BANGKOK POST BAG: INNOVATIVE OR A PAIN?
Today's edition of The Bangkok Post come neatly contained within an advertising bag.
It's very common to see belly bands and wraps but this is the first time I've seen what is actually a paper bag; it has just one opening at the top from which to extract your copy of the newspaper.
I'm certain the advertisers - in this case another new condominium in Bangkok - is paying a premium for this innovative form of newspaper advertising. That's great from a business perspective but it's placing very little value on the selling ability of the news itself.
I doubt there will be many people who buy today's edition on the strength of what's on the front page. You simply cannot see it without delving deeper.
4 comments:
I'm interested in innovative advertising, but the wraparound condo ads the Post has seemingly every day are becoming annoying. It's another example of the rampant commercialism of Bangkok. A newspaper's above-the-fold front-page space is vital to promote editorial content. As you say, the Post must be charging a fortune for this. I guess they aren't interested in sales from casual browsers.
Matthew, The Bangkok Post sells roughly a quarter of its circulation (15,000 copies) through single copy sales. We can only guess how many of these are speculative. My guess would be less than 20 per cent.
I agree that any form of advertising that obscures the front page headlines can only damage the editorial product as a whole, but right now I'm guessing revenue is more important than editorial integrity.
The bottom line comes first, of course. Presumably the income from the condo advertiser is worth more to them than any potential increase in caasual sales.
For certain Matthew. I have no idea how much this kindof advertising costs but, at a guess, its got to be well into the hundreds of thousands, plus the production costs.
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