Sunday, February 26, 2017

The New York Times New "Anti-Trump" Ad Campaign Isn't Wrong, & Racing Can Learn From It

The New York Times is running their very first TV ad campaign.

The goal of the new campaign is to increase their paid subscription base. This base, with every Trump tweet against the NYT, grew in Q4. But despite the top-line growth, advertising revenue was down in Q4 by more than subscription revenue was up. They clearly need to build up the subscription base, in this chicken and egg corporate scenario.

A tweet caught my eye about this marketing spend, and it echoes something we hear in racing quite a bit:
This is indubitably correct. They are absolutely preaching to the choir. But is that bad? Not in my view.

Currently there are many millions of 'soft readers' who completely agree with the Times editorial slant, who do not pay. Using Trump, "truth" and his tweets which shine a spotlight on their paper is tactically sound way to encourage the soft readers into paying ones.

Conversely, I don't read the Times much at all and I won't subscribe. Why would they waste marketing money trying to convert me (and others like me) to a paying customer?

Racing, as we talked about before, has a 'soft' set of previous customers who have grown weary of high takeout, had other things going on in their lives where racing took the short end of the stick, etc. That's a target market for racing, just like it is for the Times for news. These folks, with a nudge, are predisposed to give you another chance.

In racing, we often hear about national ad campaigns, advertising that speaks to the party-types, going after millennials who like video games and bars and bands. Why would we divert precious and finite dollars in campaigns targeting people who probably will never become long-term customers? Racing, like the New York Times, shouldn't.



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Words that resonated for me were in part; 'Times editorial slant". This implies that the once highly regarded provider of news, not opinion is one of many in the trap that will doom them all to fail. Once you go MSNBC or FOX News you never go back. Preaching to the choir only gets you so far.

As for as racing, the choir is aging and have less resources to devote to a terminal product. While very small in the scheme of things, even the simple issues can not be addressed. Post time drag is the most absurd thing I have seen, and I absolutely will not tolerate it. The disengaging video is beyond pathetic. Looking at races though trees and infield screens is insulting. This is not to dismiss some of the real issues of drugs, favoritism, driver "courtesy", small or non competitive fields, etc.

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