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Brian Rogers Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz |
There's a few slow learners in this town, who occasionally get suckered into ‘exclusive' deals with another newspaper.
Effectively, they cut out their options of getting wider promotion with the Sun, and unfortunately the organisers of the jazz festival fell into this trap - one of the reasons leading to its decline. (There were also some dubious choices of acts, but we won't go there today.)
And so it went the way of other events which have been tied up in exclusive deals with lesser publications.
The demise of the jazz festival and dwindling patronage is largely due to no advertising with Sun Media. The only locally-owned media. The company that puts so much back into the Bay of Plenty community, rather than creaming it offshore. So not only did the local performers miss out on payment, none of the promotional budget stayed in town, either.
Nothing in the Sun, nothing on SunLive. Not even a mention in our rural publication, Coast & Country. You'd think there might be a few farmers into jazz, perhaps? Nope, not according to the organisers who had very little promotion in the country areas, because their limited coverage didn't even include a total rural reach.
But hey, if they'd been in the Sun, they'd have reached the whole town and all the country.
Nope, they'd been swayed with what seemed like a good deal, forgetting there's no such thing as a free lunch.
 A Weekend Sun cover featuring the Jazz festival from back in 2009. |
The organisers decided the value of being with the Sun, the largest circulating and best read newspaper in the region, was zero. Therefore, that's how much promotion it received in our paper and other publications. It was a far cry from previous years when we've front-paged it and given copious amounts of promotion at Easter and leading up.
Apart from a few generous, free mentions in columns and some news stories on SunLive, the jazz festival was effectively starved of the best promotion because of a silly decision by its organisers to place all their eggs in one, very small, basket.
There is no point in restricting your promotions to one basket; especially a less effective one. You've got to ask why the other crowd would feel the need to try to shut out the Sun – it can only be a fear of the high rate of success that a little, privately owned outfit can achieve, with a massive circulation and excellent service – that is such a threat to the Australian-owned dinosaur.
We hope any other event organisers coerced into signing such silly exclusive deals will think again, for the benefit of their events.
If you're considering such an arrangement with another media, shop around to find out what you'll be missing out on. In the case of Sun Media, that is unrivalled distribution to all households, including the rural deliveries; and the most read paper in the region (Nielsen surveys).
Exclusive nonsense
Take note of the home show example, which for a couple of years went down this track of exclusive deals (and limited readership), and poor service; and the attendances suffered accordingly. Now back with the Sun, the homeshow has been enjoying record crowds from the moment they dropped the ‘exclusive' nonsense and got back into our big coverage... and exceptional, friendly service.
We've seen it a few times over the years – organisers pushed into regretful deals, often without thinking through the implications. Everyone from calf club day organisers being bullied to not have a story in the Sun; to the Elms Trust smothered with a donated quilt – you'd be surprised at the apparent paranoia that some other media outfits have trying to keep The Sun out of the picture. We just about fell over laughing when we heard the knots that had been tied around the organisers of a school lawn mower race.
Threatening behaviour
Of course we think it's flattering that we could be such a threat.
It would be a shame if fine events such as the jazz festival continue to be strangled by petty politicking in their marketing; but at the end of the day, if organisers insist on settling for second rate promotions, it's no great loss for us. Something else will soon spring up in their place, and probably succeed where others have failed, because they'll see the value of getting the marketing right.
And that is marketing to the most people, though the most cost-effective media.
So apart from the best coverage, The Sun's also locally owned and providing a much friendlier and efficient service, in case that makes a difference to you. It certainly does to most of our happy clients.
The real stats
If you're offered a deal that seems too good to be true, it probably is. Give me a shout and we'll show you the real statistics and then, let you make an informed decision with all the real facts in front of you.
Sour grapes? Maybe.
A case of 'told you so?” Definitely.
No skin off our nose, but a sad reality for Tauranga. The many comments rolling into SunLive on the topic are well worth a read.
This saga is a hard-learnt example, yet again, of people not understanding their market; not thinking locally – and forgetting the importance of putting back into our community.
