Comedy roadshow idea

Our team has got together and decided that we are going to go ahead with the comedy road show campaign rather than the magazine insert. We think that this will be the best way to attract more readers, by associating "i" with a culture that is attractive to students: comedy. First of, we came up with a few examples of posters for this comedy road show event. However, these were not entirely successful because the comedians we chose to put on the posters were too well known and unattainable. Also, the "i" logo was too big on the face of it. It looked like we were promoting an "i" road show rather than a comedy road show. I have come up with another image that I think promotes the road show as well as "i" equally. It is only an idea and hopefully as a team, we will come up with the final image that we think is most successful.

Front cover idea- illustration and photo of the day.

Advertising and "i"

One of the most important reasons to get students on board with "i" newspaper is frankly their despensable income. Especially young students that are just starting their university life and who spend a large sum of money in their first year. They will be buying all of the latest forms of technology to use to begin their studies. Subsequently, they will be easily influenced to buy things that before they may have had to ask their parents permission to buy. This new sense of financial freedom is good for advertisers. Seeing as though the "i" newspaper is on a budget and needs to think of ways to cut costs or think of ways they can bring in funds. They really need to use advertising as their corner stone to future success and growth. From looking through a few of the newspapers "i" has produced in the past. I see that their are more adverts than stories on some of their pages. The idea is not to increase the ads, but to use them more intelligently. By doing some good in depth market research on what students are buying at the beginning of their university lives and attaching some thought to what adverts go where in the paper and magazine (our insert). This will help boost a sustainable income and retain new readers.

The idea is that we capture the students attention with illustrations, photographs, coupons and magazine insert. Then, once they are drawn in, we keep their attention with interesting relative articles and adverts that are useful for their type of lifestyle.

Team work

After a discussion with my group, we decided what would be best for the "i" campaign. We agreed that we would make a mock up of an insert for the magazine i.e small magazine that will be fixed inside the paper. I have posted some work that I did for a magazine that is aimed directly towards students. I think these will help when it comes to the layout and images for our magazine

Our team also decided that some nice illustrations or good photograph would be a good idea for the front cover. If someone saw something colourful and attractive looking, they are more likely to pick it up. We think that art work would attract students. Also, we thought it would be good to find our what city in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland has the densest student population and send each household in these areas an "i" newspaper with the new magazine insert. This would in turn hopefully boost readers and spread the word about "i" as not many people have heard of the paper yet.

Product placement

In order for 'i' to increase their sales, they should consider product placement. If they put a newspaper in the adverts that appear on student union TV stations, or even put an advert on broadcasting stations in the cities that have the highest student population. That would get students more familiar with the paper and 'plant the seed'. So that when they next go to buy a paper, they will remember the advert and pick up 'i'.

Finding out which cities in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland have the highest student population and sending a copy of the paper to each household is a key way of gaining more readers. This is called direct mailing and has been very affective for other newspapers in the past. It will gain a direct response from the customers they are trying to target.

Ultimately, the 'i' newspaper is written to gain a direct response from the customer. This direct response will:

1. Get the attention through design, ad size, placement and timing.

2. stimulating interest by touching on human emotions, desires and needs.

3. Creating desire by offering solutions (benefits) to emotions, problems or needs.

4. Getting action be making the solution highly desirable yet affordable and easy.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths- i newspaper has a great editorial layout, which should boost sales. They use their space on the page very well and they use colour to brighten their articles. They condense all of the good and interesting stories into this one small paper that only costs 30p. You can access the newspaper electronically i.e from the internet, from your ipad, from your smart phone, anywhere you are in the world. They have crosswords and puzzles to keep you busy while on your commute. They have prizes for their crossword. they have sections for tv, fashion, cuisine, art, sport and music.

Weaknesses- They don't have enough stories that students would be interested in. They have a big sports section and only one page on fashion. They need to make the paper more appealing to women. They have a lack of opportunities to win prizes, i.e cinema tickets, concert tickets, etc.

Opportunities- They should give a small section of their newspapers as a competition prize to art students. This would give them a chance to get their work out there. They could use illustrations instead of photographs for some of the bigger stories. They could have a section in the middle that looks like a magazine version of the paper and fill it with fashion, arts, entertainment, movies, and charity events. I believe that if you give the students an opportunity to give back to their local community, they will do so. If the put coupons in the paper, such as, 20% student discounts at local fashion stores and some money off food vouchers, students will be buying this paper every week.

Threats- Their main threat is all of the other newspapers that cost around the same price and are headlining similar stories.

Perceptual Mapping