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Can DLKW reflect Mirror’s appeal?

Posted in Media, Marketing, Branwell Johnson, Latest reporters' blogs May 23rd, 2008 by Branwell Johnson

Read all about it - Delaney Lund Knox Warren is back in the newspaper business after winning the Mirror Group account but the challenges are going to be tougher than a Sudoku puzzle.

I’ve no doubt DLKW can handle the account, after all, it won the pitch, but this will be a different beast from its previous newspaper experience – it held the Financial Times account for 16 years.

Is there a Mirror brand campaign in the offing? There’s not been one for many a moon among the redtops, the marketing has been all about promoting free books and DVDs or competitions. The Mirror has a snappy strapline in “A Better Read Guaranteed” but will there be the investment to transform this into a campaign?

Has the Daily Mirror go anything to shout about? Well, it has had a redesign for a cleaner, more modern look but the ABC circulation measurement has not yet really had time to catch up with the new look. Maybe on 13 June the new figures will reflect any gains made by the redesign – the last set of ABC figures for April showed a drop of 0.39 per cent on the previous month to 1,478,036.

Perhaps also growing concern is also the apparent swing in the country in terms of political persuasion, as just shown by the Crewe and Nantwich by-election. The Mirror has long been centre left and it cannot change its spots – it will stay a left-leaning publication but those floating readers (and floating voters) who may now be more turned on by positive Conservative coverage than Tory-bashing are going to drift away.

Good luck DLKW, it’ll be interesting to see what marketing strategies can be pursued to help the venerable old title.

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