'OC Register' Sells Empowerment

By: Lucia Moses In a move more common among consumer-packaged goods makers than newspapers, The Orange County Register is attempting to sell readers on the experience of using its product.

In its "Take Back the Morning" branding campaign, set to break Sept. 1, the Santa Ana, Calif.-based Register will pitch not content or price but the rewards of reading the newspaper in an attempt to connect with 25- to 35-year-olds, more than one-third of the paper's home county population.

Upcoming TV ads feature young adults enjoying the paper in hectic morning settings, recognizing that age group often is undergoing major life changes and facing high pressure. Complementary ads will run in the paper itself and on buses, in malls, and other outdoor locations.

"We're not selling features, we're selling benefits and empowerment," said David Stark, senior vice president of marketing for Freedom Orange County Information, publisher of the Register.

Santa Ana-based DGWB Advertising and Communications, agency of record for Freedom Orange County Information, created the campaign. New York-based Notorious Pictures Inc., known for its work on music videos, shot the commercials. Stark wouldn't give the campaign's cost.

"At a time when people are going back to things like meditation, I like the idea because it seems like it makes the time [with the newspaper] very personal," said Mike Hughes, who has not seen the ads. Hughes is president and creative director of The Martin Agency in Richmond, Va., which created a campaign for the Newspaper Association of America in 2002 that extolled the virtues of newspapers.

Jamie Turner, founder and CEO of branding consultancy The Turner Partnership in Atlanta, said the Register's approach recognizes that "Almost 80% of products are bought on an emotional level and justified on a logical level."

Turner, who has done work for such clients as CNN and Nextel, also applauded the effort to target by life stage, as fast-food marketers often do. "What you're doing is reaching out as a newspaper and saying, 'We get you, we understand you.'" The challenge is to keep the values consistent across messages targeting different age groups, he said.

The campaign is Part 1 of what Stark says will be an ongoing brand strategy to target people by life stage. "We believe newspapers are consumer products, and consumer products need marketing support," he said.

Newspaper branding efforts rarely are consistent, and have become even more rare during this ad downturn, which makes the Register's campaign unusual, said Earl J. Wilkinson, executive director of the International Newspaper Marketing Association. "The question is, Can they sustain it?"