What advertisers need to know about Trinity Mirror’s the New Day newspaper brand
If Trinity Mirror’s cut-price newspaper the New Day is to launch at the end of the month then advertisers don’t have long to assess whether it’s a good media buy or not. Before making a decision, The Drum has outlined what every marketer needs to know based on discussions currently happening between the publisher’s commercial team and media agencies.
The proposition
Introducing a national newspaper may seem somewhat counterintuitive when others are going from print to web but Trinity Mirror thinks that means there’s an opportunity. That opening will focus on the same mid-market audience as the Mail or Express albeit by catering to women, a group the publisher’s sales team believe isn’t currently being served at scale by other titles, according to one source close to those discussions. The newspaper’s design is also said to be a key part of the pitch, with articles presented in bitesize formats similar to the Metro’s to bring it in-line with how people consume content online.
Advertising
As is custom for any launch edition,the New Day’s first issue will go out with a much lower than usual advertising to editorial ratio. It’s so that readers aren’t turned off from the outset by pages littered with ads and instead focuses their attention on the stories. Trinity Mirror’s commercial team are pitching it at the market at around £13.60 per Single Column Centimeter, The Drum understands, which would make the New Day the cheapest newspaper on the market as well as one of the smallest alongside i.
Campaigns have not yet been booked, partly because the team haven’t been able to share all the details so far and partly because other aspects of the launch are yet to be confirmed. These discussions will likely click into place with launch advertisers over the next week.
The Price and distribution
The New Day is expected to be sold for 20p, though Trinity Mirror is toying with the idea of 25p instead. The cheaper price is what will be the most likely, according to the source given that “it only requires you pay with one coin”. Trinity Mirror’s executives also know the 20p price point works; The Daly Star discounted to that amount and saw a surge in sales, while it was also the price taken by i when it launched in 2010.
On the distribution front, it is understood that the launch issue will have a million copies. However, the commercial team expect this to settle down to a circulation of "about 200,000” copies over a unspecified period, the source claimed. It took the i newspaper a year to get to that number and Trinity Mirror will need to lean heavily on its ties with major retailers across the country to do it at a similar rate.
Digital
There has been no mention of a website, according to the source, and yet that doesn’t mean one won’t arrive. The logistical challenge of getting a national newspaper up and running means Trinity Mirror has likely opted to focus on he launch first before trying to expand The New Day’s media footprint.