Guardian Unlimited Revamps Image To Celebrate Second Birthday
Guardian Unlimited is to celebrate its second birthday with a major rebranding initiative. A £6m marketing budget will unveil a clearer identity for the network of 12 websites under the Unlimited umbrella.
The Guardian Unlimited logo will be simplified and the network’s web address is to be changed to guardian.co.uk. While the Unlimited identity will remain as the “third brand” within the Guardian Newspapers stable, the addresses of the network of sites will now be changed to be housed within guardian.co.uk.
Thus Film Unlimited will become Guardian Unlimited Film and its web address will change to guardian.co.uk/film. The restructure is designed to allow for more cohesive and coherent marketing communication as the brand continues to roll-out across multiple platforms.
Following a series of deals last year (see Guardian Unlimited Embraces Multi-Platform Distribution), the sites are now accessed by 57,000 PDA users through AvantGo; they record 400,000 page impressions each month across WAP phones; and the group’s interactive TV platform records 125,000 monthly page impressions.
“With each new platform we access a new audience”, said Simon Waldman, head of Guardian Unlimited. “A total 45% of Guardian Unlimited readers don’t read the Guardian, and 71% aren’t Observer readers. Similarly, 55% of our PDA users don’t visit us on the web.”
The new branding will be unveiled this Spring with a cross-platform ad campaign created by Tribal DDB London.
Guardian Unlimited also announced four more additions to the network, which has expanded to a total of 12 sites since its birth two years ago (see Website Of The Week – Guardian Unlimited). A travel site will launch in February, followed by a politics site, due to go live in time for the coming general election. Later in the year a sports site will be added to compliment the existing football service and the group’s professional sites will be expanded by the launch of EducationGuardian.co.uk.
Starting in January 2001 the group will publish official ABCe audits of the sites each month, the first media owner to make such a move.
Carolyn McCall, managing director of GNL, said: “Guardian Unlimited has witnessed success on every level – content, branding, revenue and distribution. We believe in the long term, and have pursued a clear and effective strategy. These new developments and the support behind it are a direct response to the changing market as we continue to improve our offering to users and advertisers.”
Guardian Unlimited: 020 7713 4126