Wedding in red and blue?
Guest commentary For the advertising industry, a combined offer from Blick and 20 Minuten would just be a bad joke, warns media planner Dominique Schilling.
Guest commentary A combination of Blick and 20 Minuten would be a bad joke for the advertising industry, warns media planner Dominique Schilling. Not even if they are "warm" and "red", as Bernhard Weissberg describes the core differences between his Blick and 20 Minuten. But I do have something against the advertising industry being lectured, as it were, on the qualitative advantages of its title and all media studies suddenly being devoid of all truth, contrary to earlier arguments.We planners know very well how we have to navigate through the jungle of reach figures and quality arguments. We also know that regional newspapers and commuter papers fulfill completely different communication tasks than national or linguistic-national titles. This is one of the reasons why all attempts to compare Blick and 20 Minuten are misguided.
Now that Bernhard Weissberg and Rolf Bollmann have sufficiently explained the differences between their titles in Werbewoche, I am all the more astonished that, according to last week's Tages-Anzeiger, publishers are still seriously considering the possibility of combining Blick and 20 Minuten. What, pray tell, should be combinable?
Advertisers with the universal target group "all and sundry" would be pleased to receive such a combined discount. They could benefit from an additional price reduction in those titles in which they are already represented anyway. But what can customers expect from this combination, apart from blatant wastage and ultimately an explosion in costs?
The two titles do indeed have one lowest common denominator: the tabloid format. But that's not all. Because if you take a closer look at the rate structures or the colors of both newspapers, there is reason to do the math. A price comparison: Although both titles have a four-color structure, the color surcharge alone for a quarter page in Blick costs the same as a quarter page in the full edition of 20 Minuten. In other words: Ringier's strongest newspaper has changed its format, but has not adjusted the color surcharges. This makes no difference to the reader, but is extremely significant for advertisers.
I can't take the discussion about a marriage of blue and red very seriously anyway. After all, men in bollocks don't want to move white mountains. And that's a good thing.
> Dominique Schilling is a media planner at The Generation Media in Zurich.
Now that Bernhard Weissberg and Rolf Bollmann have sufficiently explained the differences between their titles in Werbewoche, I am all the more astonished that, according to last week's Tages-Anzeiger, publishers are still seriously considering the possibility of combining Blick and 20 Minuten. What, pray tell, should be combinable?
Advertisers with the universal target group "all and sundry" would be pleased to receive such a combined discount. They could benefit from an additional price reduction in those titles in which they are already represented anyway. But what can customers expect from this combination, apart from blatant wastage and ultimately an explosion in costs?
The two titles do indeed have one lowest common denominator: the tabloid format. But that's not all. Because if you take a closer look at the rate structures or the colors of both newspapers, there is reason to do the math. A price comparison: Although both titles have a four-color structure, the color surcharge alone for a quarter page in Blick costs the same as a quarter page in the full edition of 20 Minuten. In other words: Ringier's strongest newspaper has changed its format, but has not adjusted the color surcharges. This makes no difference to the reader, but is extremely significant for advertisers.
I can't take the discussion about a marriage of blue and red very seriously anyway. After all, men in bollocks don't want to move white mountains. And that's a good thing.
> Dominique Schilling is a media planner at The Generation Media in Zurich.
