Times Turns To Celebrities With New Branding Campaign
The Times is launching a multi-million pound advertising campaign featuring stars such as Gordon Ramsay, Johnny Wilkson and Jodie Kidd in an attempt to establish itself as a balanced and agenda setting newspaper.
The wide-ranging campaign, created by Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R, will see the newspaper abandon its three-year-old ‘What’s important’ strapline in favour of ‘Join the debate’, which will act as a unifying theme for the brand in future promotions.
The activity consists of seven spots designed to boost the profile of the newspaper’s sport, health and entertainment coverage. The executions feature pairs of celebrities debating a selection of topics, such as Gordon Ramsay and Jodie Kidd talking about cosmetic surgery, and Gaby Logan and Johnny Wilkinson debating the merits of football and rugby.
The campaign will initially launch with a six-week heavyweight national television push across terrestrial and satellite channels. It will then be extended to include targeted radio and print advertising, as well as direct marketing activity in the autumn.
Commenting on the initiative, Andrew Mullins, marketing director at Times Newspapers Ltd, said: “Over the last two years The Times has been through an exciting period of positive product change and evolution. The challenge for the brand now is to develop its external image in a way that better explains what The Times stands for and invites more readers to engage with and try the brand.”
He added: “The introduction of the compact edition was the first step by making the brand more physically accessible, whilst ‘Join the Debate’ is an amplification of an existing brand truth – The Times is the place to go to find open and objective debate taking place on a daily basis. With its rich diversity of contributors and opinion formers readers can trust it to fully analyse and tackle every and any issue.”The latest ABC results for the six months to July 2004 bring good news for The Times, which has seen its circulation increase by 1.6% year on year to 655,314. Recent research carried out by the paper also shows that the compact edition is proving successful in attracting young, upmarket readers to the Times brand (see Compact Times Proves Successful In Attracting New Readers).
In separate news, The Times has also launched a two month cross-promotional campaign with film channel TCM, targeting the nation’s film buffs and publicising its Film First screenings of the autumn’s most-anticipated movies. The promotion will see The Times Film First sponsor TCM’s Thursday Night at The Movies programming strand. As part of the deal, The Times will also provide 50 pairs of tickets for each of its Film First screenings for TCM viewer competitions.
The Times: 020 7782 5000 www.timesonline.co.uk
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