Adverts breaking out of the box

This advert, with balloons floating into an inappropriate story, rightly caused a flurry of disapproval on Twitter. It is pretty awful. But it's the execution, not the concept, that's the problem. Any sub or layout artist faced with this advert should have opted for a lighter story, rather than one about baby deaths. Insensitive at best, crass at worst. There has been a move towards 'radical' advertising in recent months. Adverts, once hemmed in at the bottom of the page and dominated by editorial, have been breaking out all over. Adscapes have allowed advertisers to think out of the box. Now we see adverts at the top of a page with editorial below or adverts jutting into copy. The rigid borders have been breached. Here are some recent examples:

None of these are offensive. Some are very good. I wouldn't even say they were particularly radical. Magazines have been doing this kind of thing for years. Some newspapers have slaughtered other sacred cows. Pages 2, 3 and the back, once fiercely guarded by editors (myself included), have become attractive and legitimate slots for advertisers.

The South Wales Evening Post carried this advert for Swansea FC's new centenary kit on pages 2 and 3. Nicely done, with big impact and huge local relevance.  

Even the front page has come up for grabs. I was as surprised as anyone to see The Guardian, Independent and Daily Telegraph dressed in Vodafone's bright red last October. 

It followed The Sun giving its front and back over to Sky 3D in July. For free newspapers such as Metro, this was always an option ... but it was a no-go area on paid-for dailies. All that has now changed. 

The Hull Daily Mail came up with a variation, and managed to protect its splash, with this an interesting approach - a translucent wrap - last year. 

I was also interested in this cover from the Lincolnshire Echo. The paper was campaigning to save Lincolnshire Prison from closure and recruited the support of leading local lawyers who paid for the privilege of arguing the case on Page 1.

All of this would have made me wince 20 years ago when I was editing a daily paper. Many a time I arm-wrestled with the advertising manager over inappropriate adverts - both in content and design. The bout would often end with me throwing the advert out. The editor was king.

But extraordinary times require extraordinary measures. The odd jagged-edged advert is not the solution, merely a start. If newspapers are to thrive, they need a new approach to advertising, sponsorship and partnerships. They need to look after their clients, provide them with solutions not simply sell them space. They need to be their agents, running their portfolios, assisting them with their marketing campaigns and maintaining their websites. They need to guarantee response. A third way and a different model are crucial. Editors need to sit firmly in the middle of the commercial operation. Radical revenue hunters (and the circulation people) might sit on the news desk looking for opportunities with every story. 

That doesn't mean, of course, that editorial has to capitulate and allow the commercial department to run riot with its clipart and yellow star bursts. Editors need to ensure advertising is creative, well designed, of good taste and  inkeeping with their title's strategy and brand. They need to watch for dodgy juxtapositions. And mostly they need to continue to provide value, protect the credibility of their titles and ensure readers are not duped. They still have the right to throw out unsuitable ads. 

We all know that advertising forecasts for the newspaper industry for 2013 are challenging. But one thing is certain. If all we have to offer our customers is a 'take-it-or leave-it' rectangle in a pre-determined down-page spot, with no guarantee of response, then we will all be heading to the great Press hall in the sky sooner rather than later.   

Aye, Aye ... haven't we seen this before?

Here's my favourite headline from last week. Bye, Bye Captain graces the front of the Hull Daily Mail's story about a businessman who falsely claimed to be a Navy Captain. It is a sequel to last November's headline, when suspicions first arose, Aye, Aye Captain. One of those headlines that the paper has been sitting on for months, just waiting for the right outcome.

Headline and picture of the week

Here are my contenders for headline and picture of the week from the regional papers. It's not every day that you can get bouncy castle into a sans caps front page headline ... but the Daily Post in North Wales managed it. It certainly builds a vivid picture. I love the subhead too - don't you just want to know what is so serious about an breaking an 'inflatables ban' that forces someone to flee to South Africa? Thanks to the Daily Mail's Peter Campbell for sending me a copy.

Meanwhile the Hull Daily Mail made the most of a huge firing squad shot by using it as a very powerful wraparound. It shows 700 workers threatened with redundancy at BAE’s factory in Brough.  Deputy editor Paul Hartley says: "It brings into focus the human face of these job cuts.  It’s also a brilliant example of how a good photo can be worth a thousand words."
"The idea for the photo came from Sports Editor Paul Baxter and Assistant News editor Natalie Murphy. We then enlisted the help of the shop stewards to rally the workers by email, text and word of mouth for the photo call. Picture Editor Jim Mitchell took the pic from the  top of a ladder leaning against a lamppost.  It was our exclusive."
Good headline too. Excellent execution - and a further example of how creative and effective regional papers can be.


Please send me your contenders for best headline/picture/intro and I will post the best here.

70 years on ... the paper that never was

Here is a powerful front page from today's Hull Daily Mail ... the names of the 1,241 men women and children who died in the bombing raids on the city 70 years ago. The Luftwaffe razed the city to the ground on the nights of May 7th and 8th but wartime censorship prevented any of this being reported. Hull was referred to only as a 'north-east  coast town' - even though it was the most bombed city outside of London. 

More impressive than the front page is the eight-page broadsheet. This isn't a replica from the archives ... it has been written and designed by the journalists as though the raids took place last night. Acting assistant news-editor Allison Coggan trawled the city archives, tracked down personal diaries and interviewed survivors (who were children at the time).  Head of photographic Jim Mitchell sourced the names and previously unpublished photographs. Then designer Ian Bond put it all into an eight-page broadsheet in the same style of the paper in 1941. John Meehan, the editor, is justifiably proud. “It is a potent statement – if one is needed – of the enduring power and impact of newspapers. No other form of media could rival what we have been able to achieve today". Can't argue with that ... cracking stuff.

20 classic tabloid headlines

I have spent the last three weeks in Hull, training reporters to write headlines. There were 80 journalists, from the Hull Daily Mail, Scunthorpe and Grimsby Telegraphs, Lincolnshire Echo and assorted weeklies, all scribbling real headlines to stick on the wall and discuss. We also looked at the 28 rules that govern good headlines. The first is simple: The sole purpose of the headline is to catch the eye, to persuade the reader to turn to the article underneath. If the headline is boring, then it is unlikely to succeed. Avoid dull words. 

We certainly had no problem finding dull words. The list included:

Residents, Boost, Council, Adjourned, Drama, Appeal, Volunteers, Alert, Meeting, Alarm, Accommodation, Project, Services, Centre, Plans, Call to, Bid to, Proposals, Committee, Bonanza, Blueprint, Development, Fund, New, Infrastructure, Facilities, Situation, Crackdown, Local.

We even found some classic bad headlines (not from their own titles I would stress) including: 

At first we thought they were a random collection of words rather than headlines. What all these words have in common is they are non-specific - none of them build a picture in the reader's mind.
The reporters did pretty well and have since written publishable headlines for their papers. At the moment they are writing heads only on shorter stories. But who would bet against that being rolled out? 

These Northcliffe papers are not averse to using the odd pun,  as you can see from the above. But the headlines we were dealing with were, of course, very different from those in the tabloids. That didn't stop us taking time out to look at some of the classics. Here are 20 that might just brighten up your freezing cold November day.

 

 

Subbing hubs turning full circle?

Traditional subs? Hubs? Reporters writing directly to the page? Outsourcing? Working from home? In the last few months I have been working with newspapers who are all taking a different approach to how they produce their titles. At the Daily Mail I have been training subs in the usual way - text editing, accuracy, rewriting, headlines and layout. This week I have been with those at the Press Association who are producing the Daily and Sunday Mirrors and the People. With big-hitting former Mirror subs now on the PA team, it is a project that has settled down and is working smoothly. Indeed I have stolen a headline from sub Kay Harrison on Polly Hudson's column - Daybreak's Christine Bleakley: The secret diary of Adrian's moll - for my headline course. I have also been at the Hull Daily offices, not working on the hub, but training 80 reporters to write headlines. The conclusion, not surprisingly, is that bright reporters can be taught to create good publishable headlines. It is certainly right that editors examine the way their newspapers are produced. If I was editing these days I would definitely put my editorial energy into the content and look at ways to reduce the 'processing'. We all know, of course, that in many cases the motivation is not to shift manpower to the reporting side but to cut costs. There has been much written about this and there will be much more to come. Here is the latest contribution Why the hubs will turn full circle  from my old editor Allan Prosser in this month's InPublishing magazine. As usual Allan doesn't sit on the fence. Here is a couple of extracts: 

In the Gadarene rush to impose manufacturing process on their titles, publishers have destroyed value, thrown away knowledge, and vandalised their assets. In many cases they should be ashamed, not that shame is a common characteristic of the newspaper business. More importantly, very few managers who have overseen this damage would last a week in the real world of competitive industry.

No edition of this magazine would be large enough to accommodate the account of howlers, inaccuracies and plain stupidities which have emerged through the centralisation of production and the so-called focus on efficiency through delayering the checks and balances which existed before the move to what has infamously been called “one touch publishing.  

Strident stuff. Your thoughts, as always, are welcome.

... and trainee subs

For the last seven years the Daily Mail has recruited trainee subs, sent them to me and my colleagues at Press Association Training, for five weeks intensive subbing training followed by a secondment to a big regional newspaper. If they make the grade, which the vast majority do, they land a sub's job at Northcliffe House. The scheme is running again this year and the Mail is recruiting now. The advert was in The Guardian on Monday Mail training scheme. The closing date is March 5. The reporters training scheme, which began two years ago, is also running again. 
Details soon.

Radical revenue ideas

Hull Daily Mail this week - running a subbing and layout course for members of the hub. Might try to take in Derby v Newcastle on Tuesday. Also putting together a 24-page Champions League supplement for the Irish Examiner and writing an article on 'radical revenue ideas for newspapers' for InPublishing magazine.  The idea was inspired by Will Lewis's team in Euston who are charged with, among other things, using the Telegraph brand to "capitalise on cutting-edge ideas, driving new revenue streams by better serving our customers". This is proving a tough one to write. If anyone has come across really innovative ways for newspapers to make money, I'd love to hear them (but then, I guess, wouldn't everyone).