A national buy rate-card valued at $1 million and reach estimated at 4 million, Hyundai dominates Postmedia coast-to-coast and platform-to-platform
Postmedia Network is promising to put advertising clients’ reach into the stratosphere with a new sales product called Launch Pad.
The premium-priced product lets advertisers commandeer the front page/homepage of every Postmedia property for one day. It includes cover wraps on major market dailies including the National Post and Calgary Herald as well as Financial Post Magazine; a homepage takeover on all of its newspaper sites and standalone sites including Canada.com and Dose.ca; homepage takeover on its iPad apps; plus takeover of all standard ad units on iOS and Android apps and mobile optimized sites.
The combined reach for the properties is estimated at 4 million.
The product officially launched Tuesday (Wednesday in Alberta because of Postmedia’s coverage of the provincial election) with advertising promoting Hyundai Canada’s Elantra brand.
Simon Jennings, who joined Postmedia in January as chief digital and revenue officer, called the product a “no-brainer” for a company that owns 12 major market dailies, a national magazine and associated web properties.
“I couldn’t believe that nobody had done it yet,” he said. “I’m a dot-com guy, so I’m used to the fact that you try and sell everything. I got here and was sitting with my sales group and said ‘Why don’t we sell everything we own for a day? Advertisers would love it.’”
Jennings said that Launch Pad will be offered once a month in the near-term, although “huge” advertiser demand for the product—Postmedia sold four Launch Pad packages within two weeks of it hitting the market—will likely see the frequency increased.
While Jennings wouldn’t disclose what Hyundai paid to be the inaugural Launch Pad advertiser, he said that the combined rate card value for all of the assets included in the package is more than $1 million.
“It’s not cheap and it’s totally worth it,” said Jennings. “The market is going to pay what the market perceives its value to be, [and] the market is valuing it high.”
Advertising innovation is crucial for traditional media companies looking to succeed in the digital landscape, said Jennings. “At the end of the day I’m not competing with [The Globe and Mail publisher] Phillip Crawley anymore, though he may disagree with me. If I were to identify the enemy at the gates, it’s Facebook, it’s the internet. If you’re a traditional media company and you’re not trying to figure out a new way to sell your products, you’re probably dying.”
(Postmedia and The Globe and Mail‘s competition on the digital front has been as fierce as their fight for print readership. NADBank readership statistics for 2011 show the Globe has a weekly readership of approximately 3.3 million across 48 markets. The National Post, by comparison, has 1.5 million weekly readers, though its print products reach only 34 markets; its web presence reaches the same 48-market crowd as the Globe. Weekly website readership reached 1.5 million and 610,000, respectively.)
Jennings said that one of his key objectives is to change the way Canadian advertisers perceive Postmedia. While they have an opinion of the company’s local brands, there is no consensus about Postmedia as a whole, he said.
“I don’t think we actually have a brand in the advertising community, I think we have a bunch of properties,” he said. “People think of the National Post and Financial Post, and people in Western Canada think of the Sun and Province, but they don’t think of this as one media company. We want them to think of us as an audience company, that’s what they’re buying.”
In second quarter results posted April 12, Postmedia reported revenues of $198.6 million, down $16.4 million for the corresponding period a year earlier. The loss was attributed primarily to a $14.5 million decrease in print advertising.
