The Waterloo Region Record

The Waterloo Region Record

The Waterloo Region Record has a firm grip on its locality. The newspaper has managed to stay afloat throughout regardless of the numerous ownership and name changes it has experienced. The newspaper has only expanded in business following these changes.

Initially named the Berlin Daily News and established in the year 1878, the newspaper now boasts a substantial 60000 daily readership, six days a week. The company is made up not only of the newspaper but also an events subsidiary, a number of different publications and an online shopping website. The company similarly facilitates a multiplicity of charity organizations with most of them catering for children. The company’s ‘Community Partnership’ is quite popular and facilitates local talents and functions mostly through promotion and sponsoring them.

The primal attention lies in the following

• The provision of prospects for the Waterloo Region Record to come into contact with its audiences
• Promotion of products targeting families to the general public while maintaining a connection to the locals, and
• Growing the payments and trades of the company’s products.

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There above is set to be achieved through public dealings.

The strategy proposes a number of ways to see its achievement. This includes the incorporation and participation in family-focused communal activities and functions, promoting and even sponsoring them through their publications and support from the online company shop.

The plan equally seeks to establish a steady online presence.it does this by continually rethinking how it appears on the website and the considerations for any beneficial addition to the content therein. This is to keep up with the competition if not beat it.

Plan overview and objectives.

The overall objective of this marketing strategy is to aid WRR in its promotion as a diversified and up to date company. It aims at pitching the company to have close communal ties with its audiences. The company insists on not only posing as an observer or even reporter but as an integral and functioning member of the society in which it is set. This augurs well with the Metroland motto “Connected to Your Community.”

Whereas the diversified line of products that WRR offers to the community have been closely related to each other for the past ten years, the company now seeks to collaborate the products and bring them together once more. The company has an outlook of branding their products as “A Member of the Record Family.”

As a rule of thumb, the media usually has a couple of arcades-its audiences and secondly its advertisement frontier. The entirety of this strategy is to shun attention from the advertisement and redirect more of it to the audience, which is the family for the company. It should be noted that uptake in readership would have a significant ramification on the trading and sales of adverts. The strategy will work to solicit new ways to improve this readership and equally the awareness and subscription to the publications.

“Personality is the key element behind your brand and what it stands for, and the story that your products tell your customers. Every element of your business, from your interaction with your customers to the packaging of your product is an element of your brand personality, and these are the elements that inspire delight or indifference among your customers. In short, personality matters.‘ -­‐ Rohit Bhargava 1

WATERLOO REGION RECORD OVERVIEW

COMPANY HISTORY

• The Berlin Daily News which was initially publishes=d by Peter Moyer in the year 1878
• In the year 1879, the Daily News entered a merger with the Daily Record owned by Ben Utley and adopted a new name, The Berlin News-Record
• The year 1919 saw W.J Motz acquire the newspaper and rename it The Kitchener Daily Record
• The publication later on in 1947 changed its name to The Kitchener-Waterloo Record and later on The Record.
• The 1990s saw the newspaper undergo quite a number of ownership changes.it comes under Torstar Corp and later on under a subordinate of Metroland Media.
• 2008 was the year when The Record officially adopted and became Waterloo Region Record

With the passing of time, the newspaper made significant growth and expansion. It came to incorporate the daily print edition and a number of online line of products such as blogs and event sections.

Following the massive close down of print media outlets due to constraints in the industry, the company arrived at a deliberation to place markers on the variety of products it offers. This would significantly distinguish one of their products from the other.

VALUES.

The WRR lacks an established code of values. It is, however, without a doubt, from interviews and discussions with its employees that the company believes very much in family, integrity, and community. The paper carries with it an air of pride derived from its history. This history is usually depicted in the newspapers visual array and font print. Their offices are similarly decorated as such while their printing paraphernalia that is somewhat antique.

MARKET ANALYSIS

Trends in the industry

The readership of print media publications continues to decrease. This notwithstanding the readership of digital publications is on the rise; this equally cuts across the gender and age globally.

To exploit this emerging trend significantly, print media publications have to strive to ensure that their online presence and corresponding digital publications are at par. If online readership is to turn out to be beneficial, such models as the paywall model emerge as attractive frontiers. However, the task of acquiring and maintaining a steady uptake in subscriptions poses a challenge. Similarly, it is quite tasking to maintain readership of online content even after getting the said subscriptions

Also, as the above model continues to be adopted by many newspapers, it is imperative to continually enlighten prospective readers and online clientele on the history, pride, and values of the publication.

Unfortunately, many digital publications are acquired at absolutely no cost. While this might seem retrogressive, even worse is that they bear no impression of journalistic ethics and practice codes.

“The lowest form of popular culture -­‐ lack of information, misinformation, disinformation, and a contempt for the truth or the reality of most people’s lives -­‐ has overrun real journalism.” -­‐ Carl Bernstein

Current Readership Statistics.

The Canadian Circulations Audit Board underlines the WRR circulation numbers per weak for 2010 as below indicated

• Mon.-­‐Fri. Average Total Circulation: 60,435
• Saturday Average Total Circulation: 60,567
• 6-­‐Day Average Total Circulation: 60,450
• Total weekly circulation: 362,702

Figures released by NADbank place the WRR readership as follows.

Source: NADbank® 2010

Base: Kitchener CMA Adults 18+ (387,200)

*Mon.-Sat. Cume – Read one or more (print) issues in the past week ** Read one or more issue (print/online) past week

As of current, the above figures are the only ones available to the public domain. Additionally, a more critical analysis of these figures is similarly not available.

Target Market.as earlier on established the primary audience of the WRR is the young family. These families, as WRR prefers, are those that have a certain level of involvement in the community. This way, the company manages to acquire a firm grip in as far as the metrics of the younger demographic section is concerned.it is the company’s aim to reach the new generation more and more. Taking into consideration the operational values of the WRR, it can be said that there is a perfect match between its benefits and its target audience per se.

BRANDING

For any company looking to be successful in its audience outreach, branding is always a significant way to achieve this. The WRR identifies itself mostly with two brands as follows.

And

WRR is typically and more usually relate with print media editions whereas the former brand is a more frequent reference to the company’s digital publication line. There also exist numerous references to “The Record Family.” Notably, the various ownership changes and name changes have always maintained, in one way or the other a reference to the name ‘Record’ an as a result, since the onset of the company the name has stuck.

The visual imagery of the WRR brand is somewhat styled in an outdated form, whereas The Record brand contains tenets that suggest a new disposition.

In efforts of promotion of the full range of products that the WWR offers, an integral logo has been developed for use.it carries with it the tagline stating, “Connecting your community.”

The primary purpose that the new logo serves it to connect all the diverse range of products by WWR. It will be the dominant logo in all matters public while at the same time to market and promote the products.

There arises the challenge of confusion. If the logo is used in a manner that is somewhat inconsistent and incorrect, the purpose thereof is diminished, and the result will only be to lose readership and the company’s customer base. A multiplicity in branding, if not well-handled, can be overly detrimental to the uniformity7 of the identity of the product.

There exists a number of ways to keep this confusion at bay.

• Of the two brands, one must be done away with to let the other gain recognition and dominance in the public eye. This can, however, be difficult for the company as The Waterloo Region Records and Record.com are deeply correlated.
• Seek a way to contain one of the brands in the other. This can be achieved by keeping both logos but incorporating some aspects of the design of one logo in the other. For instance, “A Member of the Record Family can be reflected in The Record Family by encircling it on the latter’s logo.

After achieving the above, both brands need to be promoted with equal expediency and priority. They should be reflected consistently on all of the company’s products and similarly, platforms. This will have the resultant effect as desired by connecting all the company’s products under the brands and at the same time avoid conspicuity

The orientation of WWR staff and employee, including new ones, should also feature an induction on the diversified range of products by the company. The uniform logo and branding should be on display at their offices, business cards, and even stationery.

The non-availability of branding and visual imager of the company’s stands should also be addressed. In every campus where the company has a stand that issues free publications of the newspaper should bear the WWR logo and full branding.

In order to achieve full exploitation of the marketing strategy of free distribution of the newspaper, the stands should be clearly and attractively branded. Better marketing of digital publications should entail attractive visual directions and instructions on the display stands. The affiliate institutions could be requested to incorporate the company’s information alongside others that are issued upon registration to the students.

PRODUCTS

WRR has a variety of produces as indicated on the list below, some publications and events do not show in a natural way.

Waterloo Region Record

• Grand River Magazine (issued twice a month)
• Golf Magazine
• MOST (issued Quarterly)
• Wedding Trends
• Splurge
• Quality Living (published Monthly)

Grand River Shows

• Waterloo Region Food & Drink Show
• Wedding Trends
• Total Woman Show
• Total Man Show

The Record Store

The record store operates online and thrives from the sale of books associated in the region, created by the company staff or even Canada. The shop also supports orders of photos.

COMPETITIVE AND SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS

COMPETITORS

It was the norm back in the 19th century that newspapers were in competition with other newspapers. That scenario has however flipped with the twentieth century. Newspapers are now facing stiff competition from electronic media such as the television and radios, not to mention other newspapers. The social media advent especially has posed as a formidable competitor to the newspaper.

In this competitive analysis, only newspapers were considered. This was done to achieve all-round fairness as to the data provided.

The Waterloo Chronicle

• Founded in 1856
• Issues weekly, every Wednesday
• Readership of about 32000
• Issued free of charge

Kitchener Post

• Delivered weekly, every Thursday
• Readership of 61000
• Issued free of charge

The Cambridge Times

• First printed in 1948
• Issued twice a week, on Tuesday and Thursday
• Readership of about 100000
• Issued free

SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS

Strengths

• Much popular
• Formidable presence in the region
• Community backed and reliant
• Wide line of products

Weaknesses

• Has a corporate image of Metroland
• Ambiguous
• Unchanging subscriptions
• Outdated imagery and format

Opportunities

• Update to appearance
• Dependable communal ties
• Attractive to the family as an audience
• Incorporates the use of social media

Threats

The threat of overdependence and reliance on the internet and digital publications by the younger generation is a sharp blow to WWR. The new generation prefers to go online and get their news along with other publications from there. This dramatically affects their company’s print media readership.