Traditional media puts new equations in place

A new year means a time for new formulas to be deployed by media giants. The Advertising Age, a journal for the advertising and marketing industries, is recasting its publishing frequency.

The magazine said that while it was cutting down to 25 issues a year, the minimum number of pages will increase by 50 per cent, brought on by new content.

According to FishbowlNY, Ad Age is now a 24-hour online news service online, with a membership service that allows access to exclusive content and events.

Stronger weekend edition

How about starting the year with a stronger weekend edition and a new monthly supplement called ‘Do Something’? That’s exactly what the British newspaper The Guardian did. A commercial — made by BBH London — was aired to promote the new weekend edition. The agency had earlier won awards for its ‘Three Little Pigs’ commercial for the newspaper in 2012.

Business Insider suggested that the revamping of the weekend brand may be an initial step toward bringing out The Guardian as a weekly and invest heavily in a digital-only media brand.

The New York Times debuted last week a new digital layout and introduced the first native advertising for Dell. The paper thus fulfilled its promise of making a clear distinction between advertising and journalism, stamping the logo of the advertiser in the post and using a blue border. This distinction was of the highest priority for the publication, concerned as it was not to make readers believe that the paid content is part of editorial.

The Dell campaign will be online for three months. According to Ad Age, the page was produced by the paper’s advertising department in collaboration with Dell and it cost something around the six-figure mark.