Is MoS CD good marketing?

Is The Mail on Sunday's Prince promo a shrewd move, Alasdair Reid asks.

According to The Mail on Sunday editor, Peter Wright, it is "the most
sensational CD giveaway of all time". According to Simon Fox, the chief
executive of HMV, it is "sheer madness". And do you know what? They may both be right.

They are, of course, talking about the deal which will see The Mail on
Sunday give away Prince's new album, Planet Earth, on 15 July. For the
newspaper industry, it could be seen as a worrying development. The DVD
and CD promo wars of 2005 threatened to bleed the industry white at a
time when, according to some critics, it should have been investing in
content, particularly in the digital sphere.
This could signal a return to that particular madness. And for the music
business, it's a further erosion of the notion that music is a product
you pay money for and that you sometimes buy in shops - Prince's album
will not now be distributed via high-street stores.
There's no denying that this is a unique initiative. But still, it's a
dangerous exercise. The goal of all such promotions is to stimulate
trial among potential new readers. But many people, even those who are
just mildly curious as to what Prince is up to these days, will buy the
paper solely for the CD.
Some will undoubtedly check out the paper, too - yet, with Associated
Newspapers gearing up for a truly gigantic print run, the odds are that
we'll see several hundred thousand copies of the paper being bought but
dumped unread. There can be no clearer (or expensive) way to send out a
signal that a vast chunk of the population considers your brand to be
utterly worthless.
So it's disappointing, perhaps, to see the newspaper industry still
revisiting a mechanism that many believed had become discredited.
Shouldn't the newspaper industry be coming up with new tricks?
Perhaps, Marc Sands, the Guardian Media Group's marketing director,
agrees - but he adds that we shouldn't ever succumb to the temptation of
believing that The Mail on Sunday is synonymous with the newspaper
industry. It isn't. He adds: "I think the industry has moved away from
this sort of thing. I'd be surprised if it sparked a rash of similar
initiatives. It's a one-off, a big hot puff of air, and in a month's
time, we'll all have forgotten it ever happened."
But Dominic Williams, the press director of Carat, can't agree: "Every
newspaper needs to give itself a circulation boost - and any way that
this can be achieved has to be good. They'll be printing more than three
million copies and will be giving it a big TV advertising push. So it's
really exciting. Prince is just such a huge artist and he's absolutely
right for a big newspaper brand such as The Mail on Sunday. I think it
takes the whole CD promotion thing to a new level."
Williams does, however, concede there may be a downside: "It's true it
may stimulate The Mail on Sunday's closest rivals to look at doing
something of similar quality. And, yes, it's also true the industry has
to come up with something to encourage more long-term loyalty."
Claudine Collins, the managing partner and head of press at MediaCom,
has no such reservations. She explains: "This is clever - anything that
draws younger people into reading newspapers has to be a good thing.
Prince is in a different league to all the rehashed compilation albums
you tend to get. It will stimulate some trial."
And she doesn't think this will automatically trigger a new and even
more expensive phase in the newspaper promotion wars: "I think rivals
will want to see how this promotion goes, then assess the implications
going forward."
That's also pretty much the view of Alison Brolls, the senior manager,
global marketing and media planning at Nokia. She says: "Not only is
this initiative giving readers something of genuine high-value
merchandise quality, it is a real shot in the arm for The Mail on Sunday
in getting ever-more elusive readers to trial the paper. Any initiative
that addresses the issue of the national press's declining younger
readership needs to be applauded."
NO - Marc Sands, marketing director, Guardian Media Group
"This appears to be the most astonishing mismatch of paper and artist
that you can imagine. The paper will experience a phenomenal spike, but
the new people who buy it won't stay."
YES - Dominic Williams, press director, Carat
"Yes, it's true that promotions don't tend to build brand loyalty and
arguably the industry should be more innovative, but the numbers that
this initiative will deliver are exciting. I love it. It's perfect for
the middle of the summer."
YES - Claudine Collins, managing partner, MediaCom
"Of course, many will just see the promotion as a cheap way of buying
the latest Prince CD - but there will be some who will read that issue
of the paper and will like it and will keep buying it."
YES - Alison Brolls, senior manager, global marketing and media
planning, Nokia
"The newspaper industry should not be resting on its laurels in terms of
using the power and potency of digital marketing techniques to talk to a
younger audience. That's something it badly needs to address. But this
is a fantastic promotion."

Campaign 13-Jul-07