Postmedia Network is reminding consumers of the deep local roots of its Sun newspapers in a just-launched brand campaign running in Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary and Edmonton.
It’s Postmedia’s first campaign to push the Sun brands since formally acquiring them from Quebecor in early 2015. Developed in-house, the advertising emphasizes the Sun papers’ focus on the brand pillars of local news, sports, politics and entertainment. The simple, all-copy ads use interrogative headlines customized for each city, referencing local news stories that readers are talking about right now, said Rene Vierling, Postmedia’s vice-president, marketing.
The marketing team came up with the headlines with assistance from editorial staff. “Our editorial team are very in touch with our reader base in terms of the types of stories they are looking for,” he said.
For example, in Calgary, there’s “Is Notley creating more jobs or job losses?” and for Ottawa, one execution reads “Goodbye Cameron. Welcome Boucher. Hello playoffs?” in reference to the new coach of the Ottawa Senators, about to begin a new NHL season. Each headline is answered with tagline: “We’ve got it covered.”
Postmedia already had local newspapers in Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa (Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal and Ottawa Citizen) when it acquired the Sun newspapers and has since made changes to share some editorial resources and content across brands in those cities. But Vierling said they remain very different brands with a different tone and content.
The ads were meant to speak with the recognizably irreverent voice the Sun has long been known for, he said.
“If you read some of the headlines, it is a bit more of a cheeky tone….. that our readership for those [Sun] brands have come to like about the editorial coverage,” he said. “That’s why we went with headline based creative as opposed to visual, we just thought that was a lot more impactful.”
The ads are running in print and digital formats on Sun properties as well as via out-of-home and transit executions for about a month. Other executions also in the works for the Winnipeg Sun.
Data from Vividata, released in July showed the Sun newspapers second in terms of total readership in Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton, though in each case they are second to Postmedia’s other papers.
In Ottawa, for example, the Sun has an average combined (digital and print) weekly audience of 402,000, second only to the Ottawa Citizen. In Edmonton, the Sun has an average digital and print audience of 514,000, behind the Journal. And in Calgary, the Calgary Sun registered 602,000 readers in digital and print, just behind the Calgary Herald.
In Toronto the Sun falls to third among paid newspapers with 1,573,000 weekly readers, behind the Toronto Star and Globe and Mail.
