» Wild and woolly advertising

Wild and woolly advertising

November 27th, 2009

Two adverts caught my eye: Sunday Time’s giant front pages on buildings across Joburg and a mysterious bottle of whisky in the middle of a page in The Times.

The giant ST billboards are eye-catching, for sure. But try and read that headline: “SA’s biggest weekend read 3 997 000 readers Amps 2009A.” Even the much-depleted Sunday Times subs-room would not let through a headline like that.

SA's worst headline on Killarney Mall

I expect they wanted to say they had 4-million readers, but someone would have pointed out another near-accurate Sunday Times headline. Fact is that the Daily Sun has forced them to add the word weekend. Just a few years ago, the words “SA biggest read” would have been more catchy. And “South Africa’s second-biggest read” doesn’t quite do it.

I think they are trying to tell us that even though sales are down (to 490 000), readership is up. But why would the general public want to know this? And what do they make of AMPS 2009A? Surely advertising aimed at agencies should be aimed at agencies. I can’t see people flocking to the paper because of AMPS 2009A.

But then those guys at the ST are smarter than me at selling newspapers, so maybe I have got it all wrong.

Another surprise was a bottle of whisky which dominated page 10 of The Times, the business page, running right through all the stories. I looked for the story tied to the picture or the caption to explain it. Nothing. Then I saw a little word next to it: Advertisement.

Who owns this page?

Well, The Times is certainly being flexible in its approach to advertising. But one can’t help feeling queezy at the selling of what appears to be editorial space.

Entry Filed under: Anton Harber, Journalism, Print

2 Comments Add your own

1. amandzing | January 12th, 2010 at 11:20 am

if i were the advertiser, i’d have something to say about te fact my product is placed between two articles that say the economy is on a downturn….
2. Willie Stuyger | January 18th, 2010 at 7:15 pm

Actually, Anton, the headline does not read as you quoted it — you managed to misquote it despite having the photo slap-bang in your face. So on what kind of subs’ desk would YOU cut the mustard, eh?

Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed

Anton Harber: Media

Professor Anton Harber directs the Journalism and Media Studies Programme at Wits University. He is former editor of the Mail & Guardian.
Full bio

Among the main results from the World Association of Newspaper’s Newsroom Barometer (a survey of 700 editors and senior news execs in 120 countries) for this year:
- 86% believe integrated print and online newsrooms will become the norm, and 83% believe journalists will be expected to be able to produce content for all media within five years.
- Two-thirds believe some editorial functions will be outsourced, despite frequent newsroom opposition to the practice.
- A plurality - 44% - believe on-line will be the most common platform for reading news in the future, compared with 41% last year. Thirty-one cited print (down from 35% last year), 12% mobile and 7% e-paper. The rest were unsure.
- A majority of editors - 56%- believe news in the future will be free, up from 48% from last year’s survey. Only one-third believe the news will remain paid for, while 11% were unsure. - From Editors’ Weblog

There is a crisis in trust and communication between the British public and the mainstream media, a new report has concluded. The gulf between public expectations of news provision and the actual nature of articles, which oscillate between esoteric or irresponsible, leaves readers feeling confused and excluded.
The report, entitled ‘Public Trust In The News’ was conducted by researchers from Manchester and Leeds Universities and was published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. - From Editors Weblog

Reflections on Journalism in the Transition to Democracy - Ethics & International Affairs 18, no. 3 (2004).

Journalism in the Age of the Market
- Harold Wolpe Memorial Lecture, Centre for Civil Society, University of KZN, Aug 2002

The Untimely Death of SA’s Finest Daily - Sunday Times, May 2005

“Two Newspapers, Two Nations? The Media and the Xenophobic Violence” from Go Home or Die Here, edited by Shireen Hassim Tawana Kupe and Eric Worby (WUP, 2008)

Remarks at Goedgedacht Forum, October 2008

The rise of social network journalism - From The 2009 Flux Trend Review (Macmillan, 2008)

A recent piece by me on the Zapiro cartoon row which appeared in Comment is Free, a Guardian blog.

Feeds

FeedReader

Entries (RSS)
Comments (RSS)