Tribune chief innovation officer Lee Abrams' August 8 post

THINK PIECE: Marketing the newspaper, other hot buttons and argument starters

Marketing a newspaper: Big question---once we re invent papers, how will they be marketed? In a perfect world you can spend millions and market yourself to growth. Of course if your reinvent is just another tweaky redesign that is dramatic to everyone except the public, then it's money completely wasted and equally important, a giant stab to credibility as you're promising the next big thing and delivering something that the average person simply doesn't notice. I think newspapers are generally WAY too assuming that any small change will be instantly noticed...and rejected. I can tellya, with the exception of a few, the public just doesn't notice the subtle tweaks . There's way too much going on out there for a subtle change to be noticed by anyone but the small group of loyalists. I know this'll be argued forever, but that's the way I believe it is. We tend to be overly sensitive. Cutting through takes infinitely more aggressive actions than it did even ten years ago. And you can't TRICK people with clever statements and claims...it's all in the meat. Radio was the worst offender: "All Your Favorites on WXXX"...reaction: More BS from the station that plays way too many ads and repeats the same songs all day.

But I've seen remarkable thinking at our papers...REALLY inventive stuff. So confidence is high that we're going to definitely turn things around. What I'm seeing is more BALANCE. Instead of an elite group making the decisions, there's more input from all corners. It's about firing on all cylinders: Journalism, marketing, sales, graphics, etc... It's not about complicating things...it's about a group understanding that we have MAJOR issues and we need to address those. The old way of redesigning wasn't working in that there seemed to be little effect ....There are REAL smart people throughout Tribune that need to be listened to...or at least be unshackled to freely contribute. A re-invent meeting can't have 800 people in it, but every area needs to be represented in terms of what they think. Change by committee is a bad idea because it'll end up in endless debate and we'll be here in 2027 debating a type face...but representation of ideas from all corners is something we need to continue to figure out how to do.

Anyhow, lets say the reinvent is dramatically good. Now what? My read: There's ONE important way to sell the change--SHOW THE PAPER. Let people touch, see and live with it. The worst thing would be a marketing slogan "Now...Your New Daily Paper...more concise...more engaging". That will likely come off as marketing BS that no-one will buy into. You gotta SHOW people the actual NEW newspaper. The other thing is loooong explanations. Again, I doubt if anyone other than the hard core will READ long explanations ...or care that much. It's really simple--assuming the reinvent is REALLY aggressive and positively dramatic--SHOW IT.

The Chicago Tribune re-invent is going AMAZINGLY well. I'm sure there are some people a little shocked...but there is no doubt that the 21st Century Tribune will be so fresh and completely re-thought that there'll be a strong 22nd Century Tribune. The design team has been give complete freedom. Circulation, ad, marketing and others are in the mix. There's a BALANCE. It remains all about GREAT REPORTING AND STORY TELLING...but the writers, editors, photographers, investigators and storytellers need help. Brilliant content is being short changed by tradition, at a time when tradition is a nice thing, but can be excess baggage in the new dynamic media environment. Some of the concepts being presented are radical. That is wonderful. The shackles are off and we can get about the business of blowing up myths...debunking the sacred...and getting on with creating a paper that is GROWING with 21st Century Chicago...and is SO in sync with today's Chicago that we are once again playing with (and beating) the media big boys instead of being part of this on life support perception that is everywhere. A paper that is more convincingly relevant, not in mission statement, but in ACTION.

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