NY TIMES BRANDING CAMPAIGN EXPANDS

By: Ken Liebeskind $20 Million Effort Includes Promotion For Web Sites





All the news that's fit to print - and all the promotion that's needed to support it.



That's not the New York Times Co.'s slogan, but it could be with all the new marketing and promotion activity going on at its flagship New York Times.



"Expect the World," the Times' overall branding campaign, has been expanded this year with a $20-million effort that includes TV and radio spots as well as ads on the fronts of city buses. The latest addition to the campaign was an eight-page insert that ran in the Sunday paper Oct. 1. The piece - headlined, "When was the last time?" - promoted the Times' coverage of everything from sports to China in an effort to promote subscriptions among single-copy buyers.


"The hope is that they'll look and consider home delivery," said Patty Chang Anker, a Times spokeswoman. A toll-free number to order subscriptions ran on the back page.



In-paper promotions work well for the Times "because we target a terrific audience," Anker said. "Reaching out through our own newspaper to increase consumption is effective."



Another new element of the "Expect the World" effort is a trade-magazine campaign to sell more advertising in The New York Times Magazine. In early October, the Times sent an eight-page color brochure promoting the magazine to subscribers of Adweek and Advertising Age magazines. The brochure will be followed by 11/3-page ads in the same publications. (E&P is a sister publication of Adweek.)



In the campaign, the words "The Magazine" emerge from The New York Times Magazine logo to create a new identity for the publication. "The campaign was inspired by readers, who refer to our magazine as simply, "The Magazine," said Alyse Myers, Times vice president of marketing services. The campaign broke in Adweek and Ad Age because "our target is media planners and advertisers," said Justin Harrington, group management director at Bozell New York.


Still another new promotional campaign comes from New York Times Digital (NYTD), the division of the Times Co. that runs the paper's Internet operations, including The New York Times on the Web site. NYTD launched its first branding campaign Oct. 2 with newspaper ads in the Times and The Wall Street Journal and magazine ads in New York, Time, and Newsweek.



Outdoor advertising will appear on billboards and bus shelters. Online ads will run on large network sites such as GoTo (http://www.goto.com) and Juno (http://www.juno.com).



The campaign uses the theme "Mind over chatter" in an effort to make The New York Times on the Web's content stand out, said Craig Calder, vice president of marketing for NYTD. "The Times is a trusted source of information," he said.



On another important advertising and marketing front, the Times added a second business section to the paper from Tuesdays to Fridays called "World Business," which covers international business and includes stock tables, The new section which joined "Business Day" on Oct. 3, will run through Dec. 29.



Spokeswoman Kathy Park said the main reason for the extra section is to create more space in the paper "to accommodate holiday advertising."







Ken Liebeskind is a free-lancer for E&P.







Copyright 2000, Editor & Publisher.