London Evening Standard transformation provides newspaper industry with food for thought

The London Evening Standard newspaper has completed a major overhaul in 2009 following the arrival of a new owner in Alexander Lebedev.

Lebedev acquired the newspaper from Associated Newspapers for one British pound in May – saving it from closure. He hired Geordie Greig as Editor, previously editor of society title Tatler.

This team worked with the existing staff to overhaul the newspaper. The transformation is seen as an example of leading practice and innovative thinking in an industry sector, which finds itself under huge economic pressure as a result of falling advertising revenues and the massive proliferation of free content on the Web.

The London Evening Standard had the added competition presented by the hundreds of thousands of free city newspapers that are circulated every day, including London Lite and Metro.

Changing the design, look and feel of the paper was a central element in the transformtion.

The masthead went from:

ES masthead old

To:

New ES masthead

The London Evening Standard’s Managing Editor, Doug Wills, provided a briefing on the steps that the paper has taken to reinvigorate its relationship with readers and advance to a break even position (in three years) during yesterday’s PANPA Future Forum 2009. PANPA is the Pacific Area Newspaper Association.

Here is a summary of the key changes and strategies adopted by The London Evening Standard:

Branding and Marketing

Extensive market research to challenge the editorial team’s perceptions about their content and value
Rolling out a major advertising campaign with a self deprecating and apologetic theme (phase 1) “Sorry for losing touch” and demonstrating passion for London (phase 2)
A complete make over of the paper – moving from gritty and traditional to glossy and contemporary
Introducing new high colour sections
Overhauling the masthead

Distribution, Merchandising and Customer Acquisition

Downsizing the number of outlets from 700k to 300k, which dramatically reduced distribution costs
Giving away the paper for free on the first day of the re-launch
Ensuring that the paper was available at major events and cutting the price from 50 to ten pence
Giving the paper away free after ten PM

Advertising

Offering leading edge advertising packages including the first ever full page ad over page 2 and 3 (a beautiful BMW ad)
Full page back page advertising slots (upsetting the Sports desk)

Content

Changing the tone of the newspaper – celebrating London and Londoners, increased neutrality and unbiased reporting
Moving the well respected City section to the back of the paper and moving all news and lifestyle content to the front
Integrating offline and online content

Staffing

Bringing in the ‘best connected journalist’ in London as Editor
Retaining the existing team – plus some new collumnists

Circulation has increased as a result of these changes and the average age demographic has decreased by two years while the economic demographic has risen.

I think its fair to say that this newspaper has the opportunity to leverage context and locality in ways that aren’t as obvious to daily newspaper publishers but overall this was an inspiring case study for newspapers about what can be acheived through great leadership and listening to customers.