part of.
Great video, Thanks. The print people, the newspapers in general, will survive, but in some other way. I don't trust their published views or news stories. They are manipulative, and biased in favor of advertisers and political readers. So how can I trust their 'truth in advertising' to be ethical?
Who wants to read 3 Sunday circulars to see where processed fake ham lunch meat is cheapest? Or hunt through dealership ads to find that 'like' new dependable (although sold As-IS) used car? Argggh. I use the internet hoping for a smaller footprint both on the Earth and on my backside.
If you believed your school nutritionist who claimed that soda and pizza made a good lunch for your kids, then............ the print advertisers will survive on your good judgement alone.
Thanks for the video, it's got a point.
Newspapers, for the most part- broke one of David Ogilvy's key rules- respecting their customers- "treat them like you'd treat your mother"-
We've seen the papers dumb down-
play to the "if it bleeds, it leads" syndrome- and for the most part- provide less than what you get online.
Which is exactly why their future is online, yet they don't understand it.
It's not the same product online- you actually have to know your customer as opposed to shoot a shotgun at them with every ad you can.
We'll see more papers die in the next 2 years than ever before.
They should all be shutting down their presses- and handing out ereaders (ipads, kindles etc) with a subscription- and gathering data ala Google desktop, to target their consumers.
No doubt on the iPad thing. I were they I would throw out the old and put all my efforts into cultivating the younger, digital generation.
Edward,
Whenever I see advertisements for advertising, I can't help but thinking of someone desperate. At least when you see banner ads promoting banner ad space, or billboards doing the same, they're trying to show how the medium works.
But using video to hawk print ads? I guess not using print to do the same shows how bad things are.
As for your comment about newspapers and social media, Jeff Jarvis gave a great, short talk at the #140Conf a few weeks ago about how news media needs to put people in the middle of their process (via social media) rather than at the end, where we are now.
Seems there are all kinds of campaigns out there to save print right now. They're all claiming print's not dead, that all the other mediums are a bunch of hype, yada yada. Yet, here they are, firing from their heels.
Not sure if you've seen/blogged about this before, Edward. But it's worth a watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGVniqgWSc0&fea...
.-= Erik Proulxu00c2u00b4s last blog ..A Long Overdue Review: Fascinate =-.
OMG, this pains me. I love magazines, I love journalism, I used to do all the MPA's advertising. This is so pathetic. I'm embarrassed for them. The true fact is that magazines are about ideas: having them, expressing them, spreading them. Yet they are relinquishing that position to the web because they've done such a lousy job at distributing that content and involving younger readers. It's true that new media don't always kill the old, though I'm pretty sure cave painting has died out. But if that's true, why always sound so defensive?
this is so nice that you share a Video promoting newspapers is more like a eulogy than a parody...
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