This story on how the award winning Daily Bruin sold a “wrapper ad” made me think about the singularity of media and the future of print.  The PBS Frontline of The Persuaders shows how JetBlue used a similar wrapper ad in Boston to bump “real” content off of the visible front page and make JetBlue look like a front page story with a faux front page that was an ad.  Was it The Boston Globe?  Nah, it was a Boston-area tabloid, the Herald. 

I’ve been following The Daily Bruin story and saw the LA Weekly Tweet about it.  I saw the Innovation in College Media post on the issue, which had a good comparison of the real {right} versus faux {left} front pages.

Well, why would an award-winning student-run paper risk their reputation to sell ice cream?  On the other hand, is this even a big deal?  The editor of UC Berkeley’s Daily Cal up the road {down the street for me, this week} offered this::

“We were approached about the same ad, and we firmly decided against it. I really recognize the problems the Bruin are facing. We have them too, and considering we are one of the few papers that actually scaled back publication, we’re probably feeling the pain a lot worse.

We actually did end up running a similar ad, but inside (pp. 5-6) and more clearly labeled as Paid Advertising. Still not something I’m entirely comfortable with, but definitely something I can live with, considering we held on to the revenue. Would welcome your thoughts on it. Available at: http://www.dailycal.org/data/pdf/2249.pdf“

The economics of print media make advertising necessary.  This post on Poynter shows that print isn’t dead in light of online media, which {to me} highlights relevance.  Readers will seek relevant content regardless of the medium, up to a point.  

Many on staff at The Daily Bruin weren’t on board with the decision to run this ad and as it turns out, the editor of The Daily Bruin announced that there would be no more ads of this sort.  Those who have seen The Corporation have seen examples of media exerting great influence over content (Jane Akre & Steve Wilson), so we have a situation where the fourth estate has revenue imperatives at the school paper level and above.

I think it’s a bad idea to mess with reputation or audience perceptions.  If you’re a tabloid or crappy paper {or crappy blog for that matter}, it probably doesn’t matter that much.  Audience expectations factor in that constrain what one does.  The ad execution wasn’t that creative and there was no great payoff, so in my opinion, it wasn’t worth the stretch for The Daily Bruin.  If I were Haagen-Dazs and its ad agency {I do believe it still is Goodby, Silverstein & Partners}, I’d wonder if this press is a plus or minus.  At best, I think it’s a wash.  The ad execution was meh & I never felt the “honeybees” campaign was “on code”.  Nevertheless, there are economic imperatives for print journalism.  It’s easy to Monday-morning quarterback the situation, but this situation isn’t going away any time soon.  Advertising content is becoming so pervasive, it’s in TV shows, movies, video games, etc.  Should a line be drawn at ads that look like news?

  • Should journalistic news content and advertising be strongly delineated?
  • Does it really matter to readers if it’s not?