The Weekender was a quality newspaper, of that there is no doubt. But, so too was ThisDay, another quality newspaper that closed down. And some of the reasons were similar.
One has to admire the honesty and courage of Peter Bruce, long time editor of Business Day, for carrying the can on The Weekender's failure. It is a sure sign of leadership when the boss stands up and accepts all the blame. But then, that is why Bruce, in my humble opinion, is one of the best editors around.
In his Business Day column this week he said that the attempt to carry the latest news meant bringing The Weekender out later than its rivals and that perhaps breaking news should have been replaced with background content that could have been put together a lot earlier and thus hit the streets earlier.
But, I am not sure that would have helped. The major problem, I believe, was very similar to that of ThisDay and involved marketing. Or rather, the lack of it.
To me the weakness that killed The Weekender was that no-one actually knew about it. Same as ThisDay.
Both newspapers were launched with very little fanfare. Apart from a bit of self-promotion within their own publications or sister publications, there wasn't much else.
The reading public weren't aware really of any new newspapers being available and even worse, as was the case of ThisDay, media buyers and major advertisers told me that they didn't even have The Weekender "on their radar screens."
Now, there is nothing remarkable in this day and age about print media companies believing that when they launch new products, they don't need to get involved in any formal marketing. They seem to believe that they are very different to Coca-Cola, Unilever, Proctor and Gamble, BMW and Nike. Brands that put an enormous amount of marketing effort and money into launching new products.
The problem is that in the good old pre-1994 days of newspapers making money hand over fist without really trying, spending money on marketing just never entered the heads of print media owners. Lack of competition and any sort of threat from TV, online and so forth meant that newspapers sold themselves in an age where our peculiar political situation had readers snapping up papers to find out what was going on.
At the same time, there was more adspend than adspace with advertisers queuing up for good positions. There were no advertising sales reps at newspapers, only order takers. Marketing budgets were zero.
So still today, when newspapers do think about marketing, they are thinking small budget marketing because, to them, having come off a zero base only little while ago, the money they are spending on marketing seems huge while in reality it is miniscule compared with other consumer products.
The reality is that The Weekender was not given nearly the amount of marketing effort it needed. What it was doing in terms of marketing was winking in the dark. It was like Cadbury's or Nestlé's coming out with a new chocolate bar, not saying a word about it and hiding it at the back of the supermarket shelf and expecting the consumer to dig for it.
In addition, tough economic times did also have something to do with The Weekender's demise. Its start-up was so slow that by the time the recession hit it had no real impetus to carry it through.
It is time, I reckon, for newspapers to accept that they are consumer products just like any other and not anything out of the ordinary. They should start talking to their more successful advertisers and have a look at what they have to invest to keep their brands selling.
Marketing in the mass consumer environment is not an optional extra as most newspaper owners seem to think. In this time of aggressive competition, it is as necessary a component as the quality of their content.
I am really sad to see The Weekender go. Because it suggests that the age of the newspaper is over. It isn't. It is just a heck of a lot more challenging. Good reason in itself to bring marketing into play.
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