Relaunched Observer hits newsstands
The relaunched Observer hit newsstands yesterday, boasting four redesigned sections; News, Sport, the New Review and the Observer Magazine.
The move follows press reports last year that Guardian News & Media was considering closing the title to cut costs, with commentator Raymond Snoddy saying that “the strategy for such a distinguished paper … must be to continue to invest in distinctive editorial while cutting all unnecessary costs by all means imaginable”.
And it looks like that is what GNM has done, although one striking feature of the new paper is the New Review, which at 56 pages is nearly twice the size of the old Review section. A lot of the content previously in supplements is now in the main paper, with business coverage at the back of the News section, while elements of Escape and the Observer Monthly Magazines are in the Observer Magazine and New Review.
According to GNM research, focus groups reacted positively to the redesign, with readers commenting that the revamped sections were ‘the best of the Observer‘, while a key message from readers was that “weekend papers are often much bigger than they would like. As well as feeling this wasn’t very ‘green’, readers commented that in a multi-sectioned paper much content goes unread – a concern for the advertisers who appear alongside it”.
The launch has been supported by a marketing campaign running across television, print, retail, digital and outdoor. The TV support, devised by Wieden and Kennedy, is a satirical look at the fast-pace of rolling news, offering the Observer as a chance for readers to “pause, review and reflect”.
The main section of the new-look paper includes single page display ads for Specsavers, Fiat and Tesco, while there is also an outside back cover ad for L’oreal. Prominent ads in the New Review section include SPDs for Bonhams auction house, Magnum ice-cream and a Waterstones ad for a new novel.
Commercial sales director Simon Kilby said: “We hope that the new Observer will really offer something different in a cluttered weekend market.
“In a multi-section paper advertising messages can be missed by consumers who throw away sections unread. But in the new streamlined Observer advertisers can be more confident that their messages will be seen by a highly engaged, upmarket audience.”
The latest ABC figures show a 1% period on period increase in the Observer‘s circulation in January, to almost 355,000 copies.