OMD and City of Perth take Perth Now offline
On Wednesday afternoon the City of Perth distributed 35,000 copies of a free afternoon newspaper to pedestrians in the CBD. Produced and printed by Perth Now, the 36 page colour tabloid covered the day’s big news stories including the arrival of Oprah Winfrey to Australian shores that morning.
The idea for the paper came from OMD Business Director Kiaran Geen who used the newspaper as a vehicle to promote the City’s calendar of Christmas events.
Geen was especially pleased at taking an online news masthead and turning it into traditional newsprint, even if it was just for one day.
“The Perth Now brand is famous for news in the online space, it was nice to see what the brand would do with a traditional news format like a newspaper”
Owning the newspaper provided unlimited advertising options for City of Perth’s creative agency Marketforce, including a number of unique press placements such as a U shaped DPS. In addition the City was able to support resident retailers by selling them discounted ad space in the paper.The paper covered off all the key categories from the online site but very much focused on that day’s news: a style much closer to a London commuter paper than a traditional Australian daily tabloid.
Geen said the response from readers on the streets and from City of Perth stakeholders has been extremely positive.
“The paper is a great demonstration of not just a media vehicle promoting the City’s Christmas events, but also the viability of an afternoon commuter paper for Perth.If other advertisers choose to follow up this media-first with their own editions it might not be too long until the streets of the CBD echo daily to the calls of ‘read all about it’.”
16 Comments
Great media led strategy, Good work OMD!
Instead of clinging to a dead medium, how about actually making a mobile friendly website?
For a moment I thought Perth had an free afternoon paper like everywhere else. Shame!
Awesome strategy. Well done OMD and City of Perth.
Bring back the Daily News I say!
good to see they copied The West…. always leading the pack.
Why dont we have MX come to Perth! Commuter papers rock!
Perthnow’s competitor Watoday have already done this in 2008 – old news … but love ya still Geeny!!! 🙂
Coming soon from OMD, black and white television.
So the Sunday Times was lagging in sales. Following the trend they started the Perthnow.com.au website (powered by the Sunday Times). Which then in turn distributed a newspaper? Am i the only one getting a headache by the turn of events?? Does this remind anyone at all about the game Prince of Persia game being made into a movie, and then, when released, had a game made based on the movie? WTF?
This paper has nothing on the London tabloids…
Ha ha. You knobs just don’t get it. Perth Now is a NEWS LIMITED site – only notionally powered by the Sunday Times – and it was only a matter of time before trying out the physical daily format. Look at WA Today – Fairfax’s version – it wants to be a physical paper too. Bring it on! Be nice to see a daily paper give our existing tabloid a run.
p.s it is correct to call the W_st a tabloid:
tabloid |ËŒnoun:
a newspaper having pages half the size of those of a standard newspaper, typically popular in style and dominated by headlines, photographs, and sensational stories. (oxford dictionary)
Hey Wuerst Strayan,
I’m all for competitor newspapers for our existing daily paper in WA (not sure why we’re dancing around that but anyhoo), to better allow freedom of content (sick of being told what your political views are anyone?), actually having a paper telling you news around the whole country and the world (no Perth is not the centre of the world and I’m from here) and also give this paper a run for its money (again anyone sick of having to pay ridiculous ad fees because, where else are you going to get the reach on a Wednesday or Thursday?)
But it IS ironic/sardonic/comical that [insert News Limited here] a company that made its fortune/name/business distributing papers, then went to online due to lack of sales/emerging consumer trends and then decided to test out a paper again based on its online branch of business. Call the company whatever you want, this fact still remains.
Oh and keep these Oxford dictionary quotes out of blogs. no one gives a shi. – we all speak english
6.38. There’s another daily paper called ‘The Australian’. You might like it.
The Australian is just News Limited again. Conservative. Repetitive. Unrealistic. So Perth Now would be the Daily Telegraph for WA, and The Australian, well, is just The ‘I’ve got a beef with Fairfax/Labor/Greens/single mums/…’ Australian.
I concede the irony of going for paper market share – but it could a ploy to introduce competition in the market – which I applaud no matter how low brow it goes.
Oh for a Guardian or New York Times. Even a Sydney Morning Herald would be okay.
Love the cross promotional idea, great awareness for City of Perth and a bit of fun for Perthnow (even though I can’t stand the website). Deceitful headlines, low-brow comments, poor grammar, spelling, sourcing and that’s only when the website is actually working properly.
Meh the Australian doesn’t suit half our clients as they are not national. Plus the readership in WA is pretty (News) Limited (har har har) so it doesn’t deserve the ad fee.
All for a second daily paper in WA!!!